# Help achieving a retro "old school" technique/style traditionally and or digitally



## don007 (Dec 27, 2017)

*Help achieving a retro "old school" technique/style traditionally and or digitally*

I don't know where to start but I've always wanted to know how to get that old school look like the ads back in the day. I know they used watercolor for doing pin up photo references of actual models. How do I get that grainy type noisey look traditionally. I feel like if you were to do a piece in Photoshop you can easily apply a few actions or textures to make it look a certain way. I apologize if this isn't the correct category forum for this type of question. Thanks in advance.


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## Rrr (Dec 9, 2017)

Hi, a good place to start might be the Introductions board :biggrin:


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## CookieCat (Jun 11, 2018)

Hi! I understand your problem and I may be able to help you eventually. 😄
My artstyle also has a quite retro/ old school tone to it. Even though I'm not sure if it's the tone your looking for. But I think I'm able to give you some tips.

You can give any of your artwork a nice brown, gold or even yellow tone in which you use specific pencils or markers (I specifically like using copic markers) 
I usually do the lineart first and then do the coloration with copic markers. Make sure that the coloration is not too dominant and that it's pale enough so you can add the brown/yellow(...) tones later.
With the help of the brown/ yellow tones you can add shadow or maybe even little spots to make the drawing look kinda old. 

My personal favourites are brown gold markers. I like using my brown fineliner for the lineart. I don't know if you use lineart the but this method definitely works. It helps giving my drawings a nice retro atmosphere. Of course you can add some extra color if you want to but don't exaggerate. After all we still want to keep that nice warm retro atmosphere.

On the other hand you can use brown transparent sheets of paper that you can glue over your drawing. Although I don't use this method a lot.

Also what helps is using water colour. For instance your drawing a building and you add coloration (pale colors) and afterwards add a whole layer of water color. Paint all over the intire drawing. Note that the water color can't be too dominant either. Otherwise we won't be able to see the color of the building anymore. The water color is supposed to be a contrast (so to say). So it'll still look natural.

I hope I could give you a bit of a advice.
If not that's fine too. XD

✄ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

1. Picture are the fineliner I use for my drawings 
2-3. Picture is a drawing I did with copic markers, colored pencils and my fineliners
4. Picture is another example 🙂 
(Same method)


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## CookieCat (Jun 11, 2018)

Sorry if a response came a little late. I'm new here so I just got threw reading and giving advice. 

Hope it's not too late. 😅


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