Workshops

94

February 2007

In depth First Snow

Photoshop
Marc Brunet
COUNTRY: Canada Marc is a 3D animation student who is passionate about art. While he studies, he works as a freelance illustrator so he can eat once or twice a week! He believes that to become a good artist requires hours of practice, so he draws most of the time. http://bluefley. cgsociety.org

FIRST SNOW
Learn to design and paint a female sci-fi character as Marc Brunet explains the process he used to create his awesome First Snow picture from start to finish
uring this workshop youll be walked through the process of creating this charming lady. My goal in this article is to help you pick up a few tips and learn something new that will help you improve your art in some way. First of all, when Im being tasked with creating a female character for a sci-fi scene, I start by asking myself what would represent this theme best. I really like the idea of mixing different elements in my pieces its always interesting to have various opposites in an image. For this project, I thought mixing a fairy tale with futuristic devices would give an interesting result. I chose Little Red Riding Hood as a basic idea to begin working from. I usually start with only that much information so I can

DVD Assets
The files you need are on the DVD FILES: first_snow_ brushes.abr, first_snow_1-5.tifs SOFTWARE: Photoshop CS2 (Demo)

develop further as I progress; I find it to be a more entertaining process that way. Youll need a good understanding of Photoshop and a pressure sensitive tablet. You should also have an understanding of the human anatomy, colours and textures before attempting this workshop. Also, I like to use a variety of materials and fabrics, so knowing how to create custom brushes is definitely a plus for good texturing results.

I dont always start a piece with a sketch but in this case I want to get the design of the armour out on paper as soon as possible it just goes faster if most of the design can be done at this stage. Im painting on a canvas thats 3,400x4,800 pixels in size using a custom brush I created that tries to mimic traditional pencils. Im not concerned about the colouring yet; the sketch is for composition purposes more than anything else.

Sketching

Now that Im satisfied with my sketch, I proceed by sloppily applying colours to give me an idea of the Colour palette Ill be using. I also set up the lights direction at this point. Next, I apply the colours over my sketch, so that I have a total of two layers for this project. You can add more if you feel uncomfortable but I like to keep it simple: one for the background and one for the character. As a side note, Ill be using a simple round brush with 25 per cent spacing and Shape Dynamics turned off in the Brushes Presets tab for most of this workshop.

Basic lightning

I now set up the light sources. One will be coming from the right (the sun) and the other will be a subtle backlight coming from the left, to help separate the silhouette from the dark background. A warm primary colour and a cold secondary colour always work. I want a slightly desaturated look overall, keeping the saturated pink hair as a focal point. I also add a few brushstrokes to the background.

Mood

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Workshops
the eyes of the viewer wandering all over the image. Its okay to try to change elements in the picture to see what could work best, but be sure to save before you do any big changes in case you want to revert back to your previous version. In my case, I wont roll back. Its still early in the process and its no big deal to just change the capes colour at this point. When painting metal you need to consider all the light sources, since its a reflective material. I decide to use textured metal for her armour; I just think it looks cooler than flawless sheets of metal. The Colour palette for the metal is important here. Even though it reflects its environment, its more appealing to the eye to throw in a bunch of other random colours. Seen at full resolution itll look strange and sketchy, but from a distance it adds to the richness of the piece. Simply using different shades of grey isnt interesting. For texturing the metal, I use a smaller brush and apply short strokes.

Metal texture

This is the fun part. I always enjoy starting with the face if I think the girl is cute enough, itll get me going! When I start detailing my image, I try not to concentrate too much on one spot, but rather sculpt the whole image little by little. It gives you a better feel of the image as you progress and its just more entertaining. Its easy to get bored with a piece, especially when you know you have to spend a dozen hours on it, so enjoying it by working on different areas constantly is important. Here the face is still pretty rough but you can see where its heading.

First detailing

PRO SECRETS
Custom brushes
Photoshop is a very powerful application that enables you to create your own brushes. Learning how to create different custom brushes can save you an incredible amount of time and can give you the possibility to render really interesting textures in a single brushstroke. I always end up creating one or two with each new painting to meet my needs for different textures.

At this point Im not too sure about the whole colour scheme; she has too much yellow in her skin, it looks as if shes sick. I add more blue in my colours using the Colour Balance tool and it already looks better. Yellow tones tend to make the image depressing and I want to go for a livelier feel. Adding orange-peachy tones in her skin helps get rid of her sick look. In this picture, Id like to give the impression that the wind is blowing a cold breeze but right now, theres something wrong with the colours Ive used for her cloak and umbrella.

Colour alteration

The folds in her dress are the tricky part. Painting fabric is no easy task and it takes practice and observation to get it right without references. Im far from being a master at painting fabrics but I always try to incorporate a piece of cloth in all of my drawings this way, I keep practising and improving. For this dress, I paint folds randomly using my restricted understanding of how it works. I would use a reference but the result coming out of it is satisfying enough for me as it is. What you do is set yourself attach points where the folds will start from, then, following those folds, you make them interact with other folds coming from other attach points. Thats how I do it and it seems to work decently.

The dress, part 1

Since I want the head to be the focal point it really has to be looking good, but its been bugging me since the beginning. I figure I should change the design a bit, and have her hair swirl in the wind to match her cloak. I also change the point shes looking at; shell be looking at her left hand with a surprised expression. For her hair, I use the same round brush but with the Shape Dynamics option on, so the size of the brush varies with pressure.

The head

10 Flipping One very important tool that you

should use as much as possible is the Rotate Canvas Horizontally tool. It gives you a whole new perspective on your drawing and a new critical eye. Youll probably see flaws you didnt notice before. I tend to use it every hour at least. Sometimes you might even want to leave the final piece flipped if it works better!

All right, this is much better! I remove the umbrella and it really helps the whole composition breath a little. Now its obvious shes outside, in some kind of ruined city. Ive tried making the cape red but Im not too sure this was a good choice composition-wise. It draws the attention away from her face and has

Composition tweak

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February 2007

In depth First Snow

Her belly is yet another tricky part because I have to keep in mind the human anatomy while still giving it a style to match her proportions. Its probably one of the easiest parts to mess up since the smallest error anatomy-wise will show up right away. You have to consider the rib cage, the muscles and where the skin will fold in the given position. I also give it a slight backlight to give better hints of the shape.

1 11

The belly

PRO SECRETS
Custom keyboard shortcut
Adapting your shortcuts to your needs is a great way to save time and enhance your workflow. I set [C] and [V] to decrease and increase brush size. Theyre close to other keyboard shortcuts I use all the time: the spacebar, which I use it to move around the image and the Colour Picker (Alt/Option).

cloak 13 3 The Because her cloak is made of thin

leather, the texturing is important. For the holes, I simply erase using a custom brush. I try to give it a dirty look, so holes are good! I start by creating smooth folds with a big round brush. Once Im satisfied I then consider the lights, adding some white where the light reflecting from the dress would hit the cloak. It plays the role of a second light source in this case, since its so bright. I then take a smaller brush and using the same technique I used on the metal, I apply short strokes all over.

detailing 16 6 Further With most of the big components

done, now is the perfect time to detail and sharpen the piece even further. I zoom in on the image at 100 per cent and scout the entire picture, making sure all the edges are straight where they need to be, adding little flaws in the armour, such as scratches and bumps, blending the colours to get rid of the sketchy/sloppy look, and finishing her hand at last. I also place snow flakes carefully around the image to add to the ambience.

dress, part 2 12 The 1 While still keeping the same fold

design I started with, Im changing the fabric of the dress from cotton to polyester. Its just more appropriate for a dress! The difference is subtle but what I do is darken the dress using only the Lasso tool then go over all the folds, adding hints of blue here and there. The big difference between those two fabrics is the specular: the way light reflects on it. For polyester the shadows will be darker and the light reflection stronger, hence a brighter specular.

14 4 For the background, as I mentioned

earlier, I work on another layer. I want to create a ruined cityscape to match the sci-fi theme. Since most of the attention will be drawn to the character, I dont want to spend too much time on this. I start with the big elements, such as the shape of the buildings, and create a bunch of rectangles. Then I zoom in, add details and so on until it looks like its far away in the background. I also give it a subtle blue tint to create an atmospheric perspective.

Fast background

adjustments 17 Final 1 At this point the image is pretty

much done. I push the detailing even further until Im satisfied with the result. I save as a TIF, close the PSD I was working on and make the final adjustments on the TIF. All I need to do now is bring up the Colour Balance tool and change the intensity of blue and yellow to give it a cooler feel its snowing, after all.

15 Greys Greys can add a lot to a piece but

they can also be a nightmare. When I colour pick from surrounding colours, it tends to desaturate the piece over time. When you colour with a lighter colour on a darker one, for instance, the resulting blend will be less saturated than the two original colours. If you then pick from this colour and repeat, you end up killing all the intensity in your tones. The only way to avoid this problem is to manually select the colours you want to use .

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