Clipping Masks – For Character Design

Posted on 2012/05/09 at 17:16 by daarken 14 Comments

Often times it is important to keep different elements on separate layers, especially when it comes to concept design. In this video Daarken shows you how to create clipping masks to help you keep your different elements separate and speed up your painting process.

14 Comments on "Clipping Masks – For Character Design"

  1. Jack Wurm · 2012/05/09 at 18:57 · Reply

    This is the same technique I use to color line art, except I just lock transparency and only use a mask if i want to do detail it out more.

    Great tut to show workflow.

  2. Trace007 · 2012/05/10 at 12:12 · Reply

    How much detail do you usually put into your thumbnails?

    • daarken
      daarken · 2012/05/12 at 13:15 · Reply

      Usually they are pretty rough. I think I uploaded some of my sketches of my Magic cards on my Facebook page and I also have some on my blog.

  3. evaxe · 2012/05/10 at 20:26 · Reply

    dude i was looking through the classes at tad media and in the high vis mark & pitch illo class i saw your name. congrats on the gig!

    and also saw your newest ills in the blizzard entertainment tab. man you’ve gotten a shitload better a light and color.

    really love the lighting effects on odo blind watch guy. the way you handled the light beams and the light bloom effects.
    it really sells that he in some dark mine with really bright shafts of light shining through.

    • daarken
      daarken · 2012/05/12 at 13:14 · Reply

      Thanks! I’m probably actually not going to be doing any demos with TAD this semester though due to my schedule.

  4. Sieger Vink · 2012/05/11 at 02:56 · Reply

    Maybe I’m saying something obvious here for some but if you want a Clipping layer a bit faster you can just create a normal new layer and then alt+click in between the new layer and the layer you want to use as clipping mask
    (when holding alt and hovering between the layers you’ll see your cursor change)

  5. Tirohoum · 2012/05/12 at 11:06 · Reply

    Daarken, i just got accepted into TAD in ATX i was just wondering.. do you think that they are a good school ? or would u suggest going to a university ? i want to do what you do for a living and i would also like to do more design stuff along side of illustration work. is TAD a good path to start? or should i apply to another school. btw money is an issue for me lol thanks so much if you reply :) – Nick Doyle

    • daarken
      daarken · 2012/05/12 at 13:13 · Reply

      Honestly, I don’t know much about TAD other than they have very good instructors. You might want to try and find some students that have gone there or are currently going there.

  6. Anders · 2012/05/15 at 15:18 · Reply

    I was wondering why you didn’t just used one clipping mask. I mean, your character doesn’t seem that complex. Was this just for demonstration purpose, or do you do this every little figure?

    • daarken
      daarken · 2012/05/15 at 18:10 · Reply

      This was just for demonstration purposes to show how to keep each element separate. Obviously this is not a completed concept, just a demo.

  7. Nadesican · 2012/05/16 at 11:00 · Reply

    Just curious: When you start painting opaquely over the lines, is that still within the clipping mask?

    • daarken
      daarken · 2012/05/16 at 12:24 · Reply

      Yes, the clipping mask makes it so that you won’t paint outside the bounds of the shape.

  8. todd kowalski · 2012/05/22 at 13:19 · Reply

    Hello, Daarken! Thanks for the demo! Is there a reason that would come up down the line to do this method instead of ‘lock transparent pixels’ or would tat be an alternate way to do this that would have the same purpose? Thanks a lot.

    • daarken
      daarken · 2012/05/22 at 14:46 · Reply

      Yes, there are many ways to do the same thing in Photoshop, lock transparent pixels is one of them.

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