Welcome
to what I'd like to call "anatomy
of a Photoshop picture".
Not
that I'm a genius at this, but maybe
this will give you some idea as to how
I ended up with part of one of my pictures,
and help you in your own efforts. I
haven't seen anyone else's picture blown
apart like this, so I figured I'd give
it a shot. If it helps you out, let
me know. I love mail as much as anyone
else.
Note:
What you are going to read below will
not necessarily be a tutorial on how
to paint clothes or retouch Poser figures
(I'll do those in separate tutorials).
I might hint toward that, but this is
more on layers, and how they're set
up: modes, opacities, etc.
In
each step will be another layer in the
order they were set up, from bottom
to top. That's not the order that
I did them, but just a way to present
it. Sometimes it looks strange... remember
that to paint some layers, I viewed
the layers above them, painting underneath.
Also,
I use a Wacom tablet for most of what
I do. If you don't have one, sell something
and go get one. You'll never know how
you managed digital art before it.
First,
here's the final version of "Liberty
2100". You can click on the picture
to go to a larger version, and see it
now, or wait until we're finished to check
it out.
The final version is large. With all the
layers, around 60mb. That's why, when
I worked on the body and clothes (below)
I cropped a duplicate of the picture.
When I was done with everything you'll
read below, I flattened the layers and
pasted it back in the large one with the
full background.
Here's
the cropped version of just the body.
I'm skipping all the steps in how I retouched
her face and the rest of her body. Suffice
it to say, I used the pen tool, airbrushes,
burn and dodge, and plain paint tools
with homemade brushes to achieve a look
that will work with the rest of the picture.
If there are unfinished edges on her now,
they are in places I'm not worried about,
since I'm going to paint clothes over
her. I didn't worry too much about her
legs, for instance.
Right
now there are two layers. Background
and body.
The
next layer up is the shadow for her jeans.
I painted this layer after the actual
jeans were done (following picture). Some
of this is airbrushed. The other part
was the appropriate part of the jeans
copied, then darkened and blurred somewhat.
The opacity level here was lowered also
and the layer was offset from the jeans
above.
Here's
the first layer of the jeans with the
shadow underneath. It's hard to see at
this scale, but the threads and holes
on them are quite detailed. It was fun
doing this part.
A quick synopsis on the painting: Block
in the main color of the jeans... use
lighter and darker colors (remembering
carefully where the light is coming from)...
a bit of the smudge tool and very small
brushes for hanging threads (on another
layer above the jeans; I merged the two
layers after they were both done).....
then a very light use of noise to help
with texture. Then more use of burn and
dodge with large airbrushes to get the
shadows and hilights right.
However
there's a problem... they're too...
....clean.
So here's the next layer up, for the dirty
look. I used the airbrush and dark green
and brown clouds. Then a mask to airbrush
away the dirt I didn't want. The layer
was then set to 'multiply' at 72%.
Here's
the finished boot layer, again a composition
of around four layers merged together
when I was done with them. Again, basic
color, burn and dodge and more color until
I feel I have it right. I used a brush
I usually use for hair on the hilights
to give them more texture. And another
layer, like the jeans, of 'dirt' set to
'overlay'.
Note: Experiment with the burn and dodge
tools. It makes a great deal of difference
if you set the burn tool to darken hilights,
midtones, or shadows. Don't settle for
the default here. I use all sizes brushes,
usually set to vary transparency with
pressure, but not size.
