Introduction

Hi,

 

For this video tutorial I am going to walk you through 3 examples where photos are used and integrated to create quick sketches. I will teach you how to use photos in your digital painting and also in your manga or comics as well.

 

All techniques shown in this video boil down to one central idea that is incredibly important whenever photos are used in artwork and that is....

Unity (and why it's important for photo techniques)

Unity is a fundamental art principle and it is something artists have to think about all the time, how can we unify this piece so that something does not stick out unintentionally. A piece of artwork is unified when it looks like everything belongs, everything is in the same world.

 

Sometimes we want things to stick out: our focal point, the character, the action. This is when we intentionally break unity, we give something high contrast, a different colour, a different style.

Why is unity important when we use photos?

Unity is important because when we place a photo in our painting or drawing, it's by default - hyper realistic. It came from our camera -- of course it is!

 

That means, whenever artists are new to using photos, they are often surprised because the artwork immediately breaks unity. The photo is extremely realistic and perhaps what you painted is not at that level of realism, therefore there is a clash. It is extremely obvious what sections are digital paint strokes and what sections are from a photograph.

Look at this image I drew on top of my own photograph. It is very obvious that it is a drawing on a photograph. That makes the viewer break immersion, it looks like an unbelievable world because unity is broken everywhere. The photograph has all the details we would see in the real world, but the drawing is very flat.

 

One way to fix this would be to work more on the characters, spend time making them extremely realistic, adding hours of detail. Then, unity is achieved again, hyper realistic characters and hyper realistic photograph.

 

That works, but if you are making something like a manga or a comic, you want a more simple, stylized look.

Now it looks like much more believable world, like a page from a comic or manga. Instead of making the characters very realistic to achieve unity, I made the photograph more simple, more stylized to match with the characters.

How to Unify Photos with our Artwork

There are many techniques in order to stylize or simplify our photographs so that they do not stick out. In the video tutorial I go over three examples and multiple techniques and it is much easier to see in video format compared to in an article. Please watch the video if you have time.

Here, I will talk about what I use in Clip Studio Paint to achieve the manga or comic look that the last image had.

I use "Artistic Filter" you can find this in Clip Studio Paint on the top menu bar by going to Filter -> Effect -> Artistic

With this menu, you can take a layer, in this case a photo, and have Clip Studio Paint simplify and change it, add outlines to objects and other effects. There are many different options here and I often play around and experiment with them. When simplifying photos I always bring the number of colours down. Please try it out yourself.

Here is the result after using the "Artistic Filter" on a photo, and then using two correction layers. Hue/Saturation/Luminosity to change it to a grey scale image, and then Tone Curve to increase the contrast.

 

With just a few clicks and less than 5 minutes, you can change your photographs to look much more simple and stylized. Now, when we draw or paint on top of this photo it will be much easier to unify our drawing or painting with the photo.

Check out the Video for More Indepth Information

Please check out the video for more information! In the video we go over this example and 2 other paintings shown below where I used photos to achieve a quick concept. The video has more lessons and voice narration. All photos used are my own photos taken on a smartphone camera.

 

 

Final Tips

In this lesson we talked about how unity is important in art, and especially when using photographs.

 

We learned that to make your image believable, you need to unify your art and the photographs you use. We talked about simplifying and stylizing your photos to unify and integrate them. Here are some other tips to help simplify and stylize your photos.

 

• Stretch your photos, distort them. You can use Clip Studio Paint's Edit -> Free Transform, Distort, or Perspective to do this.

• Use blending modes with photos, such as Overlay, Softlight, and more.

• Use the artistic filter talked about in this article.

• Know that when drawing or painting over a photo, the initial marks are going to look very off because it is not yet unified. Be confident and push through!

 

Good luck, and if you have any questions please let me know.

 

Thank you for reading.