Drawing Digital Comics – How to Draw Batman Tutorial – Part Three
Hi folks! I’m going to finish off this ‘How to Draw Batman’ tutorial with some colour and effects. If you’ve completed the steps in part one and part two of this tutorial, you’ll remember that we left off with our Caped Crusader stoically standing with Gotham in the background. Once we’ve finalized the details and added our colors and effects, you’ll be well on your way to drawing comics of your own, perhaps some fan-fiction with Batman!
Let’s continue from where we left off.
We’re going to start the color process by inserting our flat color areas – the process of ‘flatting.’ This can be done in a number of different ways. I’ll show you the method I prefer. You may have your own methods that work better for you – there’s no right or wrong way. You can adapt a variety of different styles in order to improve your workflow. It’s all about being precise and efficient and making a quality image.
Creating your Flats
The first step to coloring your artwork involves the use of filling your areas with flat color. Start by creating a new layer, below your inked work, but above your cutout layer.
Next, CTRL-Click (Cmd-Click for Mac) on your cutout layer in order to select all of Batman, and no background elements.
Next, enter the Select > Modify > Contract dialog box. Enter 2 pixels.
Select a shade of blue grey.
Fill your selection with this color.
Erase away any of the color in the exposed facial area, eyes, chest symbol and belt.
Your layer should look something like this.
Create a new layer directly underneath your first Flats layer. This will be an ‘underpainting‘ layer.
Paint Batman’s face with a nice, even skin tone.
Proceed to paint in the chest symbol and the belt. I chose yellow, since it was a standard look for him. You can use whatever color you like.
Developing Forms with Shadow
Return to your first flats layer, and select a color of blue-grey that is a bit darker than the first one you selected. We are now going to paint in some colored shadows.
Paint in the areas where shadows would fall – your first indicator is where your solid pools of inked black appear. Paint areas near these pools of black with the darker shade of the base flat color.
Fill in areas around the cowl, musculature, gauntlets, cape, etc. This darkened color is the first layer of applied color you will be using to create depth.
Follow the same technique with the symbol and belt, on the layer below. Choose a darker shade of your colors and apply them in a fashion that resembles a shadow being cast over that color.
Now, repeat the process again with a second set of darker colors. This time, shortening and refining your darker colors so they’re closer to the pools of black from your inks. This shading will create an additional level of form in your drawing. You can repeat this step as many times as you feel comfortable with.
Fill in your darker areas based on the proper Flat layer.
Continue this step with your skin tones, and the rest of the items (chest symbol, belt).
You can see the forms beginning to build and take shape.
Adding Highlights
Now we’re going to add to those forms with the use of light. Create a new layer above your Flats, and call it Highlights.
Set this layer to ‘Color Dodge.’
In your color picker, select a tone of grey which is near the brighter end of the scale. This will serve as our base highlight.
With your paint brush, quickly create swaths and brushstrokes in areas where the form would be at its highest point in relief, or the brightest spot where the light would hit it.
You may have a figure that resembles this.
In the Filter menu, select Blur > Gaussian Blur
In the dialog settings for Radius, select something like 15 - enough of a blur that will remove all the hard edges you painted.
On your Tool palette, select the Smudge Tool. We will be using this to sweep the edges of our blurred highlights.
Select a brush with soft edges, make sure the brush mode is set to Normal, and turn down the strength of the tool to half way, otherwise, when you begin to smudge, you will be smearing more than smudging due to the pressure applied.
Carefully sweep along the edges of the blurred highlights, bringing them outwards and extending the edges of the blur slightly. Don’t overwork the highlights. This effect takes a bit of practice – it is similar to fingerpainting. You can achieve the same effect through airbrushing, but I find this method quicker and it allows me more artistic control.
Next, create a new layer above your Highlight layer for the additional highlights. Much like the shadows you built up in the flats layer, we will be doing the same thing with these highlights. Using a lighter shade of grey, make smaller marks on top of the areas you have recently blurred.
Set this second highlight layer effect to ‘Screen,’ and turn the values down to 80% Opacity and 80% Fill.
Re-apply the same blur that you did with the first highlight layer.
Effects & Mood
Now we will create a new layer for Effects. Place this layer above everything else.
Using your lasso tool, create a series of selections that look like wisps of smoke – for an example, look at the image below.
Fill the area with a solid white.
Apply a Gaussian Blur – enough to make the white fills appear like wisps of mist.
Now for the finishing touches. Create a new layer above your effects layer, called Overlay. This is going to be a flat color overlay that will add to the mood of the piece by cooling it down and making the dark areas deeper.
Fill this layer with a deep blue.
Set the layer to ‘Multiply.’ Adjust the opacity levels and fill to your liking. You don’t want the final image to be too blue, but you also want enough color in there to enhance the overall image.
…and voila! The completed piece! You’ve made it to the end, and you’ve picked up some fine techniques for making your own Batman images.
I hope this series of tutorials has helped you in your drawing, inking and coloring progress. Stay tuned for more tutorials from idrawdigital, featuring other methods for creating your favorite characters. If you have any suggestions on tutorials for characters you’d like to try, drop me a line and I’ll build them as quickly as possible! See you next time!
