Wacom Weekend 2 day ticket

Eight courses by Russ Abbott and Guy Aitchison, plus hands-on instruction time on a Wacom Cintiq tablet; May 1&2, 2015 from noon-9pm both days; at the Hell City Tattoo Expo at the Downtown Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio

Courses include:

Russ Abbott

Digital Art Fundamentals: Manga Studio. New file creation, resolution, paper color, exploration of various drawing tools (pencils, brushes, pens, airbrush, gradients), layers basics, color selection, file saving. 2:00pm, Friday May 1

Tattoo Illustration Process: Importing a photo of the client, creating an opaque layer to draw above the client body part, working with photo references (warp, transform, opacity), value study best practices, line drawing, proper magic wand selections, gradients,  coloring with overlay layers, resizing for stenciling, printing. 7:00pm, Friday May 1

Modern Drafting: Layers, Guides, and Rulers- layer modes(multiply, lighten darken, overlay, glow), clipping layers, reference layers, vector layers and when to use them, Rulers & Guides (quick overview of all rulers with a highlight on Perspective rulers, special rulers, and symmetry rulers, creating mandalas. 12:00pm, Saturday May 2

Happy Clients: Digital Mock-ups and Painless Edits- applying illustrations and references on to photos of clients, 3D body parts (need Bez’s permission on this one), How to deal with client requests to change the design efficiently. Share client testimonials on this process. 4:00pm, Saturday May 2

Guy Aitchison

Photoshop 101: Demonstration of Photoshop user interface, including tools and palettes; important basic functions such as Layers, Copy/Paste, and Transform; importing from a scanner or from a photo library; general navigation and file management. 12:00pm, Friday May 1

Tattoo Design Rendering in Photoshop: Step-by-step of how to import a rough sketch, clean it up in Photoshop, import and incorporate explore different color options and create a finished tattoo reference; fitting a design to a tracing using Transform,  Distort, Warp and Liquify; outputting a stencil. 4:00pm, Friday May 1

Photo Retouching and Portfolio Work: A demonstration of how to clean up and make your tattoo photos portfolio-ready: improving the photo without improving the tattoo. This is followed by advice on file types and sizes for different professional uses. 2:00pm, Saturday May 2 

Essential Design Compositing: Multiple design elements, including scans from a sketchbook and items taken from the internet, are combined in Photoshop, using multiple layers, distortion tools, paintbrushes, cloning and other related tools. The completed design looks like a finished color drawing done in the artist’s hand. 7:00pm, Saturday May 2

In the hour-long time slots between courses, participants will have time for hands-on training on a Cintiq Companion tablet with instructors available to help troubleshoot. Representatives from Wacom will also be on hand to assist with the equipment and answer any questions that the instructors can't.

If you can't make it to both days, single-day tickets are available as well. Click here for a single day ticket.