Online course for digital painting – Andrew Hou

Posted On 21 Sep 2016

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If you’re interested in learning about digital painting, consider checking out the 8 lesson Introduction to Digital Painting course that I’m teaching at Schoolism!

Outside of HJ-Story, I’m also a freelance artist doing illustrations, concept art, as well as teaching online at schoolism.com. Up until now, I kept my other professional art stuff separate from my HJ-Story project, but over the last few years, aside from the emails from awesome supporters regarding HJ-Story, I’ve also received quite a lot of email from many that were interested in art and digital painting. I thought to take the time to let everyone know about my Intro. to Digital Painting course over that I’ve been teaching for 4+ years.

The goal of this course is to give students an introductory-level understanding of the tools and methodology needed to begin painting digitally in Photoshop. I will talk about how to use layers and create textures, as well as his techniques for achieving realistic colors and lighting. If you’d like to start painting digitally, this course will get you started on the right path!

There’re also many other amazing course from various other teachers, so don’t forget to check them out as well! Schoolism has recently introduced a new low price monthly subscription program which makes their courses affordable for everyone ^__^

If you have any questions, you can email schoolism directly at info@schoolism.com, or you can always email me and I’ll try my best to help as well!

For more detail, I’ve included the course summary and lesson plan below (the info also available at Schoolism page)

Lesson 1 - Basic Tools
In my first lecture, I will talk about the basic tools that Photoshop has to offer and examine how to use them to paint digitally, along with a demonstration of each. We will look at the brush tool in detail, explain what each setting does, and my own personal technique for using it to create an initial sketch. For your first assignment, you will be asked to take an existing pencil drawing that you did and reproduce it in Photoshop.
Lesson 2 - Light and Shadow
In this lesson, we'll look more closely at light and shadow, and how the proper handling (or MIShandling) of this element can make or break a piece. For your assignment, you will be asked to apply light and shadow to different shapes to make them feel three dimensional. You will also be asked to light your sketch from assignment 1 from different angles.
Lesson 2 - Light and Shadow
In this lesson, we'll look more closely at light and shadow, and how the proper handling (or MIShandling) of this element can make or break a piece. For your assignment, you will be asked to apply light and shadow to different shapes to make them feel three dimensional. You will also be asked to light your sketch from assignment 1 from different angles.
Lesson 3 - Layers and Black & White Coloring Method
Now, we'll get into another major advantage to painting digitally: layers. I will talk about the many different ways we can use layers to work more quickly and efficiently. This will be followed by a demonstration of how to color a rendered black and white sketch using layer effects. For your assignment, you will be asked to create a black and white rendered sketch and then use layers to complete a color drawing of a simple object.
Lesson 4 - Coloring (Cell Shading)
Cell shading is a common coloring method in CG that is heavily dependent on the placement of light and shadow. We will spend this lesson examining cell shading techniques, with extensive demonstrations on the various methods I will discuss. For your assignment, you will be asked to cell shade a drawing that will be provided for you.
Lesson 5 - Color Mixing and Painting
In this lecture, I will talk about the ways in which we can mix colors, such as the eyedropper, airbrush, and using paint strokes. With this, we will take what was taught in lessons 3 and 4 and build upon it. For your assignment, you will be asked to take a drawing that will be provided for you and colorize it in a painterly style.
Lesson 6 - Custom Brushes
In this lesson, I will talk about how to make custom brushes in Photoshop, discuss different types of custom brushes, and how to use them in various situations. I will cover how to make a custom painting brush, a stamp-type brush, brushes from photos, effects brush, etc. I will guide you through all the settings in custom brush-making so that you will be able to make a brush for any situation. For your assignment, you will create one or two brushes from each brush category, and do a simple drawing using brushes from all categories. Optional: if you include your brush files with your assignment, I will also look at it and critique it in my response.
Lesson 7 - Background, Scene, and Mood
In this lesson, we'll look at painting simple environments. We will talk about compositions and different techniques to combine layer effects and colorizing techniques to establish scenes and mood in backgrounds. For your assignment, you will be asked to paint do multiple simple scene for a character of your choice or the ones from previous assignment and show how different scene and mood can be created by playing with the the lighting, contrast, colors, compositions, etc.
Lesson 8 - Combination
My final lectures will be an extensive demonstration of how I sketch, color, and place a character within a simple background using all of the techniques that I have taught here. For your assignment, you will be asked to create a character in a background, both of similar complexity as mine, from sketch to finish, applying the appropriate lighting, colors, textures, etc.