Making of 'Lida'

Introduction

In this piece, I wanted to interpret a new feeling of an old Chinese poem, and try to make it more fantastical, sci-fi and surreal. So I started out by doing research some research. Here are a few images I found from a Google Image search.

Fig. 04

Fig. 04

Concept/Sketch

Here are some rough concept sketches, composed with the "pipa" (a musical instrument) photograph and graphic elements to see how it would all look together.

So, when I could see what compositions I was after, I chose the most suitable one and started painting...

Black and White

In this step, I started out with just black and white first, and I drew every element for each layer. I did this because it's easier to change colour for each element using the Hue/Saturation and Replace Color tool to change the colour.

I filled a gradient on the background and put the sketch as a guideline above, lowering the opacity if the layer.

Fig. 01

Fig. 01

I then started with the skin, just painting grey tonal shades and working on the values.

Fig. 02

Fig. 02

I painted in the suit and shoes...

Fig. 04

Fig. 04

Then the hair and the shadows on the feet...

Fig. 05

Fig. 05

I then painted the chair and added the "pipa" (musical instrument).

Fig. 06

Fig. 06

I used the gradient tool a couple of times to paint the chair, to get it nice and smooth. I then added a speaker and the strings on the pipa.

Fig. 07

Fig. 07

I used a flower brush to design the pattern on the pipa.

Fig. 08

Fig. 08

Okay, so with it almost done in black and white, it was then time to use the Hue/Saturation and Replace Color and Selective Color tools to change my greys to colours.

Fig. 09

Fig. 09

Colour

Here are some steps where I used the Hue/Saturation and Replace Color and Selective Color tools to adjust colour in this image.

First of all, I used Hue/Saturation tool to get a basic colour tone...

Fig. 10

Fig. 10

Then I used Replace Color tool to give her skin a more reddish and pinkish colour.

Fig. 11

Fig. 11

The skin shadow looked too dark and I wanted it much brighter, so I used the Replace Color tool again to fix the problem.

Fig. 12

Fig. 12

I used the Selective Color tool to give the yellow highlights on the skin, which makes her look more Asian.

Fig. 13

Fig. 13

I used the Replace Color tool again to give more saturation on the shadowed parts. The light bounces from the skin will become a little red and orange because of the subsurface scattering.

Fig. 14

Fig. 14

I used the Selective Color tool again here to give the highlighted parts a little blue, because of the many tiny veins found under the skin.

Fig. 15

Fig. 15

I used a basic paint brush to paint the lips and eye makeup.

Fig. 16

Fig. 16

Using the Hue/Saturation tool I achieve a basic colour for the chair.

Fig. 17

Fig. 17

Using the Replace Color tool I gave the dark areas more red, making it look a little more like purple.

Fig. 18

Fig. 18

Here I used the Hue/Saturation tool again to get the basic tone.

Fig. 19

Fig. 19

The same was done for the suit...

Fig. 20

Fig. 20

And also to change the background.

Fig. 21

Fig. 21

Glowing Effects

Here I used a soft airbush to paint the glow and added a radial blur a couple of times.

Fig. 22

Fig. 22

I used the Color Range tool to select the white section, and then filled it with a white colour on another layer, using the Gaussian blur filter.

I added some text from the poem behind the background, like a graphic design.

Fig. 25

Fig. 25

I typed the text and transformed the type to surround her.

Fig. 26

Fig. 26

I then duplicated the text a couple of times, and used Motion Blur for the vertical and horizontal directions.

Fig. 27

Fig. 27

And finally, it was done!

So, here I've just shown you some methods used in the creation of this piece, and I hope that they will be of some help to you. If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to let me know.

Thanks!
Yu Cheng

Fetching comments...

Post a comment