The Professional Photoshop Book - Volume 7 2015

Digital painting

98 The Professional Photoshop Book

SET UP AND SKETCH

SET THE VANISHING POINT AND DRAW THE LINE ART,

CAREFULLY FOLLOWING THE PERSPECTIVE GUIDES

01

CREATE THUMBNAIL BOXES

If you cannot download the thumbnail

template, create a new U.S. Paper document and

select the Rectangle tool (U). Select Shape on the top

bar instead of Path, and change Fill to None, Stroke

to black at 3pt, and a size of 700x904px. Choose the

Move tool (V) and Alt/Option+drag to duplicate the

shape eight more times across the canvas.

02

DRAW THUMBNAIL SKETCHES

It’s always a good habit to draw rough

ideas before diving into a piece. Now that the

thumbnail boxes are set up, begin sketching your

cityscape, keeping the rule of thirds in mind. To

help with this, you can view your Ruler (Cmd/Ctrl

+R) and select the Move tool (V) to drag

guidelines over your boxes. Now choose a 25px

Hard Mechanical brush with Transfer and

Diameter set to about 10%. At this point you are

only determining the general shape of your

structures and their placement, so keep your

lines loose and avoid details.

Any great work of art should start its life with

compositional studies and rough sketches. The

following steps will show you how to create effective

line art for further shading in a digital format, but

sketching traditionally first is recommended. The

Pen and Tablet tool will feel a bit foreign if you aren’t

versed in traditional line drawing, so practice with

pens and markers with various tips to prepare for

the Hard brushes in Photoshop. Feel free to print

out the thumbnail template attached to this

course and then follow the first two steps on

paper. It’s much harder to mess up digitally since

nearly everything can be corrected with the flick

of a button. Therefore, traditional pen and ink is

great for sketching out your ideas, as all the

sketch’s flaws will be permanently displayed,

encouraging you to start a new concept.

Refer to Dubai’s metro

stations, the Burj Al Arab,

and London’s 30 St Mary Axe for

inspiration in building your city

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