nazSTUFF - Digital Fish Paintings 03

Rascal Inquires, " If You Are Not Concerned About the Future, Then You Haven't Been Paying Attention." This, then is our advertising campaign, to contribute to your well being.

Digital Fish Paintings _ 03

Using Illustrator outlines to build alpha channels, friskets and the anatomical features of freshwater fish as digital paintings in Photoshop

Note: These projects were painted completely using only a mouse, software and a Power PC Macintosh computer in 1999. No digital tablet was involved.

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Cookie Cutter Shapes... and their value:

The next big tip to share, and its use, is a major part of the technique used here, its the creation of many alpha channels, created from the MAGIC WAND selections of the open areas within the imported keylines. These “windows” become “friskets” which provide control when sparaying color or erasing color from the image. Illustration 06a shows this selection process as a light gray.

The first example of this use is in Illustration 07 along the gill slit. I’ve airbrushed a highlight that has a soft edge and a hard edge. This is accomplished by using the alpha channel created in Illustration 06a. Activating this channel as a SELECTION, turned invisible with COMMAND-H, and then used to do painting on the appropriate LAYER, allows for an intermixing of colors and shapes that form the final composite.

ALL of the face anatomy and fin detail was painted using this technique.

Illustration 07 shows the use of this process and Illustration 08 shows the affect with the keylines and channel turned OFF. Illustration 08 also shows the beginning modeling of the lips using this same technique. The lip shape was selected on the keyline layer, as visible in Illustration 07, SAVED as a new channel, activated as a selection, and painted into on a painting layer. The eye detail was done the same way. See Tutorial 002b for a picture of this step completed on the face.

This completes the first half of the Photoshop portion of this tutorial. In the next chapter I expose all the secrets behind my 3D fish scales.

Gallery of Game Fish Paintings:

Here's a snapshot of the entire collection of digital fish in this collection.

Species illustrated above include: Largemouth Bass, Carp, Smallmouth Bass, Pumpkinskin Sunfish, Walleye, Striped Bass, Black Crappie, Grass Pickerel, Yellow Perch, Spotted Bass, White Crappie, Bluegill, Sauger Fish, Red-breasted Sunfish, Northern Pike, Great Lakes Muskie, White Bass. This was the major portion of my digital painting project. These mages are now available as reproductions and gift imprints of many forms.

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Enjoy these digital fish paintings... CLICK on thumbnail for more info. Featuring Rainbow Trout, Black and White Crappie, Striped Bass (Striper), Walleye, Northern Pike, Blue Gill, Yellow Perch and a Large-mouth Bass, all created using these digital tools... Illustrator (vector) and Photoshop (raster).

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Official USPS Fish Postage Stamps

Fishing Stamps selection includes Yellow Perch, Bluegill, Walleye, Striped Bass (Striper), Large Mouth Bass, Rainbow Trout, Black Crappie, White Crappie and Red-breasted Sunfish. Other products also available.

More Info is on our BLOG