Intro

Hello everyone! In this guide I am going to explain you how I draw greyscale arts on an example of this elephant warrior. I came up with a complex drawing to show as many techniques as possible.

Prepare a sketch

1. I set the color of the background to grey so that my eyes do not get tired too soon. Next, press File – Import – Image and import a pic with the elephant (or a different animal) for a reference if you need it. Once done, scale it and rasterize.

2. Then I select the approximate area of where the head is located, invert the selected area and press the Delete button to get rid of the rest of the image. Then lower the transparency and start sketching on a new layer. I pick a blue shade to make a contrast so I could easily see the strokes when I am lining. If you are unsure about how you have located some of the parts or the whole sketch, simply select these areas and move it or scale using CTRL + T combination.

3. If you need to draw a repeating element or a detail, simply draw it on a separate layer and copypaste them as much as needed with CTRL + C – CTRL + V combinations and then CTRL + T to move them. Don’t forget about the common corrections like cleaning the edges or moving/scaling/rotating if you are dissatisfied with something.

Lining

4. As soon as the sketch is done, press on eye icon near the layer with the color background to make it invisible and merge all your sketch related layers. Do this by pressing the right button on any of the visible layers, then press the merge visible layers option to make only one sketch layer left. Then start lining on a new layer. I do it with the mapping pen since it is easy to control its strokes. You are free to use any other tool. Make sure not to finish the lines too early so there are no issues with selection we will need to make.

5. It is recommended not to draw such things like shields (objects of a certain shape – spherical, cubic etc.) by hand. Create a new layer, pick a circles drawing tool and add one with Shift button being held. Then just put it where you need erasing the areas where or if it is covered by a different object.

6. Feel free to use the rotating panel in the bottom of the program – it will let you to line in a more comfortable way, think of it as of rotating a sheet of paper. It might seem obvious but some people underestimate this option.

7. Just like the shield, it is better not to draw the sword by hand. It is not the element where a shaggy, rough line would improve the texture. Add a couple of straight, parallel lines.

8. Same here: no need to waste your time on drawing similar circles. CTRL + C – CTRL + V – CTRL + T and locate it where you’d like to.

Texturing

9 . Once the line is finished I remove the visibility of the background color layer again and merge the visible layers with the line. Then I select the area around the elephant with the Auto Select tool and invert it. Now I create a new layer and fill the selected area in with approximately the same shade I’d prefer the character to be. Then transfer the layer with the line above the filled layer. Now we are going to work on the texture. On the layer with the line we select the areas where our texture is going to be. Expand the selected area on 1 pixel to avoid uncovered edges. Import the prepared texture and locate it in a preferable way within the selected area. It is better to find the texture of as high resolution as possible. Transfer it under the line layer. And do so with all the other textures.

10. Click on the top layer with a texture and then click on the lowest texture layer holding the Shift button. In this way you are selecting all the layers between them as well. The rasterize all of them (right click on any of the selected layers and Rasterize). Then change the expressing color on all of the layers to grey.

11. The texture of the shield requires to be changed due to the volume and the curved shape of the object. Press Edit – Transform – Mesh Transformation. Move the center to emphasize the volume.

Put it right where it should be located. Take the Auto Select, choose the Selection for Referred Layers and select the shield area on the layer with the line. Invert the selected area and clear it with the Delete button on your keyboard. Then, like with the metal texture, change the expressing color to grey.

 

I was not satisfied with how it looked like, and so I went to Edit – Tonal Correction – Hue/Saturate/Luminosity. These scrolls will let you to correct the shade of the texture. Then repeat the action with the other textures (if needed). If you are not satisfied with the sharpness or the textures seem too realistic, simply smooth it with Edit – Smart Smoothing. You might check the Preview button so wyou could see the result prior applying the effect.

Shadowing and lighting

12. Then we need to add some shadows.Click on the textures layer and create a new one (so it appears right above the textures) with Clip to Layer Below and Multiply Preferences so our shadow would not cover our line. Take the Shadow spray and start spreading the shadows. Do not lay it chaotically. Choose where the light source is located and how strong the shadow will be. You might but some kind of a light spot on the place where it is theoretically located (or from where it illuminates).

The light will act in a different way on different textures. Keep that in mind and correct the light properly, like here, where I lowered the opacity of it on the sword.

13. Select the head of the elephant and add shadows on a new layer. For clarity, I add deep, strong shadows and then just lower their opacity.

14. After adding the main shadow I lay additional shadow with smaller strokes to emphasize the texture of the skin.

15. Next, on a new layer I add some light to complement the volume. And with the same strokes I finish the texture. After that I balance the light and shadow layers by changing their opacity.

16. I select the places with the elephant’s skin and repeat the previous actions.

17. Try making a volume in the eye by shadowing it closer to the pupil.

18. Select the clothes and drawing the folds with sharp and long but still smooth on the edges strokes. Next we add glares. And finally, we take tone scrapping airbrush and give a texture to the cloth, and make some corrections with eraser after that.

 

19. Now when chiaroscuro is mostly done, we can add some glares to the texture of metal we imported earlier. Create a new layer for that (and it is recommended to divide most of the actions in different layers during the whole process).

20. Pants are done with a similar method. The material they are made of is different, so the shadow spreads across the area more.

21. Fill the selected belts with a light shade. Denote the area with the shadow on them and with light strokes we make some kind of a texture which we blend then a bit with soft touches and in the same direction.

22. Then I add some small details or add or correct something I might’ve missed during the process (like unfilled areas or bad lining). Once you are done, it is time to finish chiaroscuro. It is the basement of monochrome art. At least in this art for sure. With them main spots I emphasize the main light falling from the source and the folds on the clothes. Then I repeat the actions but on the opposite side and with the shadows.

Background

23. Import a pic that will become our background. In my case, it is a castle. I scale the canvas to horizontal proportions with Edit – Change Canvas Size.

24. Rasterize the background image and change the expressing color to grey. Next we go to the Filters bar – Effects – Artistic. Edit it to the state you like it, but try not to overdo with its sharpness.

25. Go to Tonal Corrections – Hue/Saturation/Luminosity and proceed the color corrections. Or rather the contrast and the level of black corrections.

26. Then I add some effects on new layers and draw some mist with Running Color Edge Watercolor. Remember to order the layers. First goes the mist beyond the elephant, then another layer with the mist in front of the elephant.

27. Copypaste the whole background blur the distant objects and the places by the mist.

Details and corrections

28. Next I finish adding the details.

29. Find the layer with the filled area we made in the beginning, select the filled area and add shadows so the whole elephant would look more harmonized with the background.

30. Next I draw some plants in the mist on a separate layer using special brushes.

31. Using the Glow Dodge preference add some smooth, muffled glowing effect on the sword.

33. Using this brush (TREE spooky) we draw the tree’s stem and then we add some foliage with these brushes (leaf blend 葉ブラシ and leaf 2 葉ブラシ). Remember about the light direction!

34. Check your art and make the final corrections if needed.

Conclusion

And that is pretty much it.

Thanks for watching this guide, I hope it was useful and that you have learned lots of new and interesting.

 

Brushes and materials used

スモークペン　ソフト

捻じれ煙ブラシ_PG0330

leaf blend 葉ブラシ

leaf 2 葉ブラシ

Mapping pen

Paint and apply

Shadow

Soft

Tone scraping

Running color spray

Running color edge watercolor

TREE spooky