Alright so today, we're going to learn how to transform a blurry illustration
into a more sharp illustration, and add some really important edges, some key
edges on our illustration. And I'm going to show you a few tricks to do those.
Hi guys! Today I want to show you a little bit about hard edges and soft edges,
and how to play with them to make sure that you have some really nice illustrations.
I see a problem sometimes on a painting that I see from my student, and the problem is
they're missing a little bit of sharpness. They're missing some edges on their
painting. And I just want to demonstrate that on a painting that I'm painting right
now. Right now, you can see on the left side that's my painting where I
am right now. It's not done, but and that's where I am right now.
You see that there's a little bit more sharpness to it, and here I softened up the whole thing
just to show my point today. And basically, what's missing on the
right, is all those small hard edges that will help your eye to actually read
the illustration. And those edges are really important. That's the harmony of
your painting. That's where you're going to read it.
That's how your eye is going to move on painting. If you have like what we have on the
right--something too soft, then
well I'm already drawn to the eye right away. Which is a good point, because
it's a portrait right now, so to be drawn to the eye is good. But I'm missing so
much information that the rest is boring. I want to have those little
imperfections, little edges everywhere that show the form of the face,
as much as just little details of the illustration. And to do so, I'm just going
to use two tools: I'm going to use the soft round brush, and I'm going to use the
hard edge brush. And I'm going to mix those two between the eraser and brush.
So right now, I had like on the brush, if i switch to eraser, then I'll be able to actually get
hard edges and soft edges at the same time, and the opposite is valid as well.
So using those tools only, we're going to bring back those edges on this illustration.
Ok so here, the first thing I'm going to do is I'm going to create a new layer,
and I just want to show you.
So the details that I want to bring back, the edges I want to bring back, depend on
the subject. Now when it comes to a portrait, the way to know where to put
them is easy. You just have to imagine your whole subject in geometric shapes.
So let's say here I got the nose, I would do this, and I got the eye like this, and
then I got the eyebrows like this, and I know that here I'm going to have the brow ridge,
makes the connection with the nose and the bone structure here.
And all these can be drawn as hard edges. Now I don't have to do all of them. What I'm going to
do is I'm going to choose the one that I want. So I'm going to create a new layer
first, and like I said I'm going to use, for starters only, the soft and the hard edge brush.
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna create here fold under the eye here. So I'm on a new layer, and I'm just going to take some
brown here and I'm going to paint with my soft brush under here.
And right now I'm doing with my soft brush, you see that I don't
care about this part. It's only the parts here that I care about. Because now I'm
going to take my hard edge eraser, and I'm gonna go carve the shape that I want.
Just like that.
And it's going to bring back that hard edge that I was missing.
Now, it's pretty rough. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take the
soft round brush as an eraser now, and I'm just going to erase a few parts.
And that way, I've been able to just bring back that edge!
I'm going to do that same thing for the eyebrow here. So for the eyebrow what I'm going to do is I'm
going to take the hard edged brush I'm going to try to carve a hard edge here.
And we created a new layer, and what I'm going to do here, see I'm going to paint, and just
like that, I have a hard edged brush. But what it did here is I can really see the strokes
here. And that's not really what I want. So I got a better trick for that.
I'm gonna delete this, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to use the lasso tool. So we're
gonna use the lasso tool, which we can find lasso tool right here, and what I'm going to do is
I'm going to just draw the line that I want,
and make a bubble like this, And I'm going to use the soft round brush,
and I'm going to paint on this like that. And I'm going to deselect. Now you can see I've
been able to actually have that hard edge and I wanted to, but I don't have the
stroke that I created with the soft round brush, because the soft round brush will
give me a gradient each time. So now I brought back those two things, I'll do
the same thing for the nose here.
So what I'm going to do I'm going to use again the lasso tool, and I'm just going to paint.
Sorry I'm gonna going to trace the contour the nose, and I'm going to use the
soft round brush, and pick up the color here, to finish the edge. And what I'm
gonna do is I'm going to invert this one. So right now you can see that I'm not
painting outside of it. So I'm going to invert it and I'm gonna do COM + SHIFT + I,
and you didn't see anything chang, but now you see I can paint only
on the opposite side. And what I'm going to do is I'm gonna pick the color of the nose here, and
I'm just gonna paint like this on the outside. And when we deselect, you'll see that it
brought me back to a really hard edge now, which is perfect.
I'll do the same thing for the nostril. I'm going to take this here, and just draw the nostril like this.
I will take a dark color, fit it in, and i'm going to go outside. Actually I'm going to deselect
this one, and what I'm going to do is I'm just going to paint I think the skin
here, with the soft round brush, and I'm just going to come and paint a little bit like this,
mixing the brushes. And that way, it's going to bring me that
softness when mixed with the hard edge, to bring back that nostril.
Now you can see that my lines would still need some work, but I've been able
to start from something that was totally blurry, to bring back just those edges
that will help me read my illustration.
And that's it for today, guys! I hope you find that helpful.
If you like what you see, feel free to like, share, or comment below this video.
I also have another link--this link for you to watch.
It's a video that I've been doing on four different ways to render that could
absolutely help you when you render your next portrait.
And until then... Happy Painting!