A Watercolor and Line Drawing Ink Effect

A Watercolor and
Line Drawing Ink Effect by Nomeradona
This tutorial is not about rendering but how to compose a watercolor and ink effect using a few simple steps. I am using a
rendered image in order to add depth, particularly on some main areas. I use a couple of styles and V-Ray for a render
image in some of the steps.
Step 1
Here is the set up. When doing a mixed media image its very important to save the camera view by creating a scene as
shown in the image below.
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Step 1
Step 2
Next we introduce some styles. Here I am using two styles, the first one created by Xia QiCong, called Pencil on Light
Brown, found in your Styles folder under Style Builder Competition Winners. I then export this 2D graphic in jpeg format.
Step 2
Step 3
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Repeat the same process using this second style created by Mark Paschke called Pencil Edges With Whiteout Border also
found in your Styles folder under Style Builder Competition Winners. Here is a link on how to find those two styles if you are
not sure.
Step 3
Step 4
Render image In this particular tutorial I used V-Ray and I also used a nice plug-in called Camera Sync by Thomas
Thomassen (AKA thomthom). Here is a screen grab that shows the sync between SketchUp and V-Ray camera shown in
the image below.
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Step 4
Step 5
This is a quick V-Ray render. At this stage I am not really interested about how realistic the drawing is. My interest is using
the area of the glass to add depth. I used V-Ray because of its easiness on making the background transparent especially
when you save it in Png format.
Step 5
Step 6
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The next step is bringing everything into Photoshop or similar photo editing software. If you copy and paste the images they
should line up accurately.The rendered image is placed on the very top layer, the idea is to make it slightly transparent and
double check to see if the lines are all matching up.
Step 6
Step 7
Once the lines are matched up I re-arranged the layers, the Pencil Edges With Whiteout Border at the very bottom, the
rendered image in between and the top layer is the Pencil With Brown Paper. Set the blending mode of the two layers to
Multiply.
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Step 7
Step 8
The opacity of the two top layers has been decreased to around 80%. And Mask has been used to remove some areas and
to reveal some of the layer below using a Soft Brush. Here is more on the preference of how much area I need to retain.
Step 8
Step 9
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Working on the background next. I have a lot of watercolor images I saved over time and I took this one from my library. I
actually dont remember who did this one, but it suits this project. I inserted this on the very top layer. Sidney Porobics (AKA
Sepo) crosshatch Pencil Overlay technique gave me an idea on this approach of using an actual watercolor image.
Step 9
Step 10
With Opacity set to 90% on the watercolor layer, I use Mask again to reveal areas I want.
Step 10
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Step 11
In this step I flattened the whole image. The last remaining step is all about preference. In this image I use a filter to achieve
a different effect. Lets say I want a blue filter, all you have to do is follow the settings in the image below. Here I used two
Deep Blue photo-filters one with Density set at 95% on the bottom one and the upper photo-filter set at 25%
Density(Preserve Luminosity is checked).
Step 11
Here is my final output with some curve adjustment.
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Final Image
Here are some more photo-filter variations on selected areas only.
Filter Variation
Filter Variation
I hope you have found this tutorial useful and I hope you can adopt it into your daily workflow.
Cheers
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Nomeradona
nomeradona.wordpress.com
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