Sketchbook Pro Tutorial (Part One)

[CactusJuicy]

Well I was asked to make a tutorial for the program that I use to draw with, which is called Sketchbook Pro. Keep in mind I use a Wacom Bamboo Fun tablet, but some people can do amazing things with a computer mouse. I'm not great at explaining things, but here goes...

SB Pro Overview

(when I took this I was working on a sketch... I forgot to save. *goes and cries in a corner*)

Okay, well I will go over these different parts I have pointed out in more detail. Please note that I'm not sure if I named everything properly, but that is how I think of them. Also they layout of your windows might be different... I tend to move them around while I am drawing.

Name + Zoom - Pretty much what it says. For this file it says: luminous eyes.tif @ 33.8%. The file's name is "luminous eyes.tif" (yes it is a strange name..) and it is zoomed out at a size 33.8% of the original size (I tend to work big and shrink it down afterward).

The Toolbar

1. Undo/Redo - Undo something you don't like, or if you decide afterward that you did like it, just hit the redo button!

2. Selection Tools - These tools will select an area of your drawing. You can then move it around, resize, or rotate that area.

3. Crop - So you have a huge canvas, but your drawing only takes up a small part of it? This is the tool for you! Just use it like you would a selection tool to select the area that you want to keep, then press the little crop symbol at the lower corner and... done! Your canvas now perfectly fits your drawing!

4. Zoom - Use this to Zoom in, Zoom out, and move around your canvas.

5. Move - This moves, resizes, or rotates everything that is on the current layer.

6. Rulers - Want to draw a straight line or a perfect circle? These rulers work just like real life ones, but even better since you can resize them! Simply click inside the little white box that will appear and drag to move the ruler.

7. Symmetry Tools - These will let you make symmetric drawings. You can turn on vertical symmetry, horizontal symmetry, or both! Whatever you draw when these are turned on will be reflected over the line(s) of symmetry.

8. Drawing Mode - This changes whether you are drawing freehand, drawing perfect rectangles, circles, straight lines, etc. I usually just have this set on freehand as it gives the best results for me, but you can play with these if you like.

9. Color Wheel - Not really part of the toolbar, but it is a pretty basic element of the program. It looks black in the screenshot because the brightness slider is all the way down, but normally there would be a bunch of pretty colors to choose from. Underneath you can save your own colors.

This concludes part one because we are done with the toolbar and because my arms are tired from typing, but stay tuned because more will be added asap. DXXXX I'm a bad teacher.