About this tutorial...
This tutorial is very image intensive so I am breaking it up into several pages. The example image is shown step by step the ACTUAL SIZE it was drawn. Technique described here are for Photoshop 7, but the same basic ideas work in Painter or any other program which supports pressure and opacity. I used a basic brush set up with the brush dynamics described in my Photoshop Brushes Tutorial.

Setting your Opacity
The key to this style of painting is to be sure your tablet is set on "med" pressure and that the opacity of your brush is set down. For this tutorial the opacity was set between 60% and 75%. You will want to experiment to find what is right for you.

Using Swatches
One of the useful features photoshop has is the "Swatches" menu. It's just a way of storing colors you work with a lot so you can change between them quickly. I tend to use my own sets of swatches and will save/load (or create) a set of swatches for the color scheme I want to work in. Currently my swatches are some very muted greens/browns with a very calm feeling to them. I don't stick to colors use in my swatches, but it gives me a good starting set of colors.

Now we're ready to start painting!

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