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Photoshop Tips
Use Photoshop to Create a Classic Comic Book Style Illustration
Dateline: September 30, 2005
Version: Photoshop CS
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| California-based illustrator James Jean captured the essence of classic comic
book style illustration using Photoshop’s Color Halftone filter.
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Jean began each illustration by
opening a scanned sketch in Photoshop
and using it at as the basis
to draw and fill blocked selections
with color on a new layer. He then
duplicated the layer and worked
into it with the Brush tool, sampling
already existing colors with the Eyedropper tool to set the Foreground
Color. Varying the brush’s Opacity
and Hardness, he added highlights
and shadows to the outer edges of
elements such as the reddish gleam
coming off of Batgirl’s rubber suit.
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Click to enlarge
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For the halftone pattern in the background, Jean
drew a circle with the elliptical marquee tool on
its own layer, selected the Gradient tool, and chose
a red to transparent gradient from the Gradient
Editor. Choosing Radial Gradient from the Options
Bar, he filled the circle, then chose Filter > Pixelate
> Color Halftone. In the Color Halftone dialog box,
he entered 127 pixels Max. Radius to get “supersized”
dots, then set the Channel Angles to small,
equal values. Once the halftone pattern was in place,
he used the Eraser and Clone tools to eliminate
pixel residue from the outside edges of the circular
gradient and to get rid of any half-circles produced
by the filter.
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Jean also utilized the Color
Halftone filter for shading areas
such as the bat emblem and
other yellow areas of Batgirl’s
suit. Using a scan of watercolor
brush strokes placed on a new
layer, he applied the filter at a
much smaller pixel radius for
greater dot density. To contour
shadows from the pattern, he
then went in with the Eraser
tool set to various opacities and
sizes to define the edges of the
yellow areas.
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To create halftone patterns without
the benefit of pixel information from
scanned source material, Jean used the
Color Halftone filter to create halftone
patterns in areas such as the burst on
top of the orange background. Using
a soft, black, medium-sized brush he
painted around the edges of the burst
and applied the filter at a medium pixel
radius.
To add color to the black dots, he
double-clicked on the layer’s thumbnail
to access the Layer Styles dialog box,
chose Color Overlay from the Styles
pane, and set the color to yellow by
clicking the swatch and selecting from
the Color Picker.
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Jean duplicated several copies of the background
sketch layer, set the layers’ blending mode to Multiply,
and layered over the painted elements to retain the
outlined look characteristic of comic book illustration.
He added color to portions of the sketch detail, like
the tattoos, by using Color Overlay. By leaving some
of the lines black and using Color Overlay to add red
to others, the tattoos looked like real ink work.
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Click to enlarge
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“After
I’ve finished coloring the image, I love to experiment
with Curves and Color Balance to radically change the
color scheme. The challenge is to maintain the integrity
of the image since these techniques are ‘destructive’
and truncate the Histogram. After I’ve tweaked
the image to achieve something interesting, I keep
working on top of it, painting and scanning in textures
to refine the image,” Jean adds.
The final image is shown at left.
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California-based illustratator James Jean can be contacted on JamesJean.com.
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