Making Of 'The Confrontation'
By Jone L. Leung
Web: Open Site Email: eknerwal@gmail.com
Date Added: 29th September 2011
Software used:
Photoshop
Step 1
Hello, for this making of, I will try my best to backtrack the steps that I took to complete my image, The Confrontation. I've always been inspired and fascinated by dinosaurs and prehistoric creatures, so for this painting, I wanted to create an adventure based fantasy piece. With that idea in mind I started off with a simple line drawing, just to get the pose, gesture, expression, and anatomy of the dinosaur. Keep in mind that since this is a personal piece, I didn't bother doing any thumbnails or pre-planning, since I had everything pretty much in my head and just wanted to start painting as early as possible. Needless to say, skipping this process did present me with a couple of roadblocks along the process so do keep in mind that thumbnails and idea sketching are crucial especially if your work is for a client. Also doing multiple thumbnails gives you more options to choose from, whether for yourself or for a client. I wasn't too sure about the composition at this stage because of my rush to jump right in, and it caused me to go in circles, so a great way to avoid this and save time is to simply give your-self more options in the beginning (Fig.01). The brush that I used to do most of the preliminary drawing is basically a default round brush built into Photoshop as shown in Fig.01a. The settings are pretty basic, and I find that this brush is fairly versatile at this stage to lay down ideas and make quick changes.
Fig. 01
Fig.01a
Step 2
In this step, I felt that his expression wasn't really what I had in mind. I wanted the beast to be more aggressive and meaner, so I gave him an opened mouth as part of my idea was to have it growl at his newfound prey. The dinosaur itself is not anatomically accurate, being that I wanted some creativity and artistic ownership rather than copy a real dinosaur. It was more fun for me that way. (Fig.02)
Fig.02
Step 3
At this point, I decided on most of the composition, placing the figure on the far upper left corner on top of these giant banyan roots that I wanted to incorporate into this piece. The roots are enormous and marvelous structures, and if you've seen them in person you'll know what I'm talking about. What I want to show is basically a square-off between man and beast, so at this stage I was deciding on the placement mostly, and how to integrate forest elements into the painting without causing tangents that will disturb the "flow” of the image. (Fig.03)
Fig.03
Making Of 'The Confrontation'
By Jone L. Leung
Web: Open Site Email: eknerwal@gmail.com
Date Added: 29th September 2011
Step 4
The early composition did involve observant monkeys hanging on trees if you look closely at the upper right hand corner, and for some odd reason, this idea crossed my mind that another figure should be sort of riding the beast, or controlling its actions. That really didn't go over too well, since the scale of the painting meant that the dinosaur would be gigantic, thus making its surroundings more detailed than what I wanted to show. Another decision that was made was to crop the left side of the image so that there would be less space between the man and the beast, because I wanted a more dramatic feel. At this point, I'm still using the default round brush and painting in black and white. (Fig.04)
Fig.04
Step 5
It was then time to throw down some color, and to indicate general forms and shapes. Using a combination of multiply, overlay, screen, and soft light, I gave some starting base colors to the forest, dinosaur, and the figure. These layer modes are useful for laying in basic colors without covering up the line work. If you think in line like I do, this technique is extremely helpful. Depending on how you think, you may prefer starting off with line art or you may choose to immediately use solid color to block in shapes, masses, and just go nuts. Either way is fine, it is all a matter of comfort and finding whatever method works in your favor. For me, I find it easier to conceptualize and see things in line. (Fig.05)
Fig.05
Step 6
Using a few layers to build up the colors gradually, I continued to push some of these base colors in order to make the image pop more. I was going for a late afternoon, early evening atmosphere, so I wanted everything to have a dark blue-green tinted overcast, with a primary focal area bit brightly defined and lit. For now, it seems to be where the dinosaur is standing. The colors are quite saturated right now, but that will be changed later on. Also, I decided to change the rock on the left and add some trees in front of and behind the dinosaur in order to define this environment a bit further. (Fig.06)
Fig.06
Making Of 'The Confrontation'
By Jone L. Leung
Web: Open Site Email: eknerwal@gmail.com
Date Added: 29th September 2011
Step 7
This step is a bit of a jump I know, but from here on out it was a process of straight forward painting. Just a lot of time and trying to find what I want within the picture. Many additions such as clothing on the figure, details in the rocks, leaves, and trees that helped the image come together. I made the dinosaur much bigger, to heighten the effect of the narrative. Sometimes you just have to push paint or in this case pixels around until whatever it is you want starts to unfold. Another pointer that helps is to really observe what you want to illustrate. Try to understand what it is you're drawing or painting from a color, form, and shape standpoint (Fig.07). Sometimes it's not just about replicating what is in front of you. Several custom brushes were made from scratch in order to make the textures a little more personal, in order to get away from the traditional round brushed look that Photoshop has, nothing against that look since I myself do it like that sometimes, but I wanted something that felt more organic. Many different brushes can be variations of the chalk brush built into the program, tweaked with either shape dynamics, texture or the dual brush options checked on or off. So have fun and just play around with it. (Fig.07a)
Fig.07
Fig:07a
Step 8
More painting. Here I added indications of scaly dinosaur skin, and brightened the focal area a bit more. The image overall has a warm overtone to it, something that I don't want so I will fix that later. (Fig.08)
Fig.08
Step 9
Here, I decided to brighten the dinosaurs head as well as provide some sort of ambient lighting to the rest of the ground plane that surrounds the focal area. An overlay layer with a light de-saturated color was applied over where I wanted the light source to be. It's important not to overdo this, since it will look really cheesy and obvious if not done with care. I also glazed over the edges around the painting with a darker color set to multiply in order to frame it, bringing out the composition even more. Doing this allows the viewer to distinguish more clearly where I want their focus to be drawn. (Fig.09)
Fig.09
Making Of 'The Confrontation'
By Jone L. Leung
Web: Open Site Email: eknerwal@gmail.com
Date Added: 29th September 2011
Step 10
This is where I made a major change. Previously, I felt the key color to be a little too warm and reddish for my liking, and so I decided to apply color balance and curves adjustment layers over the entire painting. You'll notice that after this was done, it resembles closely the final image. These layer modes are great in a sense that it can allow you to sit back and choose what you do and do not want. Keep in mind that it takes several passes to get to the results that you want and it is by no means a quick fix. It still takes an understanding of lighting, and color to make it work. Photoshop may make an artist much faster, but that doesn't necessarily translate you into a better artist. Additionally, these solutions offer much more flexibility compared to the traditionally approach of painting over it, although that wouldn't be too bad either. Maybe, someday I'll choose to do an entire digital painting on one layer without using any of the options available. Right now that sounds scary but that will be fun and challenging. =) (Fig.10)
Fig.10
Step 11
More painting done here again. I noticed the dinosaur's leg didn't feel integrated so I decided to cover it up with some long grass. Also, I felt the figures shirt was too bright so I went ahead and darkened that area too. (Fig.11)
Fig.11
Step 12
I decided that the dinosaur needed something to make it a bit different so I went ahead and painted in some horns on its back and head region. I continued to add details here and there, without zooming in too much in order to have a complete view of the picture. Zooming in too frequently can make one lose attention to how the entire image is working out as a whole. The painting up close is actually quite chaotic and loose. I applied some backlighting to the figure as well, reflecting some of the local colors from the surroundings. From here on out it just became a process of nitpicking, changing and adding details, micro-composing certain areas so that tangents don't occur, and darkening and brightening specific areas to make it pop out more. That's about it I guess. Hopefully this made some sense and it helped you picked up a thing or two. Feel free to shoot me an email if anything seems confusing. If you know another way of doing things, I'd love to learn. Thanks for reading!(Fig.12)Fig.12
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