Water Color Texturing

There is this wonder thing called water colors. They make coloring REALLY easy. And I'm not using them to color my pieces. Do you know why? because Digital Coloring is much easier. But that does not stop me from doing water color texturing.

Basically, I am bored with the non-textured backgrounds of Digital art, and so I have spent a couple days making interesting patterns with water colors, scanned them in, and use them in various places in ze finished images.

Here are some examples.

Admittedly, mine aren't nearly as wispy and un-solid-like.

Using for various backgrounds. Super.

The Tools

So. I guess I haven't really explained the wonderful tools I use in my trade.

There aren't that many truthfully, but I decided to explain them anyway.

First in the Pen and Ink:
I use a special ink called India Ink. Often used by artist and such. It is fast drying and doesn't bleed with water. I work on water color paper for texture and so that the ink doesn't seep through. I can use various sizes of different pen tips to get different types of lines, but mostly I stick with one. Issues I have with this tool is when it screws up, it makes a BIT BLACK MARK. Not fun. But that's what photoshop is for.

Then I use a scanner:

Simple as can be. Stick a piece of paper on it and it transfers it into a digital file. I put this at a very high resolution so that I am capable of adding lots of detail to the work.

After that, I use Photoshop to add color an clean up the picture, removing mistakes and finishing the piece:

I wish I had CS4...that would be so sweeeeeeeet. I have an older version, but it works just as well. It takes time and with a Tablet (above) coloring is much easier as it allows the size of the mark I am making to change with pressure as if it were an actual pen or pencil.

It allows pics like this:

to be awesome sauce. BOOM BABY.