Photoshop has some half decent basic brushes you can load and customise, I will do a custom brushes tutorial next as I think using your own made brushes is always best.
Starting an image
1. A question I asked myself when I started, and answered rarely - Resolution. The quick answer is this, start at a medium / high(ish) resolution while you are drafting it out, and before you start with the details / rendering, double the size. I usually start with an A5 (1748x2480) or A6 (1240x1748) size preset (International Papers).
2. Use a texture brush, or paint bucket to fill the image to a mid-tone colour / shade. As mentioned in my first post, this is so you can highlight and darken the image in the next steps.
3. Add a new multiply layer, and with this sketch your idea, if you haven't had your Berocca today and need inspiration, hit the net (not literally) for reference pictures or art which tickles you (once again not literally).
4. Once you have a sketch down which your happy with (I went for a huge dragon, though more based on a lizard from some nature photos) add a Normal layer under the multiply layer and on here, get some tone down, paint away the basic shapes of the image... All the first steps I would recommend looking more at the thumbnail window than your main one, as you can get a better sense of where the composition is going.
5a. After this phase, use a combination of Overlay and Multiply layers to help you pull your image in to shape, and also to help you find a working colour palette. I used an Overlay layer first, as I wanted the dragon to be epic and gigantic, I went for a bit of a limited dusk colour palette.
5b. Using a multiply layer next, just to drop in some shadows and again try to shape the images composition.
6. (Optional Step) So here you will be pretty much ready to start work on the image, however if your not confident with jumping in just yet add a new Normal layer just below the Sketch (Multiply) Layer. This step is a bit like the equivalent of bicycle stabilizers; use the layer to add some larger details in using the colours your previous layers have produced, sharpen some of the rough edges, until you are ready to start working on top of your sketch layer. You may be wondering why bother with this stage at all - I've found plenty of times rushing in too soon I can personally find myself painting over the sketch layer without a good enough idea of how to develop the image, and then find the ...'charm' of the sketch is lost under the brush strokes painted in the dark.
7. (Ok, more like 5c.) So I'm feeling the image is almost ready, thanks to the last normal layer I can re-look at the image; and decide I want more of a background glow. I added another Overlay layer on top of the previous normal layer and pumped up the lighting behind the dragon, in retrospect I think a little too much BUT this is the whole point of this tutorial, to find what works before you commit!
Here is a screenshot of the layers -
(Note; I've put these in a folder of their own. The rendering process can take many additional layers (I've gone into the hundreds before), and keeping track can get annoying, and time consuming!
Weren't expecting a finished image were you? ;) This tutorial will hopefully help you bring your images to this point a lot more efficiently. I'll do a tutorial on rendering using this image, and a further tutorial on finishing and mastering your final images.
Thank you for reading!
- Greg
3. Add a new multiply layer, and with this sketch your idea, if you haven't had your Berocca today and need inspiration, hit the net (not literally) for reference pictures or art which tickles you (once again not literally).
4. Once you have a sketch down which your happy with (I went for a huge dragon, though more based on a lizard from some nature photos) add a Normal layer under the multiply layer and on here, get some tone down, paint away the basic shapes of the image... All the first steps I would recommend looking more at the thumbnail window than your main one, as you can get a better sense of where the composition is going.
5a. After this phase, use a combination of Overlay and Multiply layers to help you pull your image in to shape, and also to help you find a working colour palette. I used an Overlay layer first, as I wanted the dragon to be epic and gigantic, I went for a bit of a limited dusk colour palette.
5b. Using a multiply layer next, just to drop in some shadows and again try to shape the images composition.
6. (Optional Step) So here you will be pretty much ready to start work on the image, however if your not confident with jumping in just yet add a new Normal layer just below the Sketch (Multiply) Layer. This step is a bit like the equivalent of bicycle stabilizers; use the layer to add some larger details in using the colours your previous layers have produced, sharpen some of the rough edges, until you are ready to start working on top of your sketch layer. You may be wondering why bother with this stage at all - I've found plenty of times rushing in too soon I can personally find myself painting over the sketch layer without a good enough idea of how to develop the image, and then find the ...'charm' of the sketch is lost under the brush strokes painted in the dark.
7. (Ok, more like 5c.) So I'm feeling the image is almost ready, thanks to the last normal layer I can re-look at the image; and decide I want more of a background glow. I added another Overlay layer on top of the previous normal layer and pumped up the lighting behind the dragon, in retrospect I think a little too much BUT this is the whole point of this tutorial, to find what works before you commit!
Here is a screenshot of the layers -
(Note; I've put these in a folder of their own. The rendering process can take many additional layers (I've gone into the hundreds before), and keeping track can get annoying, and time consuming!
Weren't expecting a finished image were you? ;) This tutorial will hopefully help you bring your images to this point a lot more efficiently. I'll do a tutorial on rendering using this image, and a further tutorial on finishing and mastering your final images.
Thank you for reading!
- Greg
Upcoming Tutorials -
- Make your own brushes
- Rendering your images
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