A few days ago I said that I was working on a new technique where I digitally colored an old drawing that I had archived and scanned. From there I plugged it into Photoshop and after converting it to a layer and setting it on multiply I placed every other color layer below the scanned picture. What is amazing about doing this is that I get to keep every single detail that I placed on that drawing once I color it in. This is great because I really suck at drawing on the tablet. I prefer traditional. I’ve gotten to the point that I can draw traditionally very good at a really good pace, but when it comes to adding color… I am still learning and that is where most of my time now goes. And since it takes so long, I don’t have time to practice digital art. Doing this will be the best of both worlds! (If you have been reading the past posts you may be wondering why I keep repeating all this. The reason is simple. I am super exited that I can do this and am really looking forward to when I get to master this technique.)

For the first piece I will use to try out this new technique (at least to me anyway), I will give the honor to a drawing of Sakura Kinomoto from Cardcaptor Sakura (one of my all time favourite animes, and a fond childhood memory). This was done at a time when I was still learning how to draw by mimicking my favorite artist (almost all my old drawings are reproductions of one thing or another). This is a drawing I tried to recreate from one of Cardcaptor Sakura artbooks.

This is the piece I’m talking about:

I still couldn’t let go of a lot of my habits from traditional drawing… I will have to try and develop some new ones. The best way is to learn from others that have already learned how use the digital medium, and luckily there is  alot of artists making Youtube videos showcasing their artwork and techniques so really it is just a matter of looking for it.

Anyway, here is the drawing I did when I was around 14 or 15 years old.

Now as to why the drawing is inverted is any ones guess (no seriously I really don’t know why, maybe the copy of the artbook I got was inverted because it was Japanese and  they decided to have it open like western books here in the States… thinking about it, that might not be far off.)

Now as for the first piece to go through my fledgling digital abilities, here it is. I will admit, it isn’t the best coloring job ever but I did the best I could with my current digital art level.

It may not look like much to you, but for some reason this did take me quite a few hours to do. Aside from painting it over I was also messing around with my tablet and learning keyboard shortcuts along the way. I actually learned quite a lot from this piece and also configure my tablet’s buttons to do all the shortcuts that I felt I would need the most to move in the most productive way possible. The original scanned drawing doesn’t have much detail or shading so I do wonder what kind of effect it would have on it when I add even the most simple of coloring techniques?

Well this was a quick update on the beginning of my quest to mastering the elusive Digital Artwork!

Hasta la proxima,

-XERO