Behind the monsters

Ninja April 20th, 2007

Ninja says
Hallo, hallo! I hope you’re enjoying your mornings. A few friendly folks have asked about the monsters’ origins, so I’m going to show you the steps behind the monsters. Meet the latest monster, blot number 7. His name is Ralph; I named him after a wonderful Art Director I used to work with.

monster-step_1.png

I recommend starting off w/ a pencil sketch, scanning it in, then using it as a guide. I, um, don’t do that though (I’d like to, but there’s that whole problem of not always having access to a scanner). Using the pen tool in Illustrator, I draw the central body first and then expand from there.

monster-step_2.png

Look, now she’s got legs and wellies!

monster-step_3.png

Add the head.

monster-step_4.png

Then throw in an arm for good measure.

monster-step_5.png
Using Illustrator’s pen tool, draw a curved line. Open the stroke pallette, set the line’s stroke to 4 points and select the option to have curved corners on your stroke.

monster-step_6.png

Using the pen tool, draw the umbrella top. Oh, and draw a lil’ wellie for your monster! Oh, It’s a lil’ late in the game, but I should mention that you should use layers. Draw elements on different layers, and lock layers when they’re not in use. This way you can move elements around without affecting the ones on the layers underneath them. Also, label your layers! This is key for when you go back to your document to edit it. It takes the guesswork out of figuring what item is on what layer. You can also color code your layers (right click) and assign the color. This way you can have all the “girl” layers one color and the “umbrella” layers another color. You can also stick layers into folder sets, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
monster-step_7.png

Add a cyan background color so the elements pop.
monster-step_8.png

Save your file, open it in Photoshop to rasterize it. This is now your background layer.

Select the monster’s wellie using the magic wand tool. Hit apple + j to duplicate it onto another layer. Use the move tool to move it up and over to the left. Then hit apple + e to merge this layer down with the background layer.
On another layer, use the paintbrush tool to draw in the hair (I normally draw the hair in Illustrator, but I was kind of lazy this time and did it in Photoshop).

monster-step_9.png

Now open the blot supplied by Stefan. Hit apple + a to select all. Copy and paste into your working document. It will appear on a new layer. Go to edit > transform > scale to shirk it down. Select “multiply” from your layer pallette’s blending mode. This will make the blot’s white background appear transparent over the cyan color. It’ll save you the trouble of silhouetting this complex shape.

monster-step_10.png

Using the paintbrush tool, draw in the little fellow.

monster-step_11.png

Assesorize him. Give him some additional rain gear (still using the paintbrush tool, just with a different color).

monster-step_12.png

Draw in some ears.

monster-step_13.png

Print out what you’ve got so far. Place a piece of tracing paper over it. Using a black sharpie, write the words. Have some onomatopoeia fun—I used “plick,” “plock,” “drip,” and “drop” alternating. Scan it in (I was at work, so I was able to use the scanner there. I started the vector part at home last nite, so no scanner access). Adjust the brightness and contrast (if needed). Hit apple + i to inverse the image. Copy and paste this into your working document. It will appear on a new layer. Move it to the desired position. Select the “screen” blending mode for this layer, and it will appear as knock out type.

open-source-monster-07.png

And here’s the final image. Enjoy! =)

Feel free to ask questions or comment. I’d love to hear from you! Comment on the blog or write me at Ninja [at] ninjavspenguin [dot] com.

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