QUICK TIP
You can quickly explore colours by creating
swatches and duplicating them out on new layers.
Then adjust those layers’ opacities and location in
order to see a wider range of colours that work
together. Try layers at 20, 50, and 75% Opacity and
move around your colour combinations.04
BEGIN THE LINE WORK
Create a new layer. With a hard brush, begin
laying down solid, clean lines. Set your background
layer to a neutral colour that suits you (like grey).
Stained glass work typically uses a very graphic or
geometric shape language, so keep this in mind as
you begin to tie down your forms. While some large
shapes are good to have, it is also a good idea to break
down those shapes into smaller chunks. When
creating those smaller elements, try to have those
new shapes help define the form.05
LINE QUALITY AND WEIGHT
Zoom in and work close to your lines. This
will help keep the lines from getting jittery,
remaining clean and free of mistakes as you work.
Line weight is also important to consider. The lines
inside a figure or form, those used to define folds,
shadows, seams, and the like, should be thinner than
the lines used around a figure. Creating a thicker line
around a figure will bring the subject forward and
help keep everything within those lines reading as a
cohesive whole.06
BRING EVERYTHING TOGETHER
In traditional stained glass, every piece of
glass is soldered together, so your lines must also
reflect those connections. After you have inked all of
your figures, there are sections of the composition
that will need to be tied together by creating these
thin lines. For this illustration, the sky and circle are
large areas of free-floating shapes. Break down those
shapes into smaller ones where needed to make
sense for your illustration. These smaller sections
will also allow for more colour variety later on.07
FINAL LINE WORK
As you finish your line work, zoom out to
make sure that everything is reading clearly. While
it is nice to have lots of detail, you also want to
have larger areas of rest. This is important for
your main figures because they should be easily
recognised and pop off the background. If there
are any issues, now is the time to make those
fixes. If everything is readable and clean then it is
time to move on to the colouring stage.08
CHOOSE YOUR COLOURS
Generally, it is a good idea to keep your colour
palette small; anywhere from three to five colours. This
illustration uses five basic colours. However, by simply
taking two colours and finding the values and hues
between them, you can get a wide range of colour
variety while maintaining an overall colour scheme.
For example, while orange is already one of the main
colours chosen, you can get a different shade of orange
by taking the red and colouring over it with the yellow
that is at 50% Opacity.DIGITAL PAINTING