Here’s the final image, Illustrator and Photoshop. Below is a process snapshot; not a tutorial but gives you some insight to how I work.

This is the base sketch. I sketch in blue, then go over it in graphite. I scan it into Photoshop, remove the blue lines but then turn the sketch blue anyway. I like working over blue lines, I find it easier on the eye.

This was the initial render. I started rendering at 2am after drawing stuff all night. I wanted to do a speed render in an hour, but the unusual color scheme took a bit more time. I have preset color palettes for general work but I originally thought of doing a duotone pink-turquoise picture. You can see a closeup of the details on the face, hair.

So I quickly took the 1.5h render into Photoshop, changed the color a bit, slapped on some texture just to make myself feel better for the day.

I got up today and decided to finish the picture to get it out of the way. I abandoned the idea of doing a duotone color scheme as it really wasn’t working out. I know many artists stick to color schemes once they establish them, but I find it rather restrictive to work that way. Maybe it’s the lack of formal training, but I find I don’t like to get locked into a palette if the feel of the picture is not right. This is the Illustrator render export to Photoshop in 2 pieces – the background and the girl/ chair. It looks kinda flat and there’s banding going on in the background.

Photoshop is good at helping soften the images, so I threw on some blurs and soft highlights behind the girl and added noise to the background to break up the banding.

Additional color tweaking of the girl to bring out the color and soften the edges with slight blurs.

Final art again. Painted in the highlights in Photoshop with a soft brush to give the extra shine. It’s much easier to do that in Photoshop than Illusrator and it gives a more natural look as opposed to the highly controlled shapes in the latter.

Tags: Illustration, Illustrator, photoshop, Process, vector

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 11th, 2008 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Illustration, Process. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.