Use greyscale to render figures
Discover how David Ardinaryas Lojaya is able to create a dynamic character illustration, building it up from a strong greyscale foundation
David Ardinaryas Lojaya creates a dynamic character illustration, building it up from a strong greyscale foundation.
In the animated film industry, visual development artists bring all their ideas to the table, creating imagery needed for the film. Some are quick concept paintings, while others are detailed illustrations. What’s important is the storytelling contained within those images. Now there are a thousand ways to realise those ideas, and here I’m going to share one: my process for creating a detailed painting from scratch using a greyscale technique.
To get the most from this workshop you’ll need an understanding of visual design, including depicting lighting and shadows, forms, and negative and positive space. Of course, these skills are crucial for any drawing, not just this article. Refining such skills will help you to grow as an artist.
I’ll take you through my process for creating a greyscale render and how to control it, so you can add to or edit your artwork. I’ll give you tips and tricks for bringing vibrant colours on to a greyscale layer and how to adjust them. All these techniques will help you create a painting that tells a story.
1 Brainstorming your ideas
It’s crucial to have a vision in your head before you create the painting. Then get that idea down by doing lots of sketches or even some studies. In this case, I do some doodling based on a fun concept about a cyborg and a young engineer who’s doing some emergency repairs on him while they’re travelling through the air. Unfortunately, she’s gradually losing all her tools! The cyborg looks terrified while the girl is enjoying the ride; the contrast in their expressions will ‘sell’ the scene. I produce two sketches, but I prefer the first one because it has a clear silhouette.
2 Create a coloured thumbnail
After the sketch has been approved, I create a colour thumbnail to help guide my colour choices. Because I want to create a bright and playful painting in an animated style, I choose fun blues, with hints of pinks, greens and yellows elsewhere. I place an emphasis on the blues and purples.
4 Generate a greyscale version 3 Cleaning up and starting anew
Now that I know my direction, it’s time to start with a clean line because it’s easier for me to render it later on. I create a new layer and start blocking in my characters. I’m using a default Photoshop brush with 100 per cent Opacity and Flow to block my outline.
I use the Magic Wand to select the outer area of my clean outline, then invert this selection with Ctrl+ Shift+I. Now that the inside of the outline is selected, I select a brush and paint everything in grey. Now my greyscale layer is ready to be painted on. I clip my sketch layer to the greyscale layer by holding Alt and clicking in between those two layers in the Layers palette. Then I reduce my line’s Opacity to around 10 to 20 per cent, because I won’t be needing it.
5 Developing a solid lighting foundation
Working on the greyscale layer is the fun part! First, I paint on the shadow area in the new layer, which means I can easily erase into it, if necessary. Because it’s a daylight scene set high up in the sky, my characters need to have strong lighting and shadow contrast on their faces. I take my time during this stage, working to develop a believable lighting and shadow scheme. I recommend using as many layers as you need for this stage. I create three layers of shadow: a hard shadow, a soft shadow, and the effects of ambient occlusion.
6 Filling in colours
Colouring the greyscale can be daunting, because the colours initially look bland and flat. The trick is to use the lightest possible colour on a Multiply layer. I like to divide my colours across different layers, such as the skin, hairs and suit. Don’t worry about things looking lifeless, because I’m about to give you some cool tips on how to reduce that dull colour look…