Brushing up with Nathan Brown and room122.com

I spend a lot of time on the internet looking at art and design.  Sometimes I find some down right terrible sites…but  most of the time I find good ones.  Every now and then I run across one that I just love.   Recently, while looking for some information about Photoshop I ran across a really cool design oriented website with several, really nice Photoshop brushes available for free download on it.  The website is www.room122.com and is produced by a Designer out of Texas named Nathan Brown.  I got in touch with Nathan and asked him a few questions.

Nathan Brown

Tribal Council: I always start all my interviews with this tough question, what is your favorite color and why?

Nathan Brown: It has to be a toss up between orange and blue. I love orange for it’s hot factor. It instantly adds warmth to a design, it also plays nicely with wood tones and wood grain which I also use a lot in my work. Blue is great for mood. It can be used to stimulate different emotions which makes it very versatile. It can be used for a dark and moody feel, or a lighter earthy tone (sky, ocean, etc…).

TC: For the folks out there that may not be familiar with your work, tell us a little bit about you and your body of work.

NB: I’ve been a working designer, holding either full-time of freelance positions, for about 10 years now. I’ve worked on a wide variety of projects, including book covers, album covers, logos/branding, t-shirts, illustration and web design. That’s part of what I love so much about my job. It’s so varied. I can be working at one end of the design spectrum one day and the opposite end the next.

I’m also the editor of http://room122.com where I blog about design, provide tutorials, free vectors and Photoshop brushes. I also serve as Creative Director for Round Table Companies.

TC: How does color effect your work?

NB: Color is everything in my work. I use color in all of my designs to set mood and evoke emotion. I find that I enjoy working on a piece the most when a certain emotional tone is required. For example, when designing a book or album cover it’s a lot of fun for me to create that front door to a deeper story. The cover to a book or album is more often than not the reader/listener’s first sample of what’s inside. A cover has to use color and design to grab attention and at the same time tell a little bit of the story within.

TC: Do you have a favorite style of coloring or art?

NB: Oh, that’s a tough one… I love so many styles. I have to say my favorite is when various textures are utilized with digital painting techniques. I love textures and can’t get enough. I seldom ever design a piece that doesn’t utilize a real world texture that I’ve either photographed or found on the web.

TC: How many photoshop brushes do you have posted on your website.

NB: There are currently 12 brush sets at Room122. Each set features 8-15 brushes. I try to post 1-2 new brush sets per month, and I have several cooking that I just need to make time to sit down and create. Currently my brushes are all stamp style, which is very useful, but in the future I would like to offer some paint style that you can actually use in drawing, painting or coloring.

TC: What other tools do you have posted on your site.

NB: I also have several free vectors, and several textures that I’ve photographed. I try to offer tips and tutorials as much as possible, and inspirational finds (work from other designers that inspire me to up my game).

TC: What made you decide to post tools like that for free download on your site?

NB: I think it’s a matter of giving back to the design community. I went to art school and it served as a spring board, but the majority of my education came from real world experience and seasoned designers willing to share their knowledge to help me improve.

I try to answer all questions that come my way, and help as many designers who are just starting out as I can. I think by providing free information and resources it only serves to improve the design community as a whole.

TC: Do you have any other projects coming up in the near future you’d like to share?

NB: I’m currently working on a book cover design through Round Table Companies. The book is by a man who is half German and half African American. The story is about his life growing up in post WWII America and how his mixed ethnicity was excepted during that time period. The cover is going to feature some pretty powerful imagery with WWII elements and colors of that time period. I’m pretty excited about it.

I also have several album cover designs in the works that should be released later this year. I recently announced that I would discount all of my design rates for Austin, Tx musicians, and the reaction to that has been outstanding. I’ve met a lot of great local bands, and have had a tremendous time honing my album cover design skills.

TC: If people wanted to contact you with questions, comments or work…how should they do that?

NB: There is a contact form at room122.com. Stop by and say hello!

So I thought that I’d take a quick look at one of the photoshop brush sets that are available on room122.com and show you how they might be useful to the Comic Book Colorist.  I have this drawing here of the lovely Super Girl by my good friend Anthony Pafford and colored (quickly and poorly I might add) by me. (look for a REAL coloring of this Super Girl by my friend Jennie to be posted here soon)

The beautiful Super Girl

So I have basically a flatted image here.  Nice drawing but not a lot of excitement is added in the color and background. However, in just a few steps we can add a lot.  I’m going to use the room122.com’s Star Cluster Brush Set and put her in space and it’s only going to take me a few seconds to do.

First thing I do is drop in a Dark background.  There’s just a hint of a gradient here from corner-to-corner to give it a little life.  Otherwise it might look a little flat.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Now I’ll need so set up my brush.  There’s a couple of ways you can do this depending on what you are looking to do (isn’t that always the case with Photoshop?).  If you have a large area and are wanting to paint in a big star field you could set up your brush with a size jitter, an opacity jitter, and angle jitter and a scatter…and very quickly paint in a WHOLE sky’s worth of stars.  In this case though I have a pretty tight area…so I’m going to set my spacing to 1000% (so it just paints one “brush” worth of color each time I click) and a angle jitter so that it’s a bit random.  I’ll then set my brush size LARGE so that the brush fills most of my page. I’ll add a new layer using my Stary Field brush I set a slightly warm color and turn the opacity of the brush down to just 10%.  I’ll click just a few times and get this light background of faint stars.

Then I’ll increase that opacity on my brush up around 75% (you might want to go higher depending on what look you’re going for) and chose a cooler color.  Then just a few more clicks.  The key here is at the end.  On your Stary Layer…apply a very slight Outer Glow. Mine is set with a light blue color, 50% Opacity, Spread of 6% and a Size of just 3 pixels.  It will not only pop those stars but it’ll give it just a hint of haziness that makes the stars look real.

My quick tutorial not only doesn’t to justice to the great drawing that Anthony did for me…but it leaves a lot for you to discover and you try out this stary field brush. The main thing I want to get across is how simple it is once you know how to use the tools that are available to you.  In just 4 steps and literally in a matter of a minute…I created and entire galaxy! (ok…that might be over stating it a little).

You also might be thinking…why go get Photoshop brushes??  Right there in chapter 5 in HiFi Color For Comics Brian spelled out how to create your own brushes.  Well you’re right! You know how to make these yourself and I encourage you to do so…but there are times when looking at new different tools can either give you a new perspective on how you can do something, speed up your production or both.

Special thanks to Anthony Pafford for drawing that picture of Super Girl for me.  You should go check out his website at http://anthonypafford.com and follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pafford