| Posted: 07 February 2016 at 11:41am | IP Logged | 2
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Over the years I have used different methods of creating starfields. (Yes, typically I give you a history lesson before giving you an answer to your question. But rest assured, the latter is informed by the former.)When I was a child, I did it the hardest way: drawing little circles and blacking in around them. Ever so slightly time consuming! But when I was about 12 my parents bought me a manual typewriter for my birthday, and I quickly learned about liquid paper and correction tape, both of which are good for doing stars, tho with the latter I tended to a kind of sameness of size for the dots I was drawing. Until a friend pointed it out, that is! By the time I was in my late teens I had discovered spatter technique -- load a brush with white paint and shake it out over the blacked in spaces. After masking off the parts not to be spattered. A toothbrush worked well for this, too. Move ahead a few decades, and I started doing commissions. One of the things I resolved from the beginning was that I would not make corrections on the art. If I made a mistake, I'd start over. The reason for this was that I did not want to risk white-out yellowing and flaking off over the years. But that meant I was back to drawing circles and blacking in around them to create stars. Then I found out about liquid mask. This is a somewhat rubbery liquid (duh!) that can be painted onto a drawing to mask desired areas. I started using it to spot stars, painting little dots of mask, then laying the black background on top. When the page is erased, the mask peels off, and lo! Stars! (This also eliminated what my high school chum called "unison stars." I dip the tip of the brush handle in the mask, and with each spot I make there is less, so the spots get smaller. Repeating this process multiple times produces effective starfields.) Now, at last, we come to the answer to your question! Since I sent scans of the art to IDW, I realized I could use Photoshop to save some time. I started filling large black areas on the scan, and then, when stars were needed, using a brush tool set to "spatter." Then it's a case of swooping the cursor around the selected area. (I've found overlapping spirals produce the most convincing effect.) I use this effect sometime in NEW VISIONS, when I am adding stars to an existing image, or creating a completely new field. Hope that answer was worth waiting for!
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