Combining Traditional and Digital Illustration Techniques

By Nicolas Fructus
Adapted from Illustrations with Photoshop: A Designer's Notebook (O'Reilly)

Dateline: February 11, 2005
Version: Photoshop 4

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Sketch, base colors and final illustration (click to enlarge).

My task was to create illustrations for nine chapters of a special issue of Casus Belli magazine devoted to a mythical city called Laelith. Each illustration was supposed to show the atmosphere of the neighborhood being described. The image presented here is of The High Terrace, a rich and colorful environment where Laelith’s leading citizens are found. The rocky spires are magicians’ towers—the highest points of the city—where occult experiments take place. The idea was to present the neighborhood as if seen by a wandering tourist, but at the same time suggest the ethereal but omnipresent power of magic in the city. This is why I chose the point of view of a person in a crowd, but with a very wide-angle view.

Stage 1: Sketch and Digitization

In traditional art, you almost always start by making a sketch on paper. Photoshop’s graphic palette nearly replicates the same feeling. But the fact remains that shaping a drawing on paper is still faster and more intuitive.

There is nothing special about the digitizing stage. The image’s basic format is 6 x 9 in. (15 x 23 cm.) at 600 dpi, and the final printed image will match the original. I usually work with formats larger than the printed size in order to gain detail and sharpness, as you would in photography. But in this case, increasing the resolution produces a more visible grain in the drawing. Of course, if you want more grain, it might be worth scanning at 1200 dpi to create texture effects similar to a drawing pencil’s when seen extremely close up.

Even when the basic drawing is done on paper, computer techniques can produce some interesting effects. I do my initial sketch in blue pencil to lay out the shapes, and do a final rendering with drawing pencil. When the drawing is scanned, the blue creates interesting halftones that aren’t available with the drawing pencil. In Stage 2 we’ll see how interesting those colors can be.