For the sea I used a simple Normal map and you can see the parameter in Fig.07. The sand is just a beige diffuse, nothing fancy.


Now onto the rendering! I created several different passes: Depth, Ambient Occlusion Pass, Surface ID, the sky and the final color (Fig.08).



Then I opened all these passes in Photoshop and I worked with all of them, duplicate passes were needed, blurring some or playing with the contrast. You can see in Fig.09 the way I organized my layers and the percentage I used on each of them. The Surface ID allowed me to easily select any part of the illustration. It is a very handy pass.


In the end I reworked the eyes a little bit directly in Photoshop to give them a little more smile (Fig.10). And voila!


I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and you learned something from it. Let's all keep learning and sharing our skills together and keep growing as artists. Thank you for taking the time to read this tutorial right to the last line!