A question I get asked a lot is, "How do you make the illustrations for Ninja Mouse?" or "You drew that?"
You may or may not be disappointed to know that no paper is used in the creation of any of the art until printing. Everything is digital, and I use a wide variety of software (read: convoluted workflow) to create the illustrations.
Each illustration begins in a program called DAZ Studio, which is a free 3D design application. Ninja Mouse is based on the base mesh of the free Genesis 3D figure which I shape and morph both within DAZ Studio and in a second application called ZBrush, a digital sculpting and texturing tool. Once I pose Ninja Mouse, I render out a JPEG at the resolution of 5400 x 6000 pixels. Using a combination of Photoshop filters and the drawing tools from yet another program called Manga Studio, I create the line art of the figure, cleaning up jagged lines, adding details, eliminating unwanted lines, and drawing the head on a Wacom tablet. Once I have the finished line art, I color the image using the digital markers in Manga Studio.
Most of the backgrounds are created from 3D models, some free and some purchased. The backgrounds are composed in the same program, DAZ Studio, rendered at the obscene 6K resolution, and then sent to Photoshop. Once in Photoshop, I use a mix of native Photoshop filters and filters from a plugin called Filter Forge, as well as a combination of Photoshop layer styles and blend modes to create the background look I want.
Once I have a background and the Ninja Mouse illustration to go with it, I composite the images in Photoshop, adding details with Photoshop brushes, adding shadows with the copy function and perspective tools, and correcting color.
At this point, each single image is somewhere between 250 and 500 megabytes. To put that into perspective, a full Blu-ray movie is usually under 2 gigabytes (2000 megabytes.) The high image resolution is necessary because the images are designed to be printed.
The final product is created inside Adobe Indesign CC. (Frustratingly, Indesign required me to install it in Japanese in order to use Japanese characters, which brought with it a whole new learning curve. The menus are still in English, or at least romaji, but still...) This is where I layout the book and font.
Anyway, that's the process. I'm beginning to streamline it now for future Ninja Mouse work, but this process at least gave me a decent grasp on several vital applications.
So no, I didn't exactly draw that; I illustrated it.
-JCT
You may or may not be disappointed to know that no paper is used in the creation of any of the art until printing. Everything is digital, and I use a wide variety of software (read: convoluted workflow) to create the illustrations.
Each illustration begins in a program called DAZ Studio, which is a free 3D design application. Ninja Mouse is based on the base mesh of the free Genesis 3D figure which I shape and morph both within DAZ Studio and in a second application called ZBrush, a digital sculpting and texturing tool. Once I pose Ninja Mouse, I render out a JPEG at the resolution of 5400 x 6000 pixels. Using a combination of Photoshop filters and the drawing tools from yet another program called Manga Studio, I create the line art of the figure, cleaning up jagged lines, adding details, eliminating unwanted lines, and drawing the head on a Wacom tablet. Once I have the finished line art, I color the image using the digital markers in Manga Studio.
(Here's a shot of Ninja Mouse in DAZ Studio
back when I was using a simple 3D primitive for his head.)
back when I was using a simple 3D primitive for his head.)
Most of the backgrounds are created from 3D models, some free and some purchased. The backgrounds are composed in the same program, DAZ Studio, rendered at the obscene 6K resolution, and then sent to Photoshop. Once in Photoshop, I use a mix of native Photoshop filters and filters from a plugin called Filter Forge, as well as a combination of Photoshop layer styles and blend modes to create the background look I want.
Once I have a background and the Ninja Mouse illustration to go with it, I composite the images in Photoshop, adding details with Photoshop brushes, adding shadows with the copy function and perspective tools, and correcting color.
At this point, each single image is somewhere between 250 and 500 megabytes. To put that into perspective, a full Blu-ray movie is usually under 2 gigabytes (2000 megabytes.) The high image resolution is necessary because the images are designed to be printed.
The final product is created inside Adobe Indesign CC. (Frustratingly, Indesign required me to install it in Japanese in order to use Japanese characters, which brought with it a whole new learning curve. The menus are still in English, or at least romaji, but still...) This is where I layout the book and font.
Anyway, that's the process. I'm beginning to streamline it now for future Ninja Mouse work, but this process at least gave me a decent grasp on several vital applications.
So no, I didn't exactly draw that; I illustrated it.
-JCT
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