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31 Dec.(Deadline)
The Big i Contest
9 Jan, 2009 (Deadline)
The 3rd Wacom Holiday Season Contest 2009

Watercolor painting

Artist Name:

Sasi Thanadirojkul,
Thailand

Technique:

Adobe Photoshop CS,
Intuos2 6x8

Step 1: Setting up your tools

Before you start, you should adjust your drawing settings in the Options toolbar and the Brushes pull-down menu. Use these screenshots as reference:

Advanced brush settings menu in Photoshop

In this painting, we will use a default round-shaped Photoshop brush.

However, for some projects you may want to adjust shape, texture and other options for a more natural look.

Setting up shortcut keys in the Wacom Tablet window in the Control Panel

Configuring the pen shortcut keys in Control Panel » Wacom Tablet beforehand will speed up our working process.

In the Pen tab, set the short-cut key as the X Keystroke - in Photoshop, this changes between foreground and background colors.

Also, set the bottom key as Alt Modifier (turns the brush into the Eyedropper Tool in PS)

Step 2: Blocking in the image

Draw a rough outline in Photoshop using a regular hard brush, capturing picture as a whole and its atmosphere. There is no need to concentrate on any details yet. I added a few colors in this step as well.

Step 3: Adjusting the colors

Use the Image » Adjust » Color balance (Ctrl+B) command to control the entire picture's color tone. Add filters or use any texture from other pictures. I added some effects from the Filter » Artistic group.

Step 4: Adding details and texture

Image after flipping, adding details and filtering

I flipped the picture horizontally for more comfortable drawing...

...and added more details using a small brush, adding filters and repeating this procedure many times. This will make the picture look natural.

Step 5: Filling in with dark colors

Here I created a more dense atmosphere by adding heavy-tone colors. Their dark shades help the picture looking more steady. Create a new layer and set it to multiply mode, then you can use it for overlapping colors.

Step 6: Stylizing with filters

In this step, I addied more colors using Filter » Artistic » Water Color. It can make a digital drawing look like a watercolor painting, but you have to overlap colors by hand using a small brush and applying the filter repeatedly.

It is not easy to make a digital drawing that looks natural, so you need to practice to get necessary experience.

Step 7: Applying dark tones again

Flatten all painting layers (Layer » Flatten Image), then create new layer, set it to Multiply mode and paint in the heavy-toned colors again. Once again, we give the colors more steadiness.

Step 8: Color adjustments and detailing

During this step, I used Color Balance to adjust colors, and enhanced details with a small brush.

Step 8: Overlaying lighting

Create a new layer, change its blending mode to Hard Light or Soft Light or Overlay. Use this layer to paint in lighting to enhance the atmosphere. To achieve the effect seen in the picture above, I used Soft Light mode with the gradient tool and a heavy-yellow, pouring color.

Conclusion

In the final step, I went through the details again and applied a light-yellow color as background. The result is a completed picture looking like a watercolor painting, but drawn using a digital tablet and Photoshop.

Painting by Sasi Thanadirojkul