Video Transcript

 

 

Hi, my name is Michelle and I will be showing you how to set the canvas parameters and background colours, how to flip and rotate the canvas, and how to customize your brushes for sketching.

 

 

The first thing you need to do is create a new canvas by clicking "File", "New" and choosing the canvas parameters. You can make them as large as 5000 pixels by 5000 pixels with 72 DPI.

 

If you click on one of the tabs above, you can have a preset size for your canvas, so why don't we change it fueled 450 for the width and 1000 for the height. Click "OK".

 

 

And then you will have a canvas that is less wide than it is tall. So now we're going to close the canvas and then see how it saved as a preset setting.

 

 

So now the second tab is automatically opened and you can see the other defaults. Let's use a canvas that is 5000 pixels by 5000 pixels.

 

 

Next we're going to use the colour-picker in the bottom-right corner to choose a new colour for our background. So, let's choose a grey and then we're going to click "Edit" and then we're going to click "Change paper color" and now we've changed the background of our painting.

 

 

Okay, so now let's choose a different colour for our brush, and let's test it out right now. So, get something a little bit darker so that you can see the difference between the background and your actual brush and let's do some practice strokes. So now you can see that the brush is pressure-sensitive using a pressure- sensitive tablet. You can also change presets by clicking the tabs in the top of the brush box.

 

 

The bottom slider chooses the maximum width of the brush. The top slider chooses the minimum width of the brush. The smaller the minimum width of the brush, then the more pressure-sensitive the brush is.

 

 

Clicking the three dots will enable or disable transparency, increasing or decreasing the flow of the brush. As you can see the brush is hard and opaque, but when you enable transparency, it becomes a lot softer.

 

 

By selecting the grey dot button, you can enable or disable pressure-sensitivity. Let's try navigating the canvas using the navigator window.

 

 

You can click and drag it anywhere on the canvas to get where you want to go or you can use the box with the arrows tool and click and drag anywhere on your canvas. This doesn't move your image at all.

 

 

You can also free-rotate using the rotate tool and you can get it could turn any which way you like.

 

 

You can zoom out using zoom-in and zoom-out buttons and then you can see how you can rotate it left and right, but this doesn't change the way that your image looks it doesn't actually rotate your image. It just rotates so that it can be easier to work for you.

 

 

You can also move your sketch around the canvas by clicking the move button and dragging the image across the canvas. Now, if you drag it off of the canvas like this then you will end up losing the image information.

 

 

So make sure that you don't do that unless you absolutely sure.

 

 

Okay, so now that we've closed the canvas, we're going to open up a new one.

 

 

And we're going to change the background colour the same way as before: "Edit", "Change paper color". And we're going to choose a new colour for the brush. Let's just make the brush a little bit smaller.

 

 

Do a few practice strokes to make sure it's exactly as we like it.

 

 

And then we're going to save that brush because I like that size. And now are going to get sketching a little. So now we're going to start sketching out the structure of a head.

 

 

And then we're going to change the opacity of the sketch layer because it can be easier to do lineart if you can see it. You have to left-click and drag on the gradient in the layer window.

 

Next, we're going to click "Edit" and "Horizontal turnover for the visible layer", so then that way we can see the opposite of our painting--a mirror image so we can just double check to see if everything's right and then we click that again to get it to go back to the original way that the canvas looked.

 

This is a trick that artists use to make sure that everything is as it should be. So now let's keep sketching.

 

 

That's everything you need to know about sketching in Open Canvas 1.1. You're now ready to move on to lineart or painting. The links of those videos are below. Happy sketching!