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Tutorial: Master painting in Illustrator

Wednesday 03 Dec 2008

Transform your sketches into stunning textured artworks.


Transforming your sketches into detailed, textured digital paintings takes time and patience – but the ability to magic up a scene and create it with flair is a key skill for any digital artist.

In this great tutorial, Patrick Auletto shows you how to develop a piece from a pencil sketch into a richly-coloured, stunning painting. The key to creating this type of illustration is to think of your document as a blank canvas, ready for paint.

By overlapping several layers of highlights and shadow, you’ll create the illusion of depth. Throughout the tutorial, you should be experimenting with layer transparencies to find the look that works for you.


01. In a new Illustrator document, go File > Place and select drawing. jpg from the cover CD. This is a sketch I created; you’ll see that it has a number of different elements. Create and label new layers for each key item in the illustration, as this will save you time later on. In the Swatches panel, click on the corner tab and select Open Swatches Library. Select one or more of these colour options – this will give you quick access to your colour palette.


02. Use either the Pencil or Pen tool to trace the basic elements in your artwork, putting each element in its separate layer. The Pen tool is great for tracing objects such as the glass, liquid, and bottle, whereas the Pencil excels with the more free flowing shapes likes flames. Fill each item with colours from your Swatches palette. Once you trace out an element, lower the transparency of your object so that you can still see the sketch.

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Tip

Double-click on the Pencil tool to bring up the options for adjusting preferences such as Fidelity and Smoothness. It’s important to experiment with different setting until you find one that feels appropriate. Practice drawing abstract shapes, which overlap in the image. By adjusting the transparencies of these overlaid objects, you can add dimension to the shade.


Who: Based in the US, Patrick Auletto is an illustrator, designer and teacher who specializes in teaching traditional and digital illustration techniques to college students. Auletto is also a prepress professional, and spends his free time freelancing on everything from Web design to editorial illustrations.
Contact: http://patrickauletto.com
Software: Adobe Illustrator CS3
Time to complete: 3-6 hours
On the CD: All files for this tutorial can be downloaded here or are available on the cover CD.