I started working with black and white values first. By doing this, it's easy for me to determine where the lighting and shadows will be placed. I didn't used the brush tool in this step, instead I used the burn tool and dodge tool to add light and shadows up and down the shape. Then I used the variety brush tool to add some texture and stroke details (Fig.06 & Fig.07).

Skin Brush

Here is the skin brush I download from the talented Chinese artist Yang Xue Guo (Fig.08). It's called the "Blur's Good Brush” and it can be downloaded from his website

I used these three brushes over each other to produce a subtle skin tone.

Black and White to Color

Once I was satisfied with the black and white figure, I started to play with the color balance, selective color and replace color tools in order to turn the black and white into a color scheme that I liked (Fig.09 – Fig.11).

Back to 3D

I opened Maya to build the horn and wristband. I find it's an easier and efficient program to use when you want to get the right perspective (Fig.12).

The Expression

Beside the pose, all the emotion from this character had to be conveyed through his eyes. So I emphasized the expression of the eye to reflect his anger. I made the eye itself bigger and the pupil smaller and I also chose a shade of red for the eye's makeup. This was the highest saturation of the whole image and helped to attract the viewer's gaze to his eye first (Fig.13)!




I used the texture brush to paint the stone and metal (Fig.14 & Fig.15).