Or “How I learned to stop using MS Paint and love The Gimp!”
Superman Confidential #1 Minimate style by Lurch.
Lurch’s Laboratory: Photoshop 101!
By Lurch
I’ve been asked many things over the years on the minimate forums: why do they call you Lurch; what character is your favorite; why did C3 fail; do you have any spares; what movies are playing this week; etc, etc. (just for the record the answer to all of those is 42) Anyways, a majority of questions have been about the concept art and the comic covers, so I figured why not do some “how to” episodes of Lurch’s Laboratory.
First up one of the main questions, what program do you use? Well, I started using MS Paint; it was simple and already installed on my pc. As the designs got more intricate I needed something more, I was too cheap to buy Photoshop so ended up finding the GIMP.
Now for any design or cover the most important thing is good source art. You can find just about anything you want on the internet so finding source art is not too hard, the main thing to look for is good high quality detail (which usually means the larger file sizes). Once you have an idea of what to do and good source art you’re ready to start.
For this episode we’re going to go over a few different techniques for comic covers (why people ask me about these, I don’t know, I didn’t win anything in the contest). There are many different ways to create covers; the ones covered here are a simple 2 layer cover, a multi-layer cover, and one designed from scratch.
For the 2 layer cover I picked the covers of Superman Confidential #1 & #3. Now you could just take your picture of the minimate and paste it right on top of the character to cover it up, but that would be too easy and it doesn’t always cover the character underneath all the way. So the first step is to remove the character from the scene, using the erase tool I went around the character trying to leave a much of the background as possible. This helps for the next part to fill back in the area removed, as you can see you don’t have to make it look perfect or add a lot of detail. Just try to continue with the general colors and designs. For these covers I had to copy and paste from the surrounding area because the background had a texture that would have been hard to recreate if I just filled in the color. Next you need pictures of the minimate characters (picture1, picture2). I like to take pictures of them on a white background with as much light as possible; it makes it a lot easier to cut out the figure (picture1, picture2). I’ve tried using colors to match the cover background but you usually end up with not an exact match and get a color halo around your figure when you go to paste it on the cover background. So once you cut out around the figure, the only thing left is to resize it (for Superman I had to add a slight rotation to get in the correct position) and paste onto your cleaned up cover background. Once in position, check around for anything that needs to be touched up and voila … minimate comic cover. And here’s a before and after of the same #1 comic as a wallpaper.
Next, something a bit more challenging, a multi-layered cover; for this I chose Superman #205. As you can see on this cover, Superman needs to be in between the background and the bullets in the foreground. So what I did was take the cover and separate it into the different layers: background, foreground, and the logos. With the background I removed all the bullets, Superman & the logos and filled in with the general color and detail. For the foreground I used a picture that already had the logos removed and took out all the background detail. Then for the logos I just cut and paste them out from the cover. Once I had my picture of Superman, I cut him out, gave him a rotation to get in position and perspective to make his left side seem closer, and then pasted him on the background. I had to go back in and add some more detail to the background before adding the foreground. Finally the logos and there you go, Superman #205.
Last we have one designed from scratch. I’ve wanted to do this one for a while now so I picked Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four #23. First up I took the basic minimate designs and put them in position for the background. Then added some color and very minor details. Then, the fun part, added in the wall color and drawings. I tried to emulate most of the symbols from the comic, but had fun and added some stuff of my own. See if you can spot the references to Galactus, Silver Surfer, Dr Doom, Namor, Spider-Man, Puppet Master, Moleman, the Fantastic Four and also the Minimate Multiverse. Next I added a layer for the outlines of the stones, along with the imperfections. Then gave it a rotation and changed the perspective just a little bit so it looked like they were going up the corridor. Then I took my pictures of the minimates (pic1, pic2, pic3, pic4) and cut out around them (pic1, pic2, pic3, pic4); Mr. Fantastic needed some extra cut and pasting to get his arms in the right position. Then I pasted them on the background giving them some rotation too so they were walking up the corridor. Next I added a lighting effect to give the picture that Human Torch glow; and finally the logo at the bottom to finish it all up.
There you have it, next time we’ll do step-by-step on some concept designs and you can see I only do about half of the work. Anybody have any suggestions on what characters they would like to see designed?
