Section 1:Lines and Light

Section 3:Photoshop

Section 2:Shapes

Lines of chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Bottles, Bottles everywhere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .White in Barren . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Pots and (no) Pans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Featured: Shapes and Variety . . . . . . . . . . . . .Meshing with Shapes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Day to Night with Photoshop . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Coloring without Crayons. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Traditional Photoshopping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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LINES AND LIGHT

Section

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Drawings that are made by observing how light falls on the object and how the lines create the shape of the object.

I created this illustration through Adobe Illustrator using a drawing pad and a stylus. I first used thin black lines to sign my name and then I used thicker lines to try and fill all the white spaces. After that I used thick red lines to fill as many white spaces that I can. It was awkward at first; trying to draw with the pad but after a few signatures it became easy and the stylus became comfortable in my hand.

I particularly like this one be-cause the background isn’t a solid col-or. The circular gradient seems like a flashlight is being pointed in the center and in that “light” the black lines are be-ing revealed. Like in the first variation, I didn’t want the viewer to look at the red signatures first. So to guide them to a different point, I used the gradi-ent. When someone looks at the pic-ture, they focus on the center and they slowly look at where the white fades into the black and how the black signatures also seem to fade away. Then they fo-cus their attention at the red signatures.

Lines of

CHAOS

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Bottles, Bottles everywhere

If you have enough time you can count every stroke in both of these draw-ings. Since I don’t want to waste your time, I’ll just tell you right now. These drawings are made of 100 lines each. It may look like the second bottle has more lines, but it doesn’t. This was achieved by having thick lines to make up the second bottle, “Full Bottle”. The first bottle, “Empty Bot-tle” plays on the fact that it is made of hol-low circles. Those hollow circles make it look like it is empty. These drawings are made using a drawing tablet, which is why the lines look rough and uneven. These two were created from the same bottle and I decided to experiment with the way I drew it to see if using a different method would change the overall feel of a drawing.

“Empty Bottle”Muhammad Zeekrya

“Full Bottle”Muhammad Zeekrya

White ‘n Barren

The concept for this piece was to draw an object based on the light and shadows on it, instead of the object itself. For this drawing I used the paintbrush tool and the color picker, as well as the drawing tablet. It was a challenge to draw like that since we had to control our habit of drawing the outline of the object first.

First I used the color picker to choose white and I drew the bright-est sections on the pitcher. After that, I chose the lightest gray in the default color swatches. I progressively went on to darker and darker grays as I neared the completion of the drawing. After I was done with the basic shape of the cup, I started with the lightest gray again and continued my way up on the value scale to correct any mistakes that I had made. After I was content with the drawing, I proceeded to try and make the borders straight. After that, I started to working on the scanner the cup was sitting on using the same technique described above.

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Pots and (no) Pans

I made the pot by using the same steps that were used to cre-ate the cup. I used the paintbrush tool in various stroke sizes to copy the light on the pot. After I was done with the original pot, I went to the brush selector and clicked on the tiny box in the top right corner. From there, I chose whatever type of brush that I wanted and by that meth-od I created 5 different variations.

The original pot is the larg-est one, while the two most recogniz-able pots are on the right of it. The least recognizable pots are in the last row. It was interesting to note that no matter what brush or brush stroke I chose, the pot still resembled a pot. The first pot drawing (the least recog-nizable one) was chosen to be in that position because it was hazy and the last pot (the most recognizable one) was chosen because its thin lines make it easier to see that it is a pot.

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Section

2

Sha pesUsing the pen tool to create shapes. And then piling those shapes to create a drawing.

Shapes and Variety

THE PROJECT This is the shape drawing project. We started out with a photo that we took and we made shapes over it in Adobe Illustrator. The whole process took around 12 hours for me, mainly because I was trying to add as much detail as I could. Creating the shapes is a bit different in Illustrator than in a simple program such as Paint. In Illustrator, you use the Pen tool and click on the places where you want a corner to be made and when your shape is finished, you just close it by clicking on the very first point. Af-ter you create the shape, you have to fill it with color. To do that we need to use the Eyedropper tool. When we select the tool, we choose a color that best represents the gen-eral area. Since we are tracing over the origi-nal drawing, we need to make sure that every inch of it is covered by shapes. So we keep repeating these steps until the drawing is full.

After we were done with the drawing, we were introduced to gradients and feather-edges. These techniques allow the shapes in the

drawing to blend in with each other. I used gradients a lot in the reflections on the wa-ter, since they couldn’t drawn with an opaque fill. In my opinion I was successful in recre-ating the original image; the drawing looks very much like the original photo, which I had

wanted to do from the very beginning.

For this project, I found the drawing tablet easier to use than the mouse because you can make points faster with it. I easily tapped rapidly to cre-ate a shape that had a huge num-ber of points, which is why I was able

to go to this much detail in this drawing. After we had finished the drawing we were told to create 3 variations of it. The original drawing leans toward the classical end of the art spectrum, while in theory the varia-tions should be more toward the modern end. Due to the sheer amount of options in Illustrator, I decided to make 6 variations, which was double the amount assigned.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“The . . . process took around 12 hours for me...”

Shangrila Resort, Kachura Lake, Pakistan

“Shangrila” completed

MADE OF BOXES This varia-tion is the closest to the original drawing. I dis-covered the “convert to shape” option in the effects menu. I chose rounded rectangle and messed with the settings a litte bit and turned the whole draing into rectangles. All my hard work making shapes that matched the picture ruined with one click. I just undid everything and selected everything in the drawing ex-cept the main building in the front. I applied the effect again and so everything else was turned into rectangles. I just slightly enlarged to put more emphasis on it. I didn’t create this with any particular message in mind.

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“Boxy Shangrila”

STARTING A WAVE Things are starting to get crazy in this variation. I used the twist effect in the Illustrator effects menu. After messing with the numbers in the dialog box, the drawing was transformed into what you see below. I found the drop shadow option so I decided to apply that too. The result was that that every twisted shape had a shadow behind it. This gave the drawing a 3D feel and overall the drawing looks like a diorama.

“Wavy Shangrila”

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LOVE FOR FALL This varia-tion was inspired by my love for autumn. I love the way how the green leaves turn into many shades of warm colors. I used color guides to recolor the drawings with ease. I recolored everything that wasn’t a tree to grayscale, while all the trees were changed to fall colors. I wanted to attract the viewers’ attention to the trees more than the build-ings themselves, which were the focal point in the drawing and all other variations of it.

“Autumn in Shangrila”

WHY SO SAD? When we were introduced to color guides for recolor-ing our drawings, the first thing I wanted to do was to recolor everything in shades of blue. I wanted to do blue because blue is a really calming color for me. After recoloring, however, the drawing looked anything but. It looked depressing so I decided to go with that mood. I created a gradient that went from light gray to transparent over the whole picture (it was meant to mimic fog). I added a few transparent white lines to resemble raindrops. With these additions, the draw-ing conveys a depressed mood effectively.

“Rain & Depression in Shangrila”

FIRST IMPRESSIONS This varia-tion was made by accident. I had decided to create a variation without using anything from the effect menu. The result was me us-ing different brushes to change the stroke of the shapes. I turned on the stroke for each shape and then changed the brush with which it was drawn with. After that I select-ed each layer and used a general color for each layer. For example I used green for the trees, brown for the walls, etc. After I was done I noticed that the drawing looked like an angry, chaotic mess, hence the name.

MADE OF DREAMS To make this variation, I chose the each layer and one by one changed the each layer to a monochro-matic color scheme. I chose bright colors be-cause the original image didn’t have many bright colors. After I changed the color, it felt like the image was pulled out of an child’s imagination, which is why I applied the scrib-ble effect and used its “childlike” preset. The removal of trees and replacing it with a sky and clouds came late in the process. I used gradi-ents to make the background behind the build-ings to give a feeling of an unrealistic sunset.

“Angry Shangrila”

“Child’s Shangrila”

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Meshing with Shapes

I discovered the gradient mesh tool while exploring Illustrator. I searched the Adobe help site to figure out what it did and watched a few tu-torials on YouTube on how to use it. The mesh tool basically creates a grid on a shape you have made and then you can select a point on that grid and choose what color will go there. When you choose a color, it will create a gradi-ent of that color around that point. This comes in handy when you’re trying to create realistic images, since highlights and shadows are blended in real life.

I am no expert on the mesh tool. You need practice and patience while using it, since you have to create a grid that won’t get too complicated and then click each point to change the color around it. This car was an experiment in using the mesh tool. To me this car has been completed and it was a successful first attempt.

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PHOTOSHOP

Drawings that are drawn by hand or taken with a camera and edited in Adobe Photoshop .

Sec t i on

3

A BOriginal

I took this image for a garage band my friends and I had started, called Team Out of Action. Seniors at Mather High School could leave early, which offered a good opportunity to take a picture of the park to use as a band image. I took a few shots and chose this ne because the street light is in the center of the image as well as in the top half. We debated at how to use this image. I wanted this photo to be a night shot. One of my friends wanted to have us Photo-shopped into it, wearing sunglasses and leather jackets. Since I had the most experience with Photoshop, I decided to turn this picture into a night-time image.

Day to Night in Photoshop

I created two variations of the orig-inal, A and B. I put B on top of A and used a layer mask to erase the parts of B that were going to be lit by the streetlight. After doing that I adjusted the color balance in A to be more orange, the standard color of Chicago lights. I then created a new layer and set it as an exposure adjustment layer. I created another mask and erased everything except the exposure around the light, which I achieved by using a ra-dial gradient fill in the mask. I then drew a man’s silhouette with the brush tool and created a shadow for him, and positioned him in front of the light. I then wrote the band’s name (font is Faith Collapsing) and warped it to match with the shape of the side walk. I slightly embossed the text to have it blend in with the pavement. After I was done with that I chose a dark blue and a big brush. I put the brush’s setting to color burn and painted the whole image to achieve the look of newly fallen night.

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“Team O

ut of Action Prom

otional Poster #1”

“Team O

ut of Action Prom

otional Poster #2”

The result of the last two pages

Different park, same processconverted to grayscale

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Coloring Without Crayons

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I started out drawing Pokémon. Then it turned into a passion for drawing Yu-Gi-Oh! mon-sters. Then my subjects became anime charac-ters, people like Goku from Dragon Ball Z. A few years ago I thought about how different every person’s face is just by a slight variation of the shapes of their eyes, nose, etc. I was sitting in a car at the time and then I started thinking about the variations on cars. They all usually have two headlights, two red backlights, four wheels, etc. and yet they all look so different from each other.

After that my sketchbooks became filled with terrible drawings of cars. I could draw an eye, no problem, but why couldn’t I draw a head-light?! After months of constantly concentrating on my dad’s Corolla, I had it down. I started drawing a car from a sideways angle. I gradually started drawing the cars from three-dimensional angle.

During my junior year of high school I started to use Photoshop, though only for touching up old photos, adjusting contrast and the like. As I got more comfortable with the software learning it by experimentation and Adobe help, I figured out how to color the sketches of the cars I had made.

I selected the part of the car with the Quick selection tool, and it selected the part I wanted to color, it’s pretty accurate most of the time. Af-ter that I simply color the area with the brush tool. The car on the left is one that I recently made and colored this way. I found out from YouTube tutorials that this method is called cel shading.

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In computer graphics, I learned how to use a drawing tablet and Illustrator. Natu-rally, I decided to take what I had learned in class and try it out by drawing what I draw best.

The car on the right, which I call the Brute because it looks like it’s made to ram cars, is made by a combination of illustrator and Pho-toshop. I drew the lines in Illustrator , where I could easily edit the curves and length of the line without erasing. After I was done with draw-ing the lines, I exported the drawing as a PSD (Photoshop) file and colored it in Photoshop.

Since I was using a drawing tablet, the opacity of the brush tool changed with the amount of pressure I applied to the pen. I used this to my advantage and colored the sides of the car with that concept. In the end the sides had a cool brushed metal look. I didn’t draw the bulbs in the headlights in Illustrator, so I “paint-ed” them on. I decided that I wanted this car to be matte black, but settled for matte gray so that the outline of the car would be visible. To make that happen I simply adjusted the noise level in the gray until it resembled matte paint.

Using Illustrator and Photoshop to-gether has created an interesting drawing and I will continue to experiment with them in hopes of creating a better and better car each time.

“Roadster Brute”An experiment of drawing digitally

The main use of Photoshop is to edit photos that you’ve taken and change them, give them a few a few touch-ups etc. This is the original photo, a picture of the mountains surround-ing Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. This photo has an abundance of green, which we can do a simple color change on to create some interesting images.

I first adjusted the hue in the im-age until it was a deep red. After that from the same menu I selected all other colors that weren’t red and put their lightness to 100, so they would be erased from the photo. I then increased the satura-tion and contrast a little bit to make the colors sharper. In the end I was left with a photo that has brilliant shades of red.

Traditional Photoshopping

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Red + Increased Saturation

This photo was turned blue us-ing the same method for the red varia-tion, but for this one I didn’t “erase” any colors. After I turned everything blue, I went into color balance and made the drawing bluer; before it was blue-green. I then applied the oil painting effect which was a new addition to Photoshop cs6. I messed with the settings, trying to have the photo to retain as much de-tail as possible, so it could mimic the style of classical painters, though since it’s blue it isn’t a perfect representation.

I again changed the general color of the photo to a golden yellow in the hue/saturation menu, but didn’t erase any colors. Since my last varia-tion resembled a classical painting, I de-cided to mimic the Impressionistic style. After I adjusted contrast and brightness and then added the ripple effect and set everything in the menu to around 25%. The result is a photo that has heavy “brush strokes” and conveys mood, just like the paintings by Impressionists. 39

Blue + Oil painting Yellow + Ripple Effect

Magazine design by Muhammad ZeekryaArtwork by Muhammad Zeekrya

Text by Muhammad ZeekryaSoftwares used: Illustrator, Indesign, Lightroom, and Photoshop by Adobe