Speed Paint Tutorial
Because people seem to think it's hard oO Honestly, it's all just conveniently placed scribbles, maybe a few gradients, but that's it. Nothing detailed or complicated at all =D
This is the picci I'll be working off of, a photo I took of the Murray River a few years ago. Feel free to nick it and draw it yourself, I don't mind =3
Step one, slap down your base colour. Look at the photo and decide what the main colour of the picture is. A forest will be some dark shade of green, a savanna will be some dusty shade of brown. Here, we've got the bright blue sky, muddy brown river and dark green trees. Start by filling the background layer with flat colour for the river, then create a new layer for the sky. Standard cloudless blue sky is always much paler towards the horizon--very close to white in this picture. To create a nicely rounded, almost framed picture, take a slightly deeper shade of blue and add a hint of gradient to each corner, following the handy red arrows there.
Voila, base colour =D
My standard brush setup, whee. I like to use a nice sketchy brush, usually one of the three circled and most often the smallest of the three. The dynamics of the brush are what give it a more organic feel, especially the angle jitter, which rotates the brush every time it prints itself onto the surface. Then there are some other tablety controls that are lovely. And stuff.
Don't ever be tempted to use the easy way out brushes, especially the grass and leaf-shaped ones. Yes, they may look spiffy and create exactly the effect you're after, but they are so very tacky. Everyone who's used Photoshop before will know those brushes and know that you've taken the easy route, maybe not such a big deal in a speed paint, but you don't want to get into the habit =x
Okay, so on a new layer, using the biggest of the three brushes (this thing's at 100%, no zooming or anything, so that brush is plenty big enough), splash on some base colour for the trees. No specific form, no shading, just the basic dull, yellow-green. I used the smaller of the three sketchy brushes for the reeds, just lightly swishing over the edge of the trees and the river.
Like I say, convenient scribbles \m/ Not swirls or zigzags or anything that fancy, just scribbles. This is with the smaller sketchy brush again. The key here is not to start going into detail just yet; you're only planting down shading for the moment. Build up from the base. Each layer of colour you splash on is a base for the next. Technically, this whole thing could go on to be something highly detailed and finished, but you stop after half an hour before it gets that far. Either way, it's all just scribbles.
Oh, and I used the eyedropper to get the colours so perfect. Using the paintbrush, Alt+left click is your friend <3
Starting with the trees on a new layer, get a harder-edged brush, turn off the 'other dynamics' in your brushes panel, and start doodling branches. Something I've found with the tablet, and I don't know if this is the same for others, but it does the opposite to what I naturally do with a pencil. With a pencil, I start with the thickest, darkest spot and taper to a point. With the tablet, tapering seems to work better if I start at the tip and press harder towards the base. Same with hair, grass, tree branches or whatever else. I dunno, maybe it's just me.
Continuing on with craggy bits of dead tree until it looks good enough. It doesn't matter if the branches don't meet up with the trunk. It's just sketchy and fun =3
Trees~ complete with stumps in the water. Trees are fun with all their gnarly bits.
To shade the trees (or highlight them, in this case), lock the layer by checking the little checkered box in the layer window. This locks the transparency so that when you colour, you don't go 'outside the lines' as it were. Back with the sketchy size 14 brush, throw some light on the appropriate sides of the branches and tree trunks.
Moving back to the background layer, which as you remember is filled with muddy water, get a darker shade of the mud and add shadows and reflections of the trees where you see fit. This is the kind of thing that gives the water life =D
Sparkles~ on the river. Just a whole lot of long, swishy strokes with a colour only slightly lighter than the base river colour. Remember not to keep them a uniform thickness all over the river. A higher density of highlights around the centre give the impression of where the sun might be overhead.
I forgot the reeds at the front there, so added them on top of the dead trees. Same technique again, a bigger brush for the base green, then a few darker and lighter vertical strokes (with the brush down to 7 pixels or so) to give the impression of reeds. No grass brushes to be seen here!
Using that slightly smaller brush of 6 or 7 pixels, more scribbling on the trees in the background. Again, no patterns or details, just scribbles. Keep in mind where the sun is, though, and you can give the trees form by sort of bulging the lighter patches out towards it.
There's a little more swishy 6-pixel-detail on the background reeds, here, too. I just forgot to point them out with red, but you can see that. Nothing fancy, just long swishes.
Final touches on the trees in the background, we can give them trunks. Sticking with the same sketchy 6-pixel brush, add a few sticks at the base of the scribbles, then scribble over them a bit with more green so they blend in. Again, don't space them evenly, because unless this is a planted garden, trees don't grow like that.
Sign, date and title, and you're done! Half an hour of scribbling and you've got a lovely little drawing of the Murray. Told you it was easy ^.~