Wednesday, May 18, 2005

crowd brush

Trade secret time. Today's topic: Using Painter nozzles to be lazy.
I had an educational book a while back that took place at a circus- with throngs of excited people in the audience. Now, a better artist than I would 'hint' at the crowd, with some quick sketching and a few touches of paintbrush. But I seem to be lacking that 'hinting' gene. Either I draw it in detail, or I don't draw it.
So here's the thing that saved me from drawing little people all the way through summer.
First, I drew about 50 or so quick little people, each in their own document.

Then, I loaded them all into one document in Painter, grouped them, and made a Nozzle from the group.
Then, when it was time to paint the crowd, I had a 'people brush' that I could just use to just paint rows of happy audience members. It took a few undos to make sure I didn't have identical twins sitting too close to each other in the areas where they'd be visible, but all in all it worked. Especially when I had to add them to the cover at the last minute.
Here's a couple views of the result:



..and yes, I can see the identical twins above each other. But at least they're not next to each other. :)