Let's Color Rough Sketches & Talk Concept Design
367Check out my Free Line and Color Quick Start Guide: https://www.thedrawingcodex.com/quickstart You will learn how to develop a simple reliable process in photoshop. You also get all the brushes and PSDs that I use in the guide (the same ones I use for most of my illustrations).
The Art Ritual: 32
Let's Color: Dwarven Creature Companions
Let's Check Out: Monster Hunter Illustrations
Let's Talk About: Completing a 'Unit of Design'
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In this Art Ritual video, I'm taking the messy, ugly sketches from our previous session and turning them into a presentable design sheet using simple Photoshop techniques. This is about completing a cycle of design - taking random sketchbook ideas and presenting them in a way that makes them useful for further development.
First, we check out the Monster Hunter Illustrations book, which is a perfect example of the line and color process being used at a high level in video game design. It shows how simple drawing techniques can create incredible variety in creature designs, and how even with all the 3D tools available today, basic line and color illustration remains essential for the design process.
Then I walk through my real-time Photoshop process for taking phone photos of sketches and turning them into colored concept designs. The technique is super simple - sepia lines, flat colors, basic shadows. No fancy rendering or complex techniques. The whole point is to quickly iterate and see if your ideas have potential.
The key insight here is about completing design cycles. When you just have random sketches in a sketchbook, they often feel unfinished and it's hard to evaluate them. But when you take even 30-60 minutes to color them up and present them together, suddenly you can see what's working and what isn't. You can send it to an art director, compare different approaches, or just have a clear record of your ideas.
This isn't about making perfect art - it's about turning that wheel of design. Get ideas out, present them simply, evaluate, then move on to the next iteration. That's how you develop as a designer, whether you're working professionally or on your own projects.
Tools: Photoshop with basic round brush, selection tools, and my simple sepia line template (available in the free Line and Color Quick Start Guide).
The goal: turn messy sketches into something you can actually use and build on.
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00:00:00 Intro
00:01:43 Welcome
00:02:17 Let's Check Out Monster Hunter Illustrations
00:10:39 First Pass Design - The Value of Simple Sketches
00:12:12 Basic Techniques
00:16:43 Coloring The Key Sketch- Step by Step
00:44:16 Finishing Off The Rest of The Sketches
01:04:05 Ways of Adding Extra Detail and Refining
01:14:04 Finishing The Page
Happy Drawing!
Tim Mcburnie:
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