by: Lazaro Gomez
I would like to start off by saying THANK YOU to my
fans, and to anyone that maybe viewing this Tutorial.
By doing this I hope that I can help other artist like me to achieve their goals as I have.
The painting you see before you is an exercise for me because I am still getting used to Photoshop, it is a great tool
but it lacks the traditional feel of other software such as Painter. And perhaps I should have done this painting using Painter
but my goal was to practice, practice, practice.
Many people ask me what brushes I use as it is a common question among artist. And so I am using this Painting as a tutorial and you
will see what tools I used to make it. A lot of the time I use brushes that come standard with the software. Hard and Soft Brush and a few others
but as far as Custom brushes, I have them but rarely use them. So let's get started!
1. Reference
It is almost vital to work of a reference, so for mine I used the all mighty Internet and found an image that I wanted to paint. For this painting
I was looking to challenge myself and try to overcome some things that effect me as an artist. Those will be listed through out the Tutorial. So here
we have a painting by John Bolton. I have seen a lot of paintings and photos of Ash and at first I was gonna use the Movie Maniacs as Reference but decided to go with the Movie Poster.
2. Outline
Now that we have our reference, we can move on to the next step. I open the reference image in Photoshop and begin to map out the key elements that will guide me along as I paint. Many people use many methods to make this step work for them. Some make a layer on top of the reference and trace over the outline, some free hand the process. For me, I have done both. So its preference really.
3. Color Selection or Pallet
I normally make a pallet but being that I had the reference right next to the painting, I opted to not make one. I simply selected colors as I went. Plus I didn't have to worry about Lighting because all that data was in the Original image.
4. Shapes
shapes are important in any drawing or Painting. It is easy to get tangled up in drawing the " PERFECT " line when in life and art there is not such thing. So I tend to view things in shapes rather than their actual form. I have learned that it makes it easier for me to view the work and keep all the guess work OUT! Try it some time, you will be amazed to find out how quickly your render will come together.
5. Refinement
Here you will begin to take those shapes and start refining them. For this painting I used the SMUDGE tool GASP! a huge no no in the art biz, but I have found that it can come in handy if used properly. Here is where I use my hard and soft brushes, at different Opacity and Flow levels. Along with Dodge and Burn another one of those popular no no's, again used right it can be a blessing. In Photoshop it is hard to use tools in the traditional sense so we gotta fudge it a little to make it happen. I combine my soft brush with a chalk brush to give me that added texture that is lacking in this Software.
Ash has signature features that are important, and can't be ignored. So keep an eye out for things like this when painting, it helps to sell the painting. In this case its that signature eye gesture, mouth, and the Chainsaw. One could take artist freedom as I have done but not too much, if not you will again get lost and the painting will be ruined.
7. Final
