Classic-Castle.com

Firstly I give credit to Amanda for the original idea, but I just had to try it out myself. A simple but fun and effective technique really. I opened the original pic in photoshop and toned its opacity down to somewhere around 50%. Then I just created a new layer to draw all the black lines over. Delete the original image and then all I had to do was fill in the colors. You will find that the lines are a bit shaky in parts. That's most likely because it's nearly 1:00 in the morning here yawn. Anyway, enjoy!

Forestman
Jester
Sigfig

Sorry I didn't make my own thumbnail images, a few extra clicks won't kill ya .

-Hob Took

Inspiring idea, Amanda.

These look great at a distance, just like instruction manual graphics, but squiggly looking close up. Good job though.

Perhaps smoother lines could be achieved with a vector application.

This same technique could be employed in Adobe Illustrator to the same effect but with much more ease, better line control and greater over all flexibility. Illustrator creates vector based EPS images and it's a lot easier to make flowing curves or perfectly straight planes without having to actually "draw" the lines in. Vector images are also 100% scalable so you can blow up the resulting images to any size without the pixelation that a rasterized Photoshop image has. Illustrator also creates a LOT smaller file and way easier to change colors, add shading, shadows, gradients, etc.

I've yet to have the patience to sit down and learn Illustrator, though I do have the program.

I use a tablet to help with the squiggle lines. Course, practice works too when working with a mouse.

Excellent start!

I really like how clean the Photoshopped versions look, I'd been wondering how you were doing them. Dan's absolutely correct about the ease of doing illustrations in Illustrator, as well as swapping out parts, colors, etc. It's how I did these:



m19

Illustrator uses a lot of the same tools and commands as Photoshop so there will be a lot of familiar ground. The cool thing is you can use the pen tool to make anchors at key points / drawing intersections and have them automatically connect with absolutely perfect lines or curves. I'd recommend checking into it an entry level course or get on of those self-help lessons. I took two quarters of Illustrator as electives in programming school and learned so much from it.

Yeah, Illustrator defiently helps for more cartoony looking stuff while Photoshop helps with realistic images. Sadly I do not have Illustrator nor the money for it right now, though I have tried it out several times and I thought it was pretty good. I'll work on a couple more drawings this week to see if I can improve by doing this while I'm awake.

Thanks for the comments guys!

-Hob Took

Hob Took wrote:Yeah, Illustrator defiently helps for more cartoony looking stuff while Photoshop helps with realistic images. Sadly I do not have Illustrator nor the money for it right now, though I have tried it out several times and I thought it was pretty good. I'll work on a couple more drawings this week to see if I can improve by doing this while I'm awake.

Thanks for the comments guys!

-Hob Took

Try Inkscape. It's a free vector application with support on multiple platforms.

Cool, I'll look into that tomorrow. Thanks Pep! In the meantime here's a different color scheme of the jester

Linky

-Hob Took

I'm a little late to hop on the boat and comment on these, but I have to say that you've done yourself a good job.

There's definetely some squiggle problems on the zoomed versions. But just like everything else, keep practicing and you'll improve for sure. Your technique can only get better and better the more you do!

Glad I inspired you.

~Amanda