Drawing in a comic book style in Photoshop CS4 not only enables you to create your own comics, but also teaches you communicate visually. This skill is at the core of well-compensated jobs in graphic design and other branches of commercial art. You can draw with a comic book style in Photoshop by using just a few tools, including the "Pencil" and layer tools. The real work comes from your imagination and your ability to represent 3-D forms as 2-D shapes. Don't judge your initial comic drawings too harshly. Do cultivate the belief you can improve your drawing with practice.
Instructions
1. Click the dotted rectangle icon on the tool palette, then drag on the canvas to create the rectangular frame for your first panel. Right-click the rectangle, then click "Stroke." Click "OK" to draw the rectangle.
2. Click the pencil icon on the tool palette to select the "Pencil" tool, then drag the mouse to draw shapes within the rectangle that approximate the forms you want to appear in the panel. For example, if you're illustrating someone skiing, you can draw a stick figure for the person and skis, and wavy lines to indicate the snowy landscape. Do not try to draw perfectly. The shapes you're drawing are only guides. However, do use lots of diagonal lines in your panel, as these suggest motion and action. Also, draw shapes representing figures that are in motion, such as the skier. If you're comfortable making drawing strokes in just one particular direction, use CS4's new "Rotate View" tool to rotate the view to accommodate this stroke. Run that tool by pressing "R."
3. Click the "Layers" window's "New layer" button, which is the icon immediately to the left of the trash can icon at the bottom of the window.
4. Drag the mouse to draw cylinders, boxes and other simple 3-D shapes over the 2-D shapes you blocked out in step 2. For example, for the stick figure's arms and legs, you could draw cylinders. For help in drawing these simple shapes, do the following outside of Photoshop, on paper: trace only the forms of boxes, balls, cones, or cylinders over digital photos of objects around your home. For example, trace a cone over a photo of a lampshade. Trace a cylinder attached to a ball over a photo of a light bulb.
5. Add a new layer as you did in Step 3, then drag over the simplified 3-D forms you drew to define their details. For example, draw across the cylinder that represents a person's rib cage, curves indicating the person's pectoral muscles. Use anatomy references as you do this. You can find such references at sites like Google Body, Gray's Anatomy, or Get Body Smart. Also, zoom into details as needed by pressing "Z" then clicking the mouse. CS4's new "Pixel grid" will turn on automatically to help you discern individual pixels if you need such detail.
6. Drag over the outlines of all objects to darken the outlines, which is a characteristic of most comics.
7. Draw a small arrow indicating the direction of your scene's light source. Estimate which surfaces of the objects in your panel are in shade by looking at the arrow, then drag the mouse in straight lines across the surfaces to shade them. Much comic book shading is drawn with lines like these.
8. Click the paint bucket icon from the tool palette to run the "Paint Bucket" tool, then click the upper color swatch at the bottom of the tool palette. Click a color from the dialog box that appears, then click a shape in your panel to fill it with color. Use solid colors such as those the "Paint Bucket" tool yields, rather than the graduated colors of the "Gradient" tool
