Sour illustration

**gnurf** · 08 July 2008, 07:14 AM

I did this quickie for the weekly Illustration Friday, this week's topic was 'sour'.
I scanned my pencil sketch and put on some colors in Xara Xtreme.

**iamtheblues** · 08 July 2008, 08:26 AM

That's lovely, Paul. Funny and well executed. The facial expressions are superb.
Saludos,
Bob.

**gray** · 08 July 2008, 03:56 PM

Paul, that is just plain super. You and Bob have this cartoon work sewed up.

**geminiguy** · 08 July 2008, 04:25 PM

Very nice.... good soft coloring too

**raynerj1** · 09 July 2008, 01:55 AM

Nice one Paul...

**angelize** · 09 July 2008, 04:33 AM

I love the expressions!

**lordashraf** · 14 July 2008, 04:48 PM

Oh so you color ur pencils in Xara too.. cool
I thought I was lazy for doing that.. but actually I find it pretty fast and simple..
Nice sketching though, love it...

**Biggy Rat** · 14 July 2008, 10:32 PM

I like how you have maintained the "sketch" in the image. Sometimes I think its important to leave the "human element" in the drawing, it certainly adds to the character of the image.

I too sketch, scan, & xara, but I tend to remove the sketch. Perhaps I may revisit this....

**gnurf** · 15 July 2008, 07:04 AM

The original drawing was drawn with only using a pencil, no inking this time. I usually build up my sketches/drawing by starting with sketching softly and then building up the lines with more strokes and pressure. At some point I end up with a quite refined image with strong enough lines for a scan.

After I scanned the image (I scan via Photoshop's twain import, but why not use the latest xara shareware scan software!) I paste/import it to xara as is (no retouching or editing). In xara (I use XX Pro) I apply some softness/blur, some contrast and then adjust the width of the lines with levels. Also, with levels by adjusting the white and black points I can remove the lightest sketch lines as well as making the darkest lines darker. Actually it's just a "sloppier" technique of my lineart/clipart technique that can be found in the guest tutorials at XaraXone, and will leave some of the sketch lines visible.

When the scan is adjusted I apply Stained glass transparency and add the colors on a layer under the image. To quickly add the colors I apply some feathering as default for all new objects and then I start clicking with the shape tool "outside" of the area I want to colorize. The feathering will "shrink" the area to somewhat fit the area to be colorized - and I don't want this to be perfect, I want the rough sketchy look so it doesn't matter if there's some color outside the area or if there's some white in the edges.