How to illustrate and animate in photoshop

Illustrators can be divided into two (often opposed) camps: The ‘hand-drawers’ and the ‘computer-generators’. As a traditional hand-drawer I never had much interest in, what I thought of as, the slightly unnatural world of computer-generated illustration.

You can therefore imagine my surprise when I discovered what a handy and sympathetic tool Photoshop can be.

One problem with hand-drawn and painted illustration is that often colours don’t translate well into print or web. I’m frustrated when printed artwork appears weak or even completely different to the original colour.

Step up Photoshop

Drawing the outline of an image by hand, then colouring it in Photoshop is an effective way to overcome this problem. By controlling the flow and opacity of the pen tool you can build up colour in much the same way as a hand-painted illustration. And as long as you remember to use a different layer for each colour, it’s easy to edit.

Tools and tips

The smudge tool is my new best friend (although I slightly resent the ease at which it blends one colour effortlessly into another) and the magnetic lasso hugs my hand-drawn lines like a lover.

My breakthrough moment and top tip has to be: Set your hand-drawn layer to multiply on your layers setting. This keeps all your drawn lines solid and white space transparent. By placing your coloured layers behind the drawn layer, the flow from colour to line is seamless.

I also find a Wacom tablet and pen a great help. It feels more natural to someone who is more used to holding a paintbrush than a mouse. And the accuracy is great when working in detail.

Animated Christmas card

Photoshop has an unexpected advantage: because colours are placed on separate layers, it’s relatively easy to animate them.

This fireside scene was produced for Central Trust’s online Christmas card in 2008. Twelve versions of the image were saved with varying levels of size and opacity on the fire and candles. When opened as an animation in Fireworks, these versions ran sequentially on a fast loop – giving the impression of flickering candlelight and a glowing fire.

This animated version was finally set on an image of an old-fashioned book and text was added to give it a Dickensian effect.