Hi guys! So as part of my Novemeber post mix up, I wanted to show you guys more of the “behind the screen” info about how I create artwork.
For yesterday’s Horror Haikuesday piece I had Patrick Rahall’s poem as my starting point.
When I read it I had a few images immediatley stick out in my head.
Scientist, experiment gone wrong, and then flashes of thoughts bringing me to “The Fly,” and a particular scene in Frank Peretti’s “Monster.”
So next I scrolled around deviantart.com for inspiration. Here are the main ones I ended up drawing elements from:
Next, I tackled the drawing/painting by hand:
After that I took a photo of the painting and started messing with it in photoshop. Here’s the various stages of that:
My sad sad laptop was having some issues with communicating with my tablet on the night I made this, so I skipped the steps where I normally clean up my line work and details. I figured messy and cartoony kind of worked for the mood I was looking for anyway.
Here are the stages I took to get the painting to look a little more vibrant and polished.
- raw image – cool… but a little lack-luster
- brightness and contrast adjustment layer – pump up the blacks and whites a bit
- duplicate original image and change layer mode to multiply not enough detail yet
- Big ol’ blob o’ blue using the gradient tool – needs color
- change the blob of blue blending mode to color burn – ooo… lighting effects
- big blob of green- more color!!
- change the green layer blending mode to linear burn – ahhh, glowy. me like.
- big blob of black – I want the light to be more focused on the subject
- lower the black layer’s opacity to 90%- oh! look! the depth is back!
- duplicate original layer and put on top of the stack. Use the paint bucket tool to highlight various chunks of it – looks stupid now, but it’ll be better with the all-mighty blending mode change
- change awful looking teal layer blending mode to overlay – now there’s a cool looking edge highlight.
- I touched up the black lines around the glasses, just a bit.
- Watermark!
Tada!! So, there you have it. How “Experiment” was made.
