Ink and Watercolor on Parchment, Digital Techniques

[Chashio]

I like to aim for a more natural, artistic style with my maps. After a recent computer crash, I've been slowly rebuilding my brushes and presets... and doing a lot of fiddling with settings. In that process of testing new things and getting used to them (which usually includes drawing tons of mountains and/or fantastic creatures) I stumbled across a new, sort of complicated (many layers), way to blend 'wet' media with the paper background. Because it irks me when the ink just kinda sits above it.

Mainly what this particular use of layers, etc does is sandwich the drawing between two paper layers so the ink/watercolor doesn't mask the texture. And some other stuff. So anyhoo, here's what happened. The colored version has my working notes and layer settings. Oh yeah, I use photoshop. I'm not entirely (at all) happy with how the color-wash over the ink turned out (just a flat wash without highlights), but it's somewhat quick and malleable at any rate. I'm sure I'll continue fiddling with everything. I'm stubborn like that, and still not close enough to the real thing to give up. =P

And if anybody has something to share, more tips and tricks or helpful suggestions, please do share them (and an example of what it looks like). Maybe we can create a little go-to corner for different ways to mimic natural media with a computer. =)

ink and watercolor on parchment steps.jpgink without watercolor wash.jpg

[Lukc]

Hmm, it looks good and 'tis sth I do fiddle with too, so I'll try to get some of my examples up ...

[Larb]

Well regarding tips... I picked up a tip that I really like from a digital artist (Steve Argyle) about using a texture layer on top of everything you are drawing set to 10% overlay. A parchement, rust, rocky or whatever kind of texture (preferably something high resolution that doesn't repeat much if at all). Basically it gives your canvas a more textured real feel that a single flat colour doesn't, but it is still quite subtle.

[Chashio]

Well regarding tips... I picked up a tip that I really like from a digital artist (Steve Argyle) about using a texture layer on top of everything you are drawing set to 10% overlay. A parchement, rust, rocky or whatever kind of texture (preferably something high resolution that doesn't repeat much if at all). Basically it gives your canvas a more textured real feel that a single flat colour doesn't, but it is still quite subtle.

Cool! Thanks for sharing that. So you just have your drawing on a plain background, with the texture layer on top? That's a lot simpler. =)

[Pryme8]

bump up your pixls by a whole bunch, make sure that your resolution is like 12000 or 14000 pxls wide and tall, then zoom in a little find the correct brushes or set up yours to have correct opacity, then blur then slightly if you do it with your opacity control and size control on should look pretty close... make sure you draw them on different layers then mess with the transparency settings?

[Chashio]

bump up your pixls by a whole bunch, make sure that your resolution is like 12000 or 14000 pxls wide and tall, then zoom in a little find the correct brushes or set up yours to have correct opacity, then blur then slightly if you do it with your opacity control and size control on should look pretty close... make sure you draw them on different layers then mess with the transparency settings?

Thanks for adding your cents! =) My current computer can't handle anything above 5,000 pixels without freaking out, but I'll give the rest a try.

[Pryme8]

upgrade your ram then, it will make a world of difference! especially with your amazing art style

[Chashio]

Been playing around with ArtRage recently. It's a piece of software that's been mentioned around here a few times, but in rather hushed tones and without much action. I got it some time ago, and then, with life scattering in all directions, never did anything with it. But it's a fun program, and it actually does watercolor rather well. Here's a little mess-about I did today... took less than five minutes (I wasn't following a plan). And some notes on the settings I used to achieve the effects. Hopefully you can see the possibilities. And watercolor isn't the only thing ArtRage can do. It can mix oil paints with beautiful results as well. Not the topic of this thread, though. I'm certainly looking forward to doing more with this program.

ArtRage watercolor settings tut.jpg

EDIT: Oh yeah, I just did this using one of the provided paper textures, and you can see where it repeats itself (ick). I believe it's possible to use your own paper textures, but I haven't tried that at this point.

[neelhtak_backwards]

Very pretty water colour effect; I could see some nice maps produced with this sort of style...

[vorropohaiah]

great watercolour effects. ive had artrage for ages though just mess about mixing paints on the canvas, though if you can get results like this it surely has its uses.

what formats does it save in ?