Drawing Guide: Vintage Newsprint Effect (Patreon)

I've talked a little about this before, but I've tweaked my method some and would like to go more in depth about it! So here's a look into how I achieve this effect!

(Reminder to check out the Process / Drawing Guide Masterpost if you'd like a closer look into other aspects of my process!)

Before we get started: I'm using Clip Studio for this process. Also, remember that the size of your canvas can have a big impact on things. I always use a big canvas - usually at least 4000px in any direction. Now let's get started!

Line and color your image as usual

This technique is applied by altering the final image, so finish your image as usual! You can see how I go about coloring and lining my image using these links. The lineart guide also discusses coloring your lines, which I think really makes this effect pop, so I recommend giving it a try!

Another thing worth noting (that I talk about a bit in the coloring guide) is that I tend to do very subtle shading and gradients, and that I frequently use the "tone scraping" airbrush for this. This lends a little additional texture to the final piece, which helps push the aged look. This is a personal preference, though!

Altering the linework

1) The unaltered image. Here's our starting point!

2) Duplicate your lineart layer twice so that you have three of the same one. You can turn the visibility off on one and move it out of the way if you want - it's just a backup so you always have the original lines in case you need them again later.

My lines are always a little too thin, so I take the top lineart layer and use Clip Studio's "Filter -> Correct drawing line -> Correct line width" to thicken it. I feel like thick lines will look a little better with this effect.

3) Now take the second lineart layer, lock the opacity, and color all of the lines red.

4) Make sure both of these layers are visible, and then shift the red layer down and to the side a bit so it's just barely peeking out from beneath the layer above it.

Now change the opacity of both layers! The number you should lower them to depends a bit on the colors of the lines/the rest of the canvas, so play around a little here. For reference, I have the thickened lines set to 70% and the red lines set to 80%.

Adding in the halftone texture

If you don't have a halftone texture on hand, you can make one! I used this guide - it goes super in depth and shows you how to make an entire array of brushes and how to use them for an authentic look, but if you're like me and just want a little texture that you can easily apply, then you can just skip to the section labeled "Grunged Halftone" and follow the guide up until it has you register the texture as a material. Then you'll have a texture that you can easily drag, drop, and adjust!

So getting back to the tutorial:

1) Once you have your halftone texture registered as a material, drag and drop it onto the image, set the layer mode to "overlay," and use the little square on the canvas to adjust the size - you want it big enough that you can see the texture when it's zoomed out, but not so big that the dots become distracting.

You might notice that sometimes, as you adjust, it'll make weird little patterns - these are called "moire" patterns, and you'll want to avoid them if possible! One way to help avoid this is, once you have the halftone adjusted to your liking, right click the halftone layer in the layer menu and click "rasterize." In my experience this helps soften it up a little. (I forgot to do that for this tutorial, which is why mine looks a little sharper and has a bit of a moire pattern.)

2) Now adjust the layer opacity until you're happy with it!

PS: I usually place the halftone layer above the color but beneath the lineart so that the lineart doesn't have the dot texture.

Adding in the "worn" texture

1) This one is super simple. I make a new layer at the very top of the layer list, grab the "tone scraping" airbrush, and completely airbrush over the entire canvas in white. I use two different particle sizes, which can be adjusted in the brush panel - usually something like 3 and 7. (Keep in mind that if your canvas is smaller/bigger, you'll likely need the particle size to be a little different.)

2) Now just set that to overlay and adjust the opacity!

Messing with the "print registration" of the colors

In old printed images, you'll sometimes notice that the color is a bit misaligned. We're going to mimic that a little!

1) All you need to do is grab your color layer(s) and shift them downward and to the side. That's it!

2) Though one thing to note is that if your image has faces, this will sometimes make them look a little odd. To remedy this I'll usually use the lasso tool to select the face, copy and paste it...

3) ...and then shift the copy pasted layer back into place.

4) Also worth noting: if the layers you've shifted were touching the edges of the canvas, you might have to fill them in since there may be a blank line where the colors used to be. I've drawn some arrows pointing to the gap that appeared in this image.

And that's it! PS, be sure to zoom out occasionally throughout this process, because it can look *very* different when zoomed in. It isn't unlikely that you'll need to go back and tweak a few things.

I've been really fond of this method, so I hope you're able to find some use for it! Let me know if you have any additional questions!