1. USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS IN DIGITAL ILLUSTRATIONS.

Hi, I'm judson8 and today I bring you a tutorial focused on the use of photographs in your illustrations.

 

The main thing is to be able to use suitable material for this purpose, for them we have to be aware that the illustrations that we are going to use are free of copyright (free), or that we are subscribed to a page that allows us to download photographs (usually be paid subscriptions).

 

Here you have the page that I used to carry out this tutorial and from which I have downloaded copyright-free photographs in case you may be interested:

 

https://pixabay.com/es/

 

2. PLANNING THE ILLUSTRATION.

As a general rule, I use photographs in my illustrations in two distinct ways:

 

A. To make realistic backgrounds.

B. To make textures (skin, clothes, water ...).

 

In this case I have used the photographs in an illustration about dinosaurs, applying photographs in the background and on the dinosaurs' skin.

 

3. STARTING WITH THE BOTTOM.

Once I have selected the photographs that I want to use, I will paste them on the canvas as a collage, for this we will go to the options on the top bar of the program and click on Import / From the photo library (on Ipad) or from the computer, and We will place the different photographs in different layers.

 

 

 

 

We will adapt each of the photographs to our background, for them we will use the Edit / Transform option.

We can use different transformation tools, for example in soils you can use Perspective, or Distort to generate a depth effect. We are going to proceed to carry out this operation in each of the images that we want to integrate into our background.

Here are some examples of the photographs that I have used to create the background and in the video I explain how I have modified them to my liking, transforming, erasing and spreading the paint.

Certain photographs should be downloaded in PNG format, such as splashes of water, rocks, clouds, branches, leaves ... since this avoids us having to erase the background because the photos in this format have a transparent background ... or at least have a blank background so that we can select it with the magic wand and cut it more easily.

And this is how our background looks once we have it to our liking ...

4. INTEGRATING IT ALL.

One of my rules when using photographs in my drawings is to try not to notice much, so that it is not artificial, so I always try to ensure that all the images are well integrated.

 

We have to take into account that each photograph has a different color range, different saturation, brightness… so our objective must be that the whole set is as homogeneous as possible, for this we will have to use several techniques.

 

The first thing will be to play with the Edition, we are going to the Tonal Correction Edition option, and we are going to play with each of the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Color Balance, Tone Curves options ... until we have all the images added in a similar tonality.

 

 

 

We can also use a correction layer. What we achieve with the correction layers is to change all the layers that we have underneath without having to modify them one by one. (Top menu / Correction layer)

Another trick is to use a layer and fill it with a certain color, once this is done we will change the layer mode until we find the layer that interests us and lower its opacity to our liking as I explain in the video tutorial.

 

The result once we have made all these variations is the following.

5. ADDING TEXTURES.

To make a realistic dinosaur skin, what we will do is download images of lizards, elephant, crocodile skins ...

 

Once we have inserted it in our illustration we will change the layer mode to multiply and lower the opacity.

 

First we have drawn our dinosaur, applying the colors, lights and shadows to our liking, so that it is integrated with the background that we have done previously as I show you below.

With the transform to mesh tool we will adapt the layer to our drawing trying to give volume, it is the closest thing to the liquefy tool which is the only thing I miss in Clipstudio, but still very good results can be achieved. We can perform this operation on different parts of the animal's body.

Once we have applied the texture, we select the layer where the dinosaur is, invert the selection (as I explain in the video tutorial) and erase the part of the texture that is outside the figure, change the layer mode to multiply (or the mode layer that interests us the most), and we lower the opacity so that it is as integrated as possible, remaining like this.

6. SPECIAL EFFECTS.

To make realistic splashes we can download photos of splashes and superimpose them on the dinosaurs. Again we must play with the transformation tools and try to change the layer mode of the photograph to achieve a suitable finish to what we want.

7. EXAMPLES OF THE USE OF PHOTOGRAPHS IN MY ILLUSTRATIONS.

Here are some examples in which I have used all this series of techniques in my drawings, I hope this will inspire you.

Here you have the video tutorial with which you can accompany the reading of the tip, I hope you like it and it will help you.