Using Photoshop to build alpha channels, friskets and the anatomical features of freshwater fish in digital paintings

Note: These projects were painted completely using only a mouse, software and a Power PC Macintosh computer in 1999. No digital tablet was invlived.

In Tutorial 002a we completed explaining the groundwork of importing guidelines and using them as alpha channels or “friskets” to spray color and patterns on isolated layers, building the skin anatomy and color.

Illustration 09 shows much of this work. Each fish painting in this series went through this initial phase of body work before fin and scale texture was added. As you study this screen shot remember that there are separate layers for everything you’re seeing. The original background blend (silhouette) is the first layer, see the LAYERS window that I’ve included. The “middle painting” contains the soft vertical stripes, subtle and transparent. The “overpainting” layer contains airbrushed or painted shadows that make up the face anatomy, plate-like structures. These were all painted using the alpha channels (refer to Illustration 11 for an example of these alpha channels) created by selecting the many “closed areas” created in Illustrator while “tracing” the fish’s features and turning them into closed windows to paint into. NOW you see the importance of making each area closed while still in Illustrator. It provides the “friskets,” or closed shapes which can be made active and INVERSED shapes as need to control hard and soft edges when painting. This is a very powerful technique and I use it profusely both with the PAINTBRUSH tool and the ERASER tool. I also manipulate transparency amongst the layers to essentially blend them like watercolors for my desired result. I also click on and off the imported guideline layers to keep control of my work. I never paint on these layers, I just use them like a map as reference.

Looking through the chicken wire

The time has come to IMPORT the scales guidelines, created several days ago, from the Illustrator files folder. The LAYERS window included in Illustration 10 tells you a lot about what I’ve just done. (I’ve even imported the side fin layers, but more about that later.) You’ll note that I have my layers visible or invisible according to what I want to see at a given time. This screen shot gives you a good idea of how the project looks when you add the scale guidelines and place them over the work done so far. Illustration 11 shows you what I do next, activating the face anatomy alpha channels as I need them as selections, I use the ERASER tool to erase or TRIM the areas of scale guidelines I won’t need, using a soft edge just like a paint brush that removes instead of adds on. I do this editing over the entire image.

The rubber stamp custom brush TOOL

Now fun part begins, the part that prompted thousands of Emails to my web site asking me how I did this. Well, here it is!

In a new small document window about two inches square I traced the size and shape of typical scales within the illustration I’m currently working on, using the PEN tool. See Illustration 12a. I saved this as a working PATH for future reference. I converted this PATH into a SELECTION on a transparent layer (very important). I then took a large PAINTBRUSH and black foreground color and painted just over the upper portion of this little scale shaped selection. Still selected I turned this into a custom BRUSH shape and it was added to my brush palette of choices. I re-sized this graphic and made several custom “scale highlight” brushes of various sizes

Then I created a new LAYER entitled “scale highlights.” Then, choosing a white foreground color with about a 50% transparency, set at “screen” for affect, with the scale guideline grid visible, I “stamped my scale highlights into each scale position.

There are some wonderful discoveries about Photoshop’s painting abilities happening here. First, custom brushes CAN be transparent. This means you can paint shapes with graduated tones. Secondly, instead of stroking the custom brush you just CLICK in place. After doing about five of these you feel like a magician!

The next great illusional trick is this: I duplicated the edited “scale guideline” layer. Remember, I erased all of the unneeded scales, softly. I made the original layer invisible. I NUDGED the new layer a couple pixels to the right and a couple pixels down. I blurred this layer just slightly. I made it 60% transparent with an affect of “multiply.” And, presto, all of the scales now have shadows and look 3D. Illustration 13 shows this early success with the blotches overpainting layers made invisible. They are BENEATH the scale highlights layer! This technique is continued over the entire fish, adjusting brush sizes as you go. If you look carefully into Illustration 14 you’ll notice that I also did something else that adds more realism and lighting. I created a second custom brush shape and added a slightly orange highlight to the front edge of all of the scales toward the front half of the fish’s body, as if reflecting some far off light. It’s a small thing, but what a difference. ALL of the scale work is kept transparent so that the skin colors and patterns previously painted show through. It is the combination of all of these layers that makes this painting so effective and eye catching. Once you learn this technique there’s no limit to brush shapes and highlights you can add for your own dramatic affect.

The rest is just hours of labor. Using the many techniques I’ve described above the work of detailing the fins, blotches, patterns and scales goes on. It is worth noting, I suppose, that at this phase of development, no attempt whatsoever was made to add lighting or shadow to the illustration. Eye colors, for example, were drawn but not highlighted. All of this is determined by whatever environment the fish is in. The eye does not have a bright white spot on its own. The fins remain semi transparent as well to acommodate the background. In Tutorial 003 I place some of my fish into a pond environment where I add highlights, change there entire color scheme, create shadows and more. Take a look!

GALLERY - Fish Paintings

Created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop combined:

Species illustrated include:
Largemouth Bass, Carp, Smallmouth Bass, Pumpkinskin Sunfish, Walleye, Striped Bass, Black Crappie, Grass Pickerel, Yellow Perch, Spotted Bass, White Crappie, Bluegill, Sauger Fish, Red-breasted Sunfish, Northern Pike, Great Lakes Muskie,  White Bass.