Drawing The Avatar

So far, we’ve made good progress. Now let’s move on to Aang’s cape. Part of this extends over top of the staff, part of it below, but for now, let’s put it all on top of the staff by creating a new layer called “cape” between the “staff” and “head” layers.

Now get out the pen tool and draw the shape for the flowing red cape billowing in the wind. Remember to keep everything light, with lots of free-flowing curves.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Draw Aang - Fig. 14

Once you’ve done that, stroke the selection.

Next, convert this path to a selection and fill it with the red color of Aang’s cape (#d6533f).

Now we want to release the selection (Ctrl+D) and go to our “cape” layer in the Layers palette. Click on the “Add Layer mask” icon at the bottom of the palette. Now Ctrl+Clicko n the “staff” layer to load its selection. Finally, take a medium-sized paintbrush and fill in the selection on the left side of Aang’s head in black on the layer mask, to hide that portion of Aang’s cape (and thus make the staff overlap it).

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Draw Aang - Fig. 15

Now use the pen tool to draw the hard lines for the folds and wrinkles in Aang’s cape. Once you’ve finished drawing the paths, stroke them.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Draw Aang - Fig. 15

Now create a new layer called “cape shadows” and group it with the “cape” layer. Using the pen tool, draw paths to create darker shadowed areas in the cape. Once you’re done this, convert the path to a selection and fill it with black, then set the layer mode to 30% and the layer mode to “Multiply.” Remember, this layer is grouped with the cape layer, so it doesn’t matter if portions of your path extend beyond the edges of the cape (which makes things a lot easier to draw.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Draw Aang - Fig. 15

Now we need to draw the collar of Aang’s tunic on a new layer above the “cape shadows” layer. Once we’ve got the basic shape created, we’ll put shadows on it using the same technique.

Adobe Photoshop Tutorial - Draw Aang - Fig. 15

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Added Wednesday, October 25th, 2006 at 8:10 am under Drawing & Painting.