Illustration Work Process: Wax

Pacman23 — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:41:13 +0000

This is an original character that I created for “Wind Jazz”, which is a personal graphic novel that I’m currently developing. His name is Wax and he has a pacifier on his head. Awesome guy. Note that this is not a tutorial, but a showcase of my creation process.

Step 1

On this step the strokes are very rough and I’m just trying to create a pose that I like along with anatomy and proportions. I use a 12x12 Wacom Intuos3 and Photoshop CS3. Once I have it and I like the composition I move on to step 2.

Step 2

I create a new layer on top and trace it with the brush tool. I use the pen tool to stroke paths for more precise lines, like the tubes on his mask and the pillar he’s standing on. The brush settings are set to 100% and I keep the size of the brush between 3 and 5.

Step 3

Flat colors. Everyone hates this step. All I do is create a layer underneath the lineart and lasso tool every individual part followed by the paint bucket. I work from dark to light so the flats are usually a bit dark and unsaturated. Step 3 can suck it.

Step 4

Ah.. now we’re talking. On this step I create a light source (as the top layer) and drop some shadows and highlights. I use the magic wand to select a part I want to highlight, and create a layer (set to overlay) between the lineart and flats. I also create another layer set to multiply for shading. I also went back to the lineart layer and set the layer to linear burn after lightening it a bit + added an outer glow effect set to multiply with a dark grayish color to get that soft look around the whole thing.

Step 5

More details added like glow on the tubes (added a layer set to screen along with an outer glow effect on top of the lineart) and markings on his suit (added a layer set to screen at about 40% on top of the highlights). I also created a blurry background just to keep the focus on the character. Changed the color on the pillar get more contrast from the background color.

Step 6

The icing on the cake. Added a few more details on the pillar as well as a pattern. For the back pack, I made a new layer on top of the lineart set to multiply at about 70% (with an outer glow layer effect) and used the brush and pen tool. It was straight to lineart, as I didn’t make a rough for it, I just did as I went along with what I had in mind. For the glove and belt, I did the same thing but set to screen with white.

So there you have it. It’s a long process but the final image speaks for itself. Use photoshop as a tool and take advantage of layer effects. Just don’t make your image reek of photoshop by adding filters all over the place.

There are more characters from Wind Jazz in my DeviantART gallery if you want to check them out. Also, have you got any work process images of your own? We'd love to see it! ;)

Digital Painting Tutorial by Vitaly Alexius

paul0v2 — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 00:03:31 +0000

In this tutorial, Alexius show us the whole process that he uses to create his digital paintings. I really like the way it's explained and it's really cool to see how other people work, and also a very good way to learn new stuff, so check it out!

For more visit svitart.n-tek.ca and alexiuss.deviantart.com

"Aburod Terra" (Uninhabited Earth) Came to as a commission by Daniel Jeppsson as a cover for his music "Hardcore/Gabber" CD Album/Vinyl cover for his band "Recall"; which I was hired to illustrate back in November 2005.

On November 23rd, 2005 after finding my artwork on the internet he contacted me with a request for an album cover. His exact words were "For my record, that i want to design, I need something DARK. The record will be called "Day of Evil" so something like destroyed houses, after war, burning buildings, dead bodies in a city landscape would look great. It needs to be minimum 30x30cm at 300dpi". He also provided me with links of my paintings, which he liked, requesting similar style, colors, and composition.

I quickly created 3 small sketches for the client to give him some options (sketches below). He decided to go with the second sketch, and so I worked on it, until both I and the client were satisfied with it.

Process:

Just like many of my other paintings, I love to research before starting a piece. For this one, I went out all around downtown Toronto, photographing everything that I witnessed that day. One of the streets I passed through was interesting and detailed and so I decided to use it as my main reference for this painting.

Photo 1 shows one of the street photos. Photo 2 shows some detail that have inspired the architecture in the piece and were used as textures in some places.

I usually start off with a gray canvas, that way the contrast values of the painting come out best, as I easily create lights and shadows. At this stage the painting is completely black and white, to better capture contrast values, a simple practice known way back in the Renaissance.

Sometimes I start sketching things on paper and then scan or photograph them, but here I started off sketching straight in Photoshop.

First things first, I develop the prespective, by looking at my photo references and by creating a vanishing point. From this point, I create perspective lines of reference for all my buildings in the piece.

There are 3 vanishing points

On my next step, I leave the perspective lines and vanishing point alone, and create a new layer, on which I start to block in the overall shapes, using a large square brush.

Next I make a copy of the vanishing point and perspective lines layer and set it above all my layers, set the layer mode to "Overlay" so I can always look at it in case I need to, by playing with it's opacity. Once I'm done with the perspective I remove the layer. At this point I decide where the light falls from.

For this piece, I used the following tools: Default Photoshop Brushes and the Smudge Tool.

Bellow is a box that shows the effects one can produce with just default Photoshop brushes, set at 10% Opacity and the Smudge Tool set at30% strength. I'm pretty much using Photoshop bushes/smudge tools and a tablet just as I would use acrylic/oil paints with a brush.

"Dab and Smudge" method predominates. Sometimes, when I wish to save time I insert textures from my photographs into the piece as separate layers set to "Overlay/Multiply/Lighten/Screen/Darken". The key is to just experiment with these layer modes for various effects.

Further development of the painting: Windows are set in place, detail start appearing. Using the same methods I put around 40 or more hours of work into the piece, until I am satisfied with the resulting black and white painting. I constantly zoom in and out to create big and small details.

Next step is the coloring. I create a new layer, set it to "color", and start applying various colors to this layer, experimenting, looking for the perfect color combo/look.

When I was pleased with the colors, composition, and detail, the piece was sent off to the client. However, the client was not satisfied with the "thank" and suggested that I should instead add some burning cars into the scene. Following his directions, I removed the tank, then I put in a burning bus and a burning truck into the painting.

The final .psd file is 123mb, has no layers (as I dont tend to use a lot of layers during painting and constantly merge them to slow down the loading time) and is sized at 45x45cm at 300dpi.

Detail shot of the painting, lots of details are usually invisible unless the painting is printed at its true 45x45cm resolution.

About the author

Hi there! I'm Paulo Canabarro, 26 year old web designer - paulocanabarro.com I'm from Brazil currently living and working out of Providence RI, USA. I'm truly passionate about design of all kinds, finding and sharing inspiration here has become part of my life. If you like to know more about me or get in touch visit my website paulocanabarro.com Stock me at Twitter and Dribbble

work process