Award winning illustrator Derek Lea has penned this excellent reference book for Focal Press. Derek Lea's illustration work is a unique combination of original photography, traditional illustration and digital art. In Creative Photoshop, Lea uses his extensive experience with Adobe Photoshop to produce a series of tutorials which will give readers a nice balance of inspirational imagery and technical insight.
The book can be divided into four sections. The first section deals with traditional illustrative techniques such as drawing, painting and coloring. In this section Derek tackles the creation, definition and use of brushes, how to use shapes and layers, emulating the look of graffiti and stencil art and how to trace photographic imagery to create illustrations. It also details several techniques for creating illustrations from sketches and retro art-based stock. This section finishes with a look at how to color a comic-based illustration.
The second section covers unconventional illustrative techniques and methods. The first example uses thermal fax paper and a hairdryer to artificially age paper and also makes good use of scanned images and layering effects. The examples include the use of xerography, creating urban low-brow art. Lea also offers some very cool solutions for creating effective and colorful imagery quickly.
