1 PreparationSketchBook Pro loads up almost

instantaneously with a nice blank screen on which to start scribbling. There’s a

A small but almost perfect application designed to be a spontaneous sketching and ideas tool. Aly Fell shows you how to use SketchBook Pro

ith this workshop I’m going to provide you with an introduction to a small application from the Autodesk

family, which is now in its second version. From my own experiences I know that SketchBook Pro can easily be introduced into your workflow to get down initial thoughts and/or present a completed image that can be taken further in other applications or stand alone. Bear in mind that it wasn’t designed as a competitor for the more established and complex programs – such as Photoshop or Painter, which have different priorities – but as a sketching tool. To benefit from SketchBook’s features, a graphics tablet is pretty essential, or if you’re made of money, a Cintiq is even better.

I had a degree of familiarity with the first SketchBook Pro, having used just the pencil sketching option for roughing out poses and thumbnails, so the chance to have a look at SketchBook Pro 2 was quite appealing. There were a few things about the first version that left me a little cold, so I was interested to see whether my problems were universal and how much SketchBook Pro had changed here. Well, my answer from my initial play is pretty positive. Here’s what I found out…

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Workshops

Aly FellCOUNTRY: UKCLIENTS: Eurocom, Core Design, Cosgrove Hall Films, Warner Bros

Aly’s worked in the video game’s industry for five years.

Previously he was a freelance 2D animator and character artist primarily working for Cosgrove Hall. www.alyfell.com

DVD AssetsThe files you need are on the DVD

FILES: The_Assassin.tif, Final_Pic.tifFOLDERS:Ful screenshots SOFTWARE:SketchBook Pro 2 (Demo)

A GUIDE TO DIGITAL SKETCHING

SketchBook ProSketchBook Pro

November 200674

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movement away from the traditional interface here, relying on a drag/select variation, in some respects similar to Maya. Straight away you notice the main menu in the bottom left of the screen, (customisable to the right if desired). Clicking on any of the icons reveals the individual options for each selection. The first thing I do, however, is get my palette and brushes up. To do this you just click on the two separate icons just above the Alias logo. One of the irritating things about version 1 was that whenever you closed the program the palettes defaulted to closed, so you always had to re-open them. That isn’t the case here, thankfully.

2 Customise the settingsThe default canvas size is set to

your screen resolution, but you can customise this in the drop-down menu bar. I set this to my preferences, and select the Pencil tool to start sketching. You get some nice pencil-like lines with SketchBook Pro, and can change the individual brushes in the Brush Properties, which can be found by clicking on the little slider bar icon in the top right of the Brushes window (if you save it, it will save your current setting till you change it and save again). You can create custom brushes from the Brushes window, and edit their style and function, including the responsiveness to pressure, hardness and softness, etc. I’d recommend creating personal brushes as soon as you become familiar with the process. I like to use a fairly soft pencil.

What I like about the interface is its distinctly intuitive feel, there’s very little second-guessing going on here. You don’t need to spend ages trying to find options and features. Pressing the Spacebar brings up a small round window. Continuing to hold the Spacebar and left-clicking off in any direction drags the canvas that way, but holding the mouse steady and clicking/dragging zooms in and out. Initially this seems odd, but it soon becomes second nature.

Save as PSDsYou can save your files as PSD’s now. Alias recognises how SketchBook is used as part of a workflow now, which is great. However it doesn’t work the other way. If you make changes in Photoshop, don’t expect to be able to re-open it in SketchBook. I would suggest not saving layered images as TIFFs unless you intend to work solely in SketchBook. SketchBook will re-open them with all the layers, but the TIFF format here won’t enable the layers to work in other programs, which is odd but surpassable.

PROSECRETS

23 Initial sketches

I’ve decided to do a cartoony space assassin, which I won’t be taking to a finished stage here, although I’ll sketch out the pose and lay down some basic colour. After roughing out the initial sketch, I create a second layer (layers can be selected by clicking and dragging on

4 Spontaneous brushesTo resize my brush while scribbling

I have a couple of options: I can use the slider bar in the Brush Properties as mentioned earlier, or select the circular icon next to the slider bar and drag up or down in the little window that comes up. The Colour palette feels a little clumsy, and I wish there was an option to save your colour choices in a personalised palette, but that’s not what this program does. And the addition of further options might remove some of its spontaneity.

5 Lay down colourOnce my line is cleaned up, I delete

the rough layer and return the 70 per cent opacity layer to full and start laying down flat colour on this under my linework. I then start blending using Soft-edge brushes. Once my colour is applied I flatten the image. My sketch is now ready for me to take into Photoshop, Painter or whichever application you prefer, to develop further.

I particularly like using this application for sketching. It feels bright, refreshing and easy to use. And although you can do finished pieces in it, it feels to me as if the program has been designed to be part of a workflow, or used as a quick visualisation tool for presentation purposes.

the Tools icon) and paint it white, fading it to about 70 per cent opacity using the slider bar in the Layers window. Then I create a third layer to clean up my line.

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November 2006

Quick technique SketchBook Pro

5Select a colourAlt (PC) Option (Mac) Alt/Option is the shortcut to the Eyedropper tool. Pressing it and clicking on part of your picture will select that colour.

Change brush size Hold B and drag (Mac and PC)Hold down B on the keyboard and click and drag, up or down, to increase or decrease the brush size.

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