What can I say? When you’ve got umpteen things on your plate and you’ve got to come up with a new graphic for something or other – like yesterday, if possible – you welcome shortcuts that result in a fantastic little graphic. If it takes you a quarter of the time but looks just as good, who can complain, right? Certainly not me.
So I was playing around with some shapes I’d made for My-Photoshop and realized that I’d essentially made myself a really cool shortcut to things like clipart for logos and headers. Since all the drawing is done beforehand, in the form of a custom Photoshop shape, all that is left is to color it … and I couldn’t think of anything more enjoyable to do with my evening than share this idea with you. (No comments, please … I know how much that says!)
Without further ado … here’s a guide to drawing Vogue – style Madonna without once touching the pen tool in Photoshop.
Draw Madonna (or any other clipart) – The Steps
1. Download the Shape – If you don’t have a shape that you already want to use, you’ll want to grab this one real fast. To install it, you’ll need to place the file in your presets folder. On a PC, you’ll go to “Start”, click “My Computer” and select your Local Disc (usually “C”). Inside this folder, open “Program Files” and then open “Adobe”. Next, open the Photoshop folder, and go to “Presets”. One last folder to open – “Custom Shapes”. Drag and drop or cut and paste the shape file into here.
Do this step before you open Photoshop, so that the software will automatically load the shape up for you.
2. New Canvas – Open a new canvas in Photoshop, in RGB mode with a white background, at any size that you like as long as it’s square. This is the cool thing about true vector shapes – you can make them as large or as small as you like without any loss of quality. Besides, they also do a whole bunch of drawing for you which saves tons of time.
My canvas is 500 x 500 pixels in size basically because it’s easy for me to work with on my teeny monitor.
3. Draw the Shape – In order to draw the shape, you need to find the shape. If you placed it in the Presets folder before you opened Photoshop, you’re set. Otherwise, you’re going to have to manually load it, which is a whole ‘nother step. I’m assuming you follow directions, though. Click your Custom Shape tool (it’s the one that looks like a funky blob and hides out behind your rectangle shape tool), and then click the down arrow in your toolbar that lets you access the custom shape sets. From there, just click the “Vogue” shape.
Set your foreground color to black, hold your Shift key down on your keyboard, and draw the lady out until she fills the canvas. When she’s drawn and positioned, go over to your layers palette and right-click the “Shape 1” layer. Choose “Rasterize Layer”. Right-click again, choose “Layer Properties” and name this layer “Madonna”.
4. Three New Layers – We’re going to set up our base painting layers before going on. The reason I do this is so that I can jump back and forth between layers when I get tired of painting something. So, click “Layer”, choose “New”, and pick “Layer”. Name the first layer “Skin”. Repeat the process two more times, naming the other two layers “Makeup” and “Hair”.
Now, before we start painting, we need to get our layers in order. Drag your skin layer down in your layers palette so that it is right above the Background layer. Your makeup layer goes above the skin layer, and the hair layer goes above the skin layer. Your Madonna layer should be on the very top. Reference Illustration 01.
5. Zoom In & Paint – We’re ready to lay down all the base colors. For the skin tone, I’m using #fefaf1. Her eyeshadow will be #c01f6b and her hair color is going to be #ffffcc. Remember that this is just the base. Nothing is “stuck” looking like it will after this step – this is just where we start.
Using a large, basic round brush, start painting away on the appropriate layers. When you’re done, you should have something that looks like a coloring book. Make sure that you’re zoomed in as you paint so that you can get right to the edges of the lines. Reference Illustration 01.
6. Shadows – Now that our “base coat” of paint is down, it’s time to start making some shadow. First, set your foreground color to something just a few shades darker than your skin color. Next, make a new layer above your “Skin” layer that is named “Skin Shadow”. Then, using a smaller round paint brush, begin adding shadow. Where do you add it at? Our shape has made it easy – add shadow just inside the shape itself, using the darkest or widest black lines as a guide. What you’re basically doing is outlining the shape on the inside of the lines.
When you’ve done the skin, repeat this step on the hair. It will look pretty rough right now but don’t worry – we’ll smooth it out in just a minute. Reference Illustration 02.
7. Highlights – With your (admittedly rough) shadows in place, it’s time to add highlights. This works the opposite way that shadows do. For one, you will want to set your foreground color to a shade just barely lighter than your base skin color – it should be so close that it’s subtle. Then, instead of following the black lines, you’ll want to focus on what is the center between shadows.
Don’t try to use too much highlight. What we’re aiming for is just a touch here and there to really make it look like light is hitting the skin – not to change the skin color entirely.
Once again, make a new layer above the skin layer. This time, name it “Skin Highlight”. Use a fairly small round brush, and focus on the center spaces. Then, repeat this step for the hair. Reference Illustration 03.
8. Blur It – I did say that we were going to fix how rough everything looks, right? Well, the reason that a lot of it looks so rough is that the lines are too harsh. The only sharp lines we want are the black lines that define our image. Everything else needs to be blurred just a bit, to soften the focus.
Starting with your Skin Shadow layer, go to “Filter”, choose “Blur”, and pick “Gaussian Blur”. Make sure that you have the preview box ticked, and watch the preview closely as you adjust the slider. You don’t want your shadow to go away completely, you just want it to be softened. What number will do that? I can’t tell you – it depends on what shades you’re using, what size your image is, and what your preference is. You’re going to have to trust yourself on this one.
Repeat the blur for the hair shadow, and then again for the highlights and the makeup. Reference Illustration 04.
9. Clean Up & Save – As you’ll have noticed by now, there is a tiny little problem with the Gaussian Blur command. It’s messy. It makes our careful coloring go outside the lines.
So, it’s time to grab an eraser and clean up your mess. Because of the black lines in the shape and the fact that we’ve kept everything on separate layers, this is a really quick and easy step. Just zoom in, and erase the bits that went outside the lines. There shouldn’t be much of it, unless you’ve used a lot of blur.
After that, you’re ready to save your little piece of art and show off!
