Light and Shadow Character Illustrations-Classification of 9 Common Illustration Styles

PS self-study tutorial: How to draw light and shadow illustrations

Sketches first.

Create a new layer on the black background and use a white brush to compose the image. At this stage I only have black and white relationships. Analyze where the highlights and shadows are, just like making a print. I feel that if a black and white picture can provide enough information, the story to be told in the final work will be relatively clear.

Color.

This step is the most important to me. Because if the color and tone are processed more accurately, there will be less places that need to be modified later. Although this step uses rough brushstrokes, there is not much material expression. But if the processing of light and shadow is correct, the so-called "real" feeling will appear. Many of CM's pictures don't have much detail, but they are actually very good at expressing light and dark, so they are called masters.

Stacking photos

I won’t discuss whether you should stack photos or not. This is indeed a tricky technique. But the important thing is not the photo, but step two. If you handle the light and shadow in step two well, it will be difficult to make mistakes in whatever creative method you use next. If your light and shadow are wrong to begin with, it will be useless no matter how many photos you stack. The same goes for stacking photos. Use clippingmask to stack the bright parts on the bright parts, and stack the dark parts on the dark parts. I usually use two layer modes when stacking photos, softlight and dark. Soft light layers have little effect on the light and dark contrast of the layers below them, making them ideal for adding small details, such as grass textures. Darken only displays pixels on this layer that are darker than the layers below it, which is very useful when I need to create larger modeling details such as cracks in rocks.

Continue to find the shape. After you have the basic texture, you can start processing the details. Find out all the unclear structural relationships in the material, and then slowly process it into the shape you want. At the same time, during this process, the story depicted in the picture will become clearer in your mind, and you can start to think about the significance of each shape to the story when painting. At the beginning, distinguishing between light and dark compositions and a method of painting in the clipping mask shows an advantage, that is, the simple composition you designed at the beginning will not be destroyed too much when you are working on the details, because most of the painting you do All are carried out within the prescribed shape, and it is difficult to exceed the scope of large-scale regulations.

Refine the rocks and add some new materials

Water surface and grassland

I need to draw some vegetation. In fact, the tree is also a material I found online, and then I used a blending brush to paint it, and it blended into the picture.

The last step is that although I use PS to draw the picture, since the drawing is almost done, it is completely fine. Use various editing techniques in PS to make the picture sharper. Enhance contrast of main objects and guide the viewer's eye. You can save it when you feel comfortable. Classification of 9 common illustration styles

1. Texture

Texture-style illustrations use richer textures than noise illustrations. The texture changes of the brush are consistent with the paper. The textures and textures are combined with each other to present a rich picture effect.

Features: Rich colors, strong texture.

2. Stroke style

Add stroke processing on the basis of flat or texture illustrations, mainly line drawings, and retain simple flat painting or texture in coloring methods Change, keep the line drawing part.

Features: retaining the edge effect, being simple and decorative

3. Japanese and Korean style

The atmosphere of the picture is small and fresh, with bright colors. Rich colors. The proportions of the characters are more realistic, and they also pay attention to the expression of light and shadow and the setting of the atmosphere.

Characteristics: Bright, healing, heart-warming.

4. Realistic style

Realistic character style often appears in games, focusing on the performance of light and shadow, with clear character structure and more realistic pictures.

Features: Realistic, strong sense of light and shadow, clear structure.

5. Flat style

Express the content of the picture in a minimalist way, refreshing and neat without overly complicated details.

Features: simplicity, flatness, strong sense of geometric modeling

6. Pure hand-painted style

Retains the texture changes of pure hand-painted, compared with digital painting, Illustrations that are purely hand-drawn and divided will give people a more simple feeling.

Features: soft, refreshing, with natural texture changes.

7. European and American style

European and American style is mainly reflected in the facial features and posture of the characters. The characters have slender proportions and the facial features have a more three-dimensional sense of European and American style.

Features: Rich character expressions, with a certain degree of exaggeration

8. Children's illustration style

Children's illustration style is a type of book binding illustration. It can be used as an independent picture book with personal style, or as an illustration for children's and youth magazines. It is a very popular style in recent years.

Features: childish, cute, and story-telling.

9. Noise style

Use a unified noise effect on the basic color blocks of flat illustrations to increase texture changes, enrich picture details, and increase picture level changes.

Features: retro, unified picture, with a sense of hierarchy. Where are light and shadow illustrations usually used?

Illustrations (paintings) are images expressed using patterns. Based on the principle of unifying aesthetics and practicality, we try to make the lines and shapes clear and lively, and easy to make. Illustration is a universal language, and its design is usually divided into characters, animals, and product images in commercial applications.

Commodity image

Commodity image is the extension of animal anthropomorphism in the field of commodities. Anthropomorphized commodities give people a sense of intimacy. The personalized shape has a refreshing feeling, thereby deepening people's direct impression of the product.

Classification

In terms of the concept of product anthropomorphism, it can be roughly divided into two categories:

The first category is complete anthropomorphism, that is, exaggerating the product, using The characteristics and shape structure of the product are anthropomorphized.

The second category is semi-anthropomorphism, that is, adding hands, feet, heads, etc. that have nothing to do with the product as anthropomorphic characteristic elements on the product.

The above two anthropomorphic shaping techniques make the product humane and personalized. Through the form of animation, the characteristics of the product are emphasized, and its actions and words are directly linked to the product, and the publicity effect is more obvious.

Illustrators often draw illustrations for graphic designers or directly for magazines, newspapers and other media. They are generally professional illustrators or freelance artists, with their own themes and painting styles like photographers. The professional sensitivity and desire for new forms and new tools have led many of them to start using computer graphic design tools to create illustrations. The functions of computer graphics software allow their creative talents to be given greater play. Whether it is simple or complex, whether it is traditional media effects, such as oil painting, watercolor, print style or digital graphics, endless new changes and new interests can be more convenient. Done faster. Digital photography is the latest development in photography. Photographers use a digital camera to shoot objects or scan traditional positives into a computer through a scanner, then adjust, combine, and create new visual images on the computer screen, and finally output the positives or negatives through a film recorder. This new photography technology completely changes the creative concept of optical imaging in photography, with digital graphics processing as its core, also known as "photography without a darkroom." It blurs the boundaries between photographers, illustrators and graphic designers. Nowadays, as long as you have the talent, you can complete these three tasks on the same computer.