Category Archives: PhotoShop

Digitally painting and designing with Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Photoshop is a graphics editing program developed and published by Adobe Systems.

“SKELETON FOR DINNER” Coming Soon!

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“Skeleton For Dinner” Is Finished!

Picture of Sample Page from "Skeleton for Dinner" art by Will Terry

I just finished the last illustration in my new book – “Skeleton for Dinner” by Margery Cuyler. It’s due out sometime before Halloween this next fall. I’ll definitely post links when it’s in stores. I had so much fun with this one! I love coming up with unique characters and Halloween?! Are you kidding me? I’ve always wanted to do a Halloween book!

I was really happy that my editors were OK with the idea of making “ghost” into a little girl instead of the typical predictable cartoonish ghost we’ve seen a million times. It was fun to render a character that doesn’t follow the same color rules that other objects follow. Skeleton was fun to design too because I felt he/she needed to be cute and not too scary.

After most of the paintings were finished I looked at skeleton and realized he/she just didn’t look cute enough without eyes. This was one of those decisions that of course didn’t make any sense academically – obviously a skeleton doesn’t have eye balls but for a children’s book character I questioned if he/she should have them. I contacted my editors and they thought about it too. In the end we all felt good about eye balls. Eye balls are a good thing. :)

I’m still in search of the perfectly illustrated picture book. I poured my heart and soul into this one. There are a few things I would change or explore a little further if given the chance – but I’m glad this one isn’t perfect. Wouldn’t it be scary to bowl or pitch a perfect game?…knowing the only direction is down from there?

 

HOW I USE PROCREATE TO DRAW ON MY IPAD

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Watch the art lesson video below for iPad tips with Procreate

In the video below, artist Will Terry, shows you how he’s using the Procreate app to make drawings for his children’s books, iPad apps, personal and professional freelance work.
He loves the Procreate app! It allows him to make high resolution drawings that he can email to his desktop and paint in Photoshop. No more running out of paper. No more pens, not having a pen, running out of lead, no more pencils, no more books, no teachers dirty looks.
Will can take his work anywhere and he can go through the entire drawing refinement process without the use of a scanner or tracing paper.
“It has made me much more productive, I can do finish work anywhere”
Will has been known to work at the doctor’s office (not as a doctor), in meetings, waiting in the car (well he is married), on airplanes, at conferences and more. He just has to remember to take enough work with him when he leaves his studio.
Enjoy the video…
To learn more about illustrating or how to paint in Photoshop, or how to illustrate children’s books, or many other great art techniques, visit FolioAcademy.com.

Folio Academy has teamed up with Kwiksher for a limited time.

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Get Four of Folio Academy’s video training courses FREE when you purchase Kwiksher. 

Bring your interactive stories to life, without code. Creating your own apps can be fun and fulfilling and now anyone can do it with Kwik 2 at kwiksher.com.

What is Kwiksher? The best way to create mobile apps from Photoshop!

click below to See Kwik in action.

Improving Your Work, Training with the Best

Alex Souza, the founder of Kwiksher says, “I am a believer that there is always space for improvement (in our lives, skills, and so on). Of course this applies to Kwik made apps.”

Picture of four bonus video courses: Beginning Photoshop for digital painting, Digital Painting in Photoshop part 1 & 2, and How to Design a Drawing

Quality is one of the top reasons for successful positions into store rankings.

Thinking about that, I partnered with Folio Academy and Will Terry, one of the top children’s book illustrators in the world, to provide quality instruction to anyone willing to improve illustration and painting skills with Photoshop.

Will’s life’s goal was to become a children’s book illustrator, and to date, he has illustrated over 25 children’s books with great publishers like Scholastic, Random House, Leap Frog, Houghton Mifflin, Dial, Albert Whitman, and Simon Schuster.

I am really a fan of what he is able to do and I believe everybody will get great insights from his blog. 

Every new Kwiksher customer (till end of April) will get the following four training videos for FREE.

Every Kwiksher customer can get a 50% discount (till end of April) on the following four training videos by Will at Folio Academy. But even better, all new customers who purchase Kwik 2 at Kwiksher.com will be given, all four of these wonderful lessons. ~Alex

 

  • How To Design A Drawing: explains what it means to design a drawing as well as an introduction to the design principles and elements. Honestly, I wish I had this information while in college;

Together, these tutorials cost US$100 so, don’t miss the opportunity to get them with the discounted price.

PHOTOSHOP DEMO FOR MY CLASS

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Photoshop is an amazing program!

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When I’m not working on folio academy, I am teaching at UVU.
I painted this for my class at UVU for our next assignment. I don’t work in this style so I wanted to work up a little example of what I’m looking for. I can’t tell you how much fun I have playing with different brushes and settings in Photoshop – it truly is an amazing program!

My Art is For Babies ?

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My 9 year old (my baby) said my art is for babies

I will admit that I am trying to appeal to a younger audience since I illustrate children’s books. Some times I have to hit the cute button a bunch of times before it looks right. (oh how i wish there was a “cute” button) So in response to my son’s accusation I wanted to see if I could still conjure something up from my junior high days of drawing sculls in the margins of my tests.


Yup – still got it.

I did this doodle out in the car while my wife did some shopping. I showed it to my youngest child, my 9 year old – he thought it was “totally bad” meaning good of course – score one for the old guy. Oh – and I fooled around with it in Photoshop to add some mood.

CRAWL, WALK, RUN, LEAP!

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I created the image above for my digital painting class this semester as an example of what I want my students to do for our “circle straight edge” assignment.

The rules:

  • Create an image in Photoshop.
  • Perfect your drawing.
  • Use only the circle selection tool and the lasso for straight edges.
  • Painting: use the paint bucket and airbrush tools.
  • Concept: Visually explain why the Abominable Snowman is grumpy.

I don’t think everyone is happy with this assignment. The limitations are frustrating some of them (yay!) and locking them into a style they aren’t excited about.

My philosophy: Mastery in any discipline such as science or sports – arithmetic or art is gained in small steps.

You have to learn algebra before calculus – physics before string theory and lay ups before alley oop dunks. By taking away options I’m allowing students to focus on the basic elements of design and visual communication. If you can’t develop a solid composition and execute good rendering under these restrictions how can you hope to succeed given unlimited brushes, selection tools, textures, healing brushes, filters, adjustments, mixing and blending tools, etc?

Imagine the following experiment: You are given the best brushes and pallet knives money can buy for oil painting -fine linens, mediums, easel, pallet, etc. Your set up is perfect. Then give someone like Caravaggio a pocket knife, an old tree branch, some cheap oil paints, and a crappy canvas board. Set up a still life. Do you think you could out paint him? I know I couldn’t.

It’s not just about the tools – it’s about your understanding of mediums, surfaces, tools, design, light & shadow, edges, color, value, texture, line, space, shape, etc. What you do with the tools is personal to your understanding and vision.

Try limiting your choices…wax on – wax off.

In addition: From the mouth of Kazu – the artist who just completed the new Harry Potter covers: “Anything else about your process as you went about it that artists should know?”

I tried to work on a single layer in Photoshop. I used very few effects. All of the illustrations for the most part I didn’t separate elements. I tried to keep it pure as if I was working on a canvas. I forced myself into a limitation despite having all of these tools at my disposal. (from CBS)

Illustration Shortcut: Acrylic on Inkjet

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“I cut my painting time in half by starting in Photoshop”

Will Terry of Folioacademy used a shortcut to create this illustration for a greeting card for PK Press. He Painted, or blocked in the base in Photoshop, printed it on watercolor paper, then finished it with his famous acrylic, dry-brush technique. He is always looking for ways to maximize his efforts. Deadlines are ever present for the professional illustrator, and when you can figure out a way to speed things up, you’re onto something.

What used to take forever can be done in less than half the time.

It took so much longer with the old dry brush technique, laying in the background and basic shapes, can be done in less than half the time using the right tools. Embrace technology, it’s not going away.

pic of finished piece: Blwfish

“I was able to cut my painting time in half by blocking in the foundation in Photoshop.” ~Will Terry

Photoshoped in some spray paint and printed on Watercolor paper.

He used to start his paintings on paper, transfer it to paper, and paint the whole thing with his paint and brushes.
Awhile ago he took a leap of faith and tried something new. This became the phase where he would start in Photoshop and finish with acrylics. “I scan my sketch and paint flat color on it in Photoshop, Then print it on watercolor paper, add texture gel and paint acrylics on top.” He now paints most everything digitally from start to finish but this was a crucial step in that direction, you may want to try it.

How to Draw Zombies

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Why do so many want to know How to Draw Zombies?

picture of finished peice

draw these zombies with Justin Cook

Zombies seem to be passing Vampires in popularity. I guess it’s about time to ad a “how to draw zombies” lesson, to our site. I wouldn’t be surprised if Stephanie Meyer were writing a love story between a walking corps and a beautiful young woman right now. I won’t read the book (my wife and daughters will) but I will definitely watch the movie, “Waking Dead”.

Our latest lesson is “Learn to Draw Cartoon Zombies” lesson by Justin Cook from the UK.

He shows you how to use Photoshop to sketch the zombies, ink them and then color them, or as he may say it, “colour them”.

how to draw zombies, inked.This course will teach you how to draw creepy, but cute zombies using Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom tablet or Cintiq monitor. He draws each of the five characters and shares his tips as a professional illustrator. The techniques he uses to “ink” can be appreciated even by professionals who might want to learn how to work digitally. Justin combines the pressure sensitive brush tools and the pen tool to paint a beautiful layer of “ink” with an emphasis on line variety. Then he teaches you how to use dedicated layers to add color and value. how to ink cartoon zombies

You don’t have to go to the UK to learn how to draw zombies from this master, thanks to FolioAcademy.com you can learn from an artist with a way cool accent. how to draw zombies, colored.

I just finished watching season three of “The Walking Dead” via NetFlix and I gotta say, Zombies are cool. I wouldn’t want to be one, raise one or fall in love with one. But as far as the world of the undead goes, zombies rock.  I’m just sayin. . .

NEW TUTORIAL! Learn how to use Photoshop

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I just finished a new video tutorial so you can Learn how to use Photoshop – a basic video series on how to get started in Photoshop.

We have been receiving requests over the past year to offer a video that would help the person who has never used Photoshop get started.

This tutorial is a focused on helping the student learn how to use Photoshop for painting in my Digital Painting in Photoshop tutorials Parts 1 & 2.

Instead of being a general beginner course I leave out all the photo editing specific tools and methods. You will learn how to use photoshop basic tools, settings, windows, and the controls that I use to make a painting in Photoshop.  I do share my Wacom tablet settings and opinions as well.  If you’re familiar with Photoshop you won’t need this video but will probably be fine jumping into parts 1 & 2 of Digital Painting in Photoshop.If you know anyone who has wanted to move from traditional mediums like acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, etc – this video might be just the thing to get them started.

how to use Photoshop for beginners

Check out a sample here.

If any of you have already purchased my Digital Painting in Photoshop parts 1 or 2 and would like this beginner course please just leave a comment below – make sure you leave your email address associated with your http://folioacademy.com/ account so I can look you up – and I’ll GIFT you this new tutorial for free! So you may want to purchase one or both of these Photoshop part 1 & Part 2 first, then get this FREE!One more thing – I do not paint in this new video but I do explain how to get around in photoshop in the most basic ways – and how to use many of the tools. Check it out at Folio Academy.

New How to Photoshop Tutorial

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Whoooeee – I just finished my new How to Photoshop lesson!

This was a fun one and now I’m in the editing process for the video tutorial. As I mentioned before I’ll be giving this one away for FREE to anyone who has purchased my “Digital Painting in Photoshop” Videos from either my site or Folio Academy. It’s my way of saying thanks for all the support we’ve been getting and continue to get. I hope to be finished with the editing process in a week or so – I have a crazy hectic schedule at the moment.

Painting of a cat on a turtle done in Photoshop by Will Terry.
I’m tired – having fun but tired – I’m wearing lots of hats right now. Just trying to get the colors right – this piece is a challenge because there isn’t a lot of warm light which means almost everything needs to be on the cool side.


It’s slow going but I’ll get there. Just starting to add lighter values and colors and trying to figure out my color scheme as I go. One of the advantages of working digitally – testing colors on “throw-a-way” layers.


I’ve now added a “multiply” layer and started to work color into the background using the airbrush with the “texture” turned on in the brush pallet. The texture is a scanned texture I made with acrylic heavy gel medium and black and white acrylic paint.


I added the value on the ipad using the airbrush tool. I want to try to figure out where all the dark and light areas are going to be before I start adding color. This is crucial because once you get deep into the color process it’s hard to fix value problems.


Since I’ve switched over to Photoshop 5 I thought it might be nice to offer another tutorial. I’m going to give it away for FREE to those who have already purchased my “Digital Painting in Photoshop” video series – I’ll just update everyone’s account at Folio Academy with this new video series. So what I’m going to do is work on it a little each day and post my results here on my blog as I have a big project for National Geographic Kids Mag going on right now too.

This is a little sketch I did on my ipad with my finger – I’ve gone paperless by the way – I never intended to go green but when technology makes it easier to use than paper…

I’m calling this painting “Class System”. I find it ironic that often it’s the working class/poor who are much happier in life than the rich who control everything but still turn to drugs, alcohol, and suicide. Oh no – I actually have something to say? This is weird.

Anyway, I’ll try to post my results each day for a week or so.