Learn to Composite a 2D Action Shot in Photoshop

The first thing students will learn in this course is exploring initial designs to use for the rest of the project, as well as tips about reference to makes designs more believable. After the initial design stage, topics like rough posing of characters and rough thumbnailing of compositions will be covered. After a large number of poses and thumbnails have been generated, we’ll be combining our favourite thumbs into a final composition plan. This will be blown up and used for our composition’s rough pass. After the rough, we’ll be getting in-depth with final lineart, discussing how to use overlap and line weight to suggest depth. After the final lines have been completed, we’ll be finishing off our composition with a tonal pass to show atmospheric perspective and basic lighting. Shadows and effects will complete the piece, which can be left as is or taken further into colouring/painting stages. Additional topics covered throughout the course will include basic anatomy, the rule of thirds, making characters more appealing and believable by considering personality and contrast, as well as some Photoshop tips and tricks to make drawing easier, and an explanation of some basic formats and ratios to use in compositions for film or sequential art.

(Students - please look under Section 1 / Lecture 1 downloads for the source files associated with the lesson.)

More about the Instructor:

Colin is a recent graduate of Sheridan’s Animation program, now working in Toronto as a storyboard, layout and concept artist. He's also worked for game development studios like BDA Entertainment in the past. Colin also enjoy doing my own personal work, including 3D modeling, texturing and rendering, IP development, world-building, storytelling, concept art and sequential illustration. Colin has aspirations of building and running his own animation and game development studio one day.