Lets Draw! Japanese Food

Bring your sketchbooks and pencils; it’s time for a walkthrough into how I doodle!

Coming up… food, Photoshop and more food.

Tools of the trade -

These are the acoustic items that we use to begin the process. I start by drawing my ideas in pencil (I find a mechanical pencil works a treat, so precise) then outline them with my paintbrush and black ink. After the ink has dried I erase the pencil lines beneath and go in with my brush pen to add little details here and there. When completed I take a step back and have a good old glance, does this look right? Is there anything missing? If all is well I proceed to my scanner.

Ink to color -

1 – This is the plain ol’ scanned in piece of paper. (I used a HP scanner if anyone is interested) Now as we can see it is not perfectly white and crisp as we would like it to be, so let’s go ahead and do that.

2 – Look at that simple two-tone image. But how did we get there? I adjusted the “Levels” using the white pipette icon and increased the “Brightness and Contrast”. As well as this I selected just the black and darkened it, doing the same with the white but lightening it using “Replace Color”. I have also neatened certain edges that my hand dodged up with the ink pen, and erased specks that I didn't like.

3 – COLOR! Now this is a big step. Which will all be explained further below.

Tidying up -

Grab that white brush and erase those nasty mistakes

Colored line-work -

I like to think I have a style, right? Well one of my lil’ style tips is to color in my line-work. I find 80% of the time my illustrations benefit from this small process, it just adds that lovely pop. To do this create a new layer and drop in any color you desire, or hey, maybe even a groovy pattern. After this go back to your artwork layer and in the layer effects box, select “lighten” and magic will happen.

Stage One – Applying the base color.
Creating a new layer in Photoshop I smack down some color, in this case a lovely salmon color, as it’s salmon. After this is I click “multiply” in the layer effects box that allows it to sit beneath the line work. Next I add shading and other colors that are present in the image onto the same layer.

Stage Two – Pattern overlay

Now I only do this if I feel a pattern would look more appealing than just color, and as this is a blob of rice I felt it would work well. To do this I do the same as above; new layer > add a color (white in this case). Next I go onto the layer styles and click “pattern overlay”. I have already saved many patterns in my inventory so I just select the rice one.

Stage Three – Pattern to fit

So we have our pattern sitting in our pattern zone, but its gone over our line work! To fix this select “multiply” in the blend mode box, and behold the lines are back. Today I don’t want the rice to be smack bang in your face so I dull down the opacity to around 50%. You can also play around with the scale of the pattern, the higher the percentage the closer the pattern and visa-versa.

Stage Four – Shadows

This section is an optional extra. I only recently started doing this and I find it really adds to my illustrations when done correctly. Adding shadows subtly brings the imagery from being flat to having more dimension. To do this I grab the pen tool and select an area that would have shadows hitting it (think about a light source and where it would be placed) With my selection I then copy and paste it, creating a new layer. With this layer I play around with the brightness and contrast as well as the saturation to get the shadow looking proper. Apply to all areas necessary.

And you have completed your delicious doodle!

Missed registration effect -

Missed registration happens when a printer has not aligned the print heads or the paper in the machine correctly. Two or more colors that should be in a select area have moved and/or overlapped. In the world of Photoshop I like to do a ‘fake’ mis-reg effect. I simply move the color layer slightly (artwork layer stays put) in whatever direction suits best. I just use the arrow keys to jut it around. This leaves small white areas on my illustrations that give them a hand-rendered feel.

 Adding background -

1- Using the marquee tool select a singular doodle I then drag and drop it onto a new Photoshop document.

2 - To quickly remove the white background use the magic wand tool (I can feel the burn from the graphic designers right now, I’m sorry, but its so easy I cant help it) But! If your design is too complex for this tool and/or has elements that merge with the background, use the pen tool.

3 - Select a brush (or create one) that will complement your illustration and splodge away to build a nice colored background. Choose a color that will work with your imagery, either have them contrasting or analogous.

4 - We don’t want our doodle to blend in with the backing we have created. To avoid this I add a spritz of white behind my object to make it leap out.

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Salmon nigiri

Edamame

Mochi

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PLEASE DO NOT TAKE ANY OF THE ART SHOWN HERE AND POST IT CLAIMING IT AS YOUR OWN. ALWAYS CREDIT THE ARTIST.

Did you enjoy this insight into how I work?
Do you feel enlightened and ready to open that sketchbook?
If so, leave a comment below or follow me on:

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If you have drawn your own Japanese delights, please show me your creations!

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