A Watercolor and Line Drawing Ink Effect

By Nomer Adona

This tutorial is not about rendering but how to compose a watercolor and ink effect using a few simple steps. I am using a rendered image in order to add depth, particularly on some main areas. I use a couple of styles and V-Ray for a render image in some of the steps.

Step 1

Here is the set up. When doing a mixed media image it’s very important to save the camera view by creating a scene as shown in the image below.

Step 1

Step 2

Next we introduce some styles. Here I am using two styles, the first one created by Xia QiCong, called ‘Pencil on Light Brown’, found in your Styles folder under ‘Style Builder Competition Winners’. I then export this 2D graphic in jpeg format.

Step 2

Step 3

Repeat the same process using this second style created by Mark Paschke called ‘Pencil Edges With Whiteout Border’  also found in your Styles folder under ‘Style Builder Competition Winners’.  Here is a link on how to find those two styles if you are not sure.

Step 3

Step 4

Render image… In this particular tutorial I used V-Ray and I also used a nice plug-in called ‘Camera Sync‘ by Thomas Thomassen (AKA thomthom). Here is a screen grab that shows the sync between SketchUp and V-Ray camera shown in the image below.

Step 4

Step 5

This is a quick V-Ray render. At this stage I am not really interested about how realistic the drawing is. My interest is using the area of the glass to add depth. I used V-Ray because of its easiness on making the background transparent especially when you save it in Png format.

Step 5

Step 6

The next step is bringing everything into Photoshop or similar photo editing software. If you copy and paste the images they should line up accurately.The rendered image is placed on the very top layer, the idea is to make it slightly transparent and double check to see if the lines are all matching up.

Step 6

Step 7

Once the lines are matched up I re-arranged the layers, the ‘Pencil Edges With Whiteout Border’ at the very bottom, the rendered image in between and the top layer is the ‘Pencil With Brown Paper’. Set the blending mode of the two layers to Multiply.

Step 7

Step 8

The opacity of the two top layers has been decreased to around 80%. And Mask has been used to remove some areas and to reveal some of the layer below using a Soft Brush. Here is more on the preference of how much area I need to retain.

Step 8

Step 9

Working on the background next. I have a lot of watercolor images I saved over time and I took this one from my library. I actually don’t remember who did this one, but it suits this project. I inserted this on the very top layer. Sidney Porobic’s  (AKA Sepo) crosshatch Pencil Overlay technique gave me an idea on this approach of using an actual watercolor image.

Step 9

Step 10

With Opacity set to 90% on the watercolor layer, I use Mask again to reveal areas I want.

Step 10

Step 11

In this step I flattened the whole image. The last remaining step is all about preference. In this image I use a filter to achieve a different effect. Lets say I want a blue filter, all you have to do is follow the settings in the image below. Here I used two Deep Blue photo-filters one with Density set at 95% on the bottom one and the upper photo-filter set at 25% Density(Preserve Luminosity is checked).

Step 11

Here is my final output with some curve adjustment.

Final Image

Here are some more photo-filter variations on selected areas only.

Filter Variation

Filter Variation

I hope you have found this tutorial useful and I hope you can adopt it into your daily workflow.

Cheers

Nomer

Some of Nomer Adona’s other tutorials here at SketchUpArtists:

• Lighting with V-Ray for SketchUp – definitive guide part 2
• Lighting with V-Ray for SketchUp – definitive guide part 1
• Basic IES Tutorial Using V-Ray for SketchUp
• Using HDRI in V-Ray for SketchUp
• IES Light Tutorial using V-Ray for SketchUp
• Create a Tile Imprint SketchUp, Photoshop, Pixplant and V-Ray
• Texture Workflow with SketchUp, Photoshop and Podium
• Use Image Editing Software Inside SketchUp

Don’t forget to check out Nomer’s own website for more of his inspiring work and free resources.