David James

As a part of the Canadian Army, I’ve been volunteering my time in helping an affiliated cadet corps. The 19^th Alberta Dragoons is an Army Reserve Regiment that was disbanded several decades ago and has been represented by a cadet corps here in Edmonton, for almost as long. Not only does my Regiment, the South Alberta Light Horse, have an interest in keeping this lineage alive, it is also my old cadet corps from… let’s say… a “few” years ago, and when they asked me to help them with their cap-badge, I was pleased to help.

At the time, I didn’t realize how many different attempts were made at making this icon. I researched everything from the origin of the badge and its original drawings to the type of horse that needed to be illustrated. There was a difference in the cap-badges themselves that I noticed, the old badges looked skinnier than the new badges, and the fonts from the drawings didn’t match the official issued graphic. I basically had to rebuild this icon in vectors and select the elements that worked.

Outline of icon from physical cap-badge dimensions

Adjusting the text to suit the flow over the banner

Adding some depth to the text and some details that were lost in the banner

19th Alberta Dragoon cap-badge

Vector based graphics are amazing. I started illustrating with Adobe Illustrator in the late nineties when I was hired to create drawings for a sign language dictionary. I enjoyed the flexibility of the software, especially the undo feature.

Now that this graphic is created in vectors, it can be scaled up, it can be used for print and embroidery, it can even be used in animation. Best of all, it can be archived so it will not be lost again.

Just wanted to show a few steps in making a digital painting in Photoshop. I’ve shown some completed work and thought it would be informative and interesting to show some “in-progress” images…

Luke rough

Most illustrations start off in gray-scale. You don’t need to do this, but it helps me develop the depth in the face.

More details

Now the depth and expression start to emerge from the face… I’ll spend another hour or two developing the hair and tunic, then on to the colour.

Luke in colour

This is the finalized Luke that will be used in another painting… oh, the beauty of Photoshop.

 
I hope you enjoyed this, David.

I love using Photoshop to create fine art!

Painting in Photoshop

Photoshop is an amazing bundle of software; so diverse that it’s next to impossible to master all of it. Photographers enhance and correct their photos with it, Designers build elements for websites and ads in it, and magazine covers would have average looking people on them if not for Photoshop.

The best part about using Photoshop to paint with is the brushes don’t need to be cleaned.

This is an image that I painted in Photoshop to use on my Twitter account.