Tutorial: Digitally Painting a Tree Frog
Richard Harris, 3 September 2002

The first thing I do before embarking on any project is to gather as much reference as possible. In this case, however, I had been inspired by a birthday card someone had given me with 3 tree frogs on a branch, which is what I used as my main reference. I also did a google image search too to find additional images as you can never have too much information.

Sketching
I decided to draw only one of the frogs on the card as I felt that doing all three would be too time consuming for what was only ever intended to be an exercise. I very carefully drew the frog on plain typing paper with an HB pencil initially, and a 2B later for emphasis. I wasn't concerned with doing any decent rendering at this stage (that comes later), but just trying to be as accurate as possible with my shapes and lines. I very loosely indicated shadow areas too, but without getting bogged down into detail. Many people actually dive right in and lay down the basic shapes by blocking in with paint, much in the same way by very carefully defining the main forms as bold shapes but personally I still need a tight pencil sketch as a solid base to start from.

If anyone is unsure about this vital step I strongly recommend reading "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. There are many techniques in that book which can help you achieve more accurate drawing. Alternatively (and I hope I don't get lynched for saying this) you could trace a photo to get the basic shapes. No one should rely on tracing to do all their drawing with as it obviously could seriously hamper you artistically if you aren't able to draw without tracing, but many many professionals will trace an image to save time on a deadline. If you really want to learn how to draw however you are better off just drawing. It isn't as difficult as you might think -- the key lies in careful observation and patience rather than in any feat of dexterity. As an aside, my actual drawing technique is appalling: lots of little lines rather than nicely defined bold lines (I tend to "feel" my way around with short strokes that build up into longer ones), but I'm not bothered about it here as long as the shapes are accurate.

I would like to quickly reiterate something I said in the previous paragraph: the key lies in careful observation and patience. This is the fundamental skill in any representational art. The more closely you look at your subject the more realistic your representation will be. By looking and observing you understand, and with understanding you can replicate. You will need to observe the shapes, the underlying forms behind those shapes, the edges, the tones, the colours, the textures and the light.

Once I am happy with my sketch I scan it in and set it up on a "multiply" layer with very low opacity to use as a template for the painting. From there I quickly painted the background with a large airbrush, this was rough and loose as I didn't feel the need to be accurate with what is essentially a blur!!

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