The Basics of Illustration in Photoshop

I've been lucky in that most of the things I now do for a living, I fell into. They started out as a hobby that I enjoyed in my free time, and have worked into something that earns an income.

One of those things is illustration.

Using Photoshop, you already have everything you'll ever need to create your own visually stunning illustrations. Want to know the basics to get you started? You need a copy of Photoshop - any version will do - and enough patience to get you through the whole "practice, practice, practice" thing.

Illustrating in Photoshop

There are essentially four steps to creating a polished illustration in Photoshop, each step using its own unique tools and techniques. As you become more comfortable with your skills, you will learn how to adapt each step to using your own version of the tools or changing the order of steps to create art that's all you. For now, here's my method.

1. Outline

Your first step is to create an outline for your art. An outline is basically a sketch, and can be achieved in a variety of ways. If you are comfortable drawing freehand on paper, sketch out your work and scan it to your computer. This method will likely mean having to clean up your scan - it's not difficult, but you need to learn how and can do that here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/75229/cleaning_scanned_images_in_photoshop.html

The next two methods of outlining are both digital. If you have a graphics tablet (a Wacom is, undoubtedly, the best) you can still sketch freehand with no learning curve. Just plug your tablet in, hit Photoshop's pen tool, and sketch away.

Don't have a graphics tablet? Don't panic! You can do this with your mouse, too, though you'll probably need some reference photos. When you find your reference photos, make certain that they are either ones you've taken yourself or are copyright free with no usage restrictions, or you can land in a deep pile of trouble. Then, grab Photoshop's pen tool and start outlining the shapes from your reference.