Sketchy Saturday: Fail Whale
I love Saturdays! My buddy Stephen Way gave me an idea to sketch out the Fail Whale for this week’s video. I thought it’d be interesting to try sketching what his father looks like, since I love drawing mustaches so much.
0:11: When drawing a cartoon character, an easy way to make them look silly or super happy is to place the character’s eyes close to the mouth. Spread the mouth very wide and have the eyes sit just above the ends of the mouth. Leave a large forehead. This might make the character look retarded, but also makes them look very happy.
0:38: Experimenting around with a monocle. Important note: I didn’t do any research before this sketch on how to draw monocles (which I should have if I thought I was going to include it) and I felt like I couldn’t get the look right with a whale’s body. I’m positive if I research this beforehand, I could have gotten the look right.
1:00: Made a copy of the sketch layer I was working on and tried using the blur tool to experiment around with underwater effects. I liked the look, but figured I’d wait until I have the shading finished to add the effects and went back to my original layer.
1:14: Start the shading. I used a big default Photoshop brush, set to 30% opacity. The first couple layers of shading are always pretty crude and too dark but I’ll fix that later.
1:29: Using white at this point to work from the light areas back into the dark.
1:32: Using the eyedropper tool to pick up areas of color on the sketch and then brushing over them at 50% opacity to get the shading to blend more.
1:54: Tried adding a vest or shirt to the whale and possibly a pocket watch. didn’t really work out, so I ditched it.
2:23: Adding color to the sky on a layer behind the whale sketch. Note that the shading of the whale is on the same layer as the linework for the whale, so parts of whale color blue since the entire whale hasn’t been filled in yet.
2:39: Using the blur tool and the smudge tool to mess with the whale to simulate an underwater effect. The coloring of the water is on a separate layer above the sketchy lines.
3:02: Adding some streaks of shading to the water to create a shadow from the whale’s form blocking out sunlight.
3:30: Finishing touch: adding a vignette to the sketch. I made a new curves adjustment layer. Using curves, I darkened the whole piece. Then, I clicked on the layer mask of the curves layer (the little white box to the right of the layer) and, using the brush tool, starting painting black into it. To understand how a layer mask works in Photoshop, just remember that wherever the layer is white, 100% of that layer will show and wherever it’s black none of that layer will show. All the shades of grey are applying different amounts of that layer to the piece. So when I paint black into the curves layer, I’m taking away it’s effect from the piece. I painted black at 50% opacity with a soft edge into the center, leaving the sketch brighter in the middle and darker and more saturated on the edges.
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5 Responses to “Sketchy Saturday: Fail Whale”
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Haha this is so comical. I like how you comment on your drawing process (I have much to learn from you).
I love how you added the blurry effect of the water. Nice touch. You rock Dan!
I think it would be very cool if you could teach us your techniques on how to create a character on Photoshop. Great video by the way =)
really, really cool. thanks for sharing that. nice technique with the vignette, too! really made the whole piece pop a bit.
lol nice job i like it.