This is part 2 of a series on how to render Concept Art using Photoshop. This video demonstrates how to use an overlay layer to add lights and highlights to concept art.

This video is perfect for those who are new to Photoshop or are starting out in Concept Art or digital illustration. Narrated by the Artist. Music by Japanese DJ Artists Tsutchie.

This video is perfect for those who are new to Photoshop or are starting out in Concept Art or digital illustration. Narrated by the Artist. Music by Japanese DJ Artists Tsutchie.

This tutorial is a detailed, step by step walkthrough of my process in making a Sci-fi character concept / Illustration. This image was originally an assignment for a PC Gamer cover, which unfortunately never got used. The subject is a sexy Borg female. Since it was a cover assignment, I wanted to have some fun and do a little spoof on the famous Janet Jackson Rolling Stone cover.

This a very long and detailed workshop. It’s a also a Photoshop (PS) tour-de-force. Meaning, I wanted to pull out all the stops and use as much PS “tricks” and fx as possible. This is a special treat for those who want an insider look at how to leverage PS to quickly add a professional looking finish.

I often use this same approach for creating concept art, and the techniques can also be applied to texture mapping. There’s a lot of content here, and we’ve got a lot to talk about, so let’s get right into it.

Step 1: Rough sketch

Since I already had an idea for the pose in mind, I go ahead and start sketching the figure. To draw, I use my trusty hard round brush and a cool 50% gray with a slight green hue. At this stage, I also start to design the areas of machine parts and roughly define machine details.

Step 2: Adding Tone

1. I drop the opacity of the drawing layer to about 75%.

2. I fill a layer beneath the drawing with a middle gray (50% gray) that has a touch of cool green (about 3% saturation).

3. I add a first pass of shadow using a Multiply layer. A 50% gray is enough to give a nice transparent wash of tone.

This approach is similar to using gray markers on paper. Adding a bit of color to the gray tone will help us later on when we start the coloring process.

Step 3: Redefine the drawing

I come back in and re-establish the drawing to give some structure. I also start to add details like facial features and machine parts. This gives me a road map and sets me up nicely for the tonal rendering.

Step 4: Begin Tonal Render

Up to this point, I was working with layers and transparencies, now it’s time to go opaque. First, I want to define the extremities of the value range. I do that by:

1. Taking a dark green-gray mixture (almost going to black) and punching in the darkest areas.

2. I take a cool-green white mixture (almost going to white) and punch in the areas of brightest light and highlights.

I start with the head because I want the head to be the primary focal point. This is generally good practice for character pieces. Having such high contrast areas around the head will really help to draw the eye there. Working this way also gives me a benchmark, or guide for the rest of the tonal render.

Step 5: Tonal Render cont.

Satisfied with the head I work my way down to the body and then the arms. As I work, I’m constantly referring to the head (focal point), to help me add the right balance of detail and polish throughout the piece.

Step 6: Polishing the tonal render

Again, starting with our focal point, I add a final layer of polish to our tonal render:

1. I define the tech around the eyepiece, arms and hands. Since her face is the focal point of the image, the eyes will be the focal point of the face. I also want to follow the old Illustrator’s rule and give the hands extra attention as well.

2. I refine the edges. I generally work with a firm brush first and then come back in with a hard opaque brush to get some nice crisp edges. I use hard edges like values and punch them in to define form and add nice contrast.

My main areas of focus are the edges of her flesh, especially her arms, face and chest. Taking the time to refine edges gives our character a higher level of polish and detail.

Even though I’m using Photoshop, I always come back to my experience with traditional media and solid fundamentals. Fundamentals carry over to any medium, and this an example of how they apply to digital.

Step 7: Tonal Render Final

Once the figure is complete, I address the background. Using a textural brush, I play with the values and add some texture to the background. My focus here is to ground our character and make the overall image cohesive. I also continue to refine edges and define the silhouette of the figure.

I sharpen the edges of the contour and push the contrast to make the figure “pop” off the background. Finally, I make a slight rotation of the image, adjust the canvas size and our tonal render is complete. Now we can move on to color.

A close-up of the finished tonal render.

Step 8: Color

1. I create a palette using a cool green as our primary local color.

2. I take an Overlay layer above our tonal render and fill it with a desaturated mixture of our cool green.

Because our tonal render had a bit of saturation, it will create a mix closer to our intended color. This is one drawback of using blending modes to colorize art. It can be tricky to control how the colors turn out.

Step 9: Color cont.

Having defined our base local color, I start bringing up the saturation. First, I start with the greens. Then, I paint in warm reds for flesh and in areas of the machine parts. I also punch up the saturation in the eyes and face to really draw the eye to the face and give me a nice contrast of color.

I continue to build saturation slowly by adding glazes of color. I add and refine color until I reach a balance of warms and greens; gray and saturated areas.

Step 10: Contrast and background

Satisfied with the color, I want to push the contrast. I add touches of dodge using a desaturated gray-green. I want to give the illusion of a bright spotlight from above so I push the highlights of the planes facing up, especially the forehead, cheek, arms and breasts. I also push the brightness of the negative space around the head.

Next, I make an opaque layer and continue to punch in whites and refine edges. I also continue finesse edges. My goal is to create a nice play between the hard edges of machine parts and softer edges of the flesh.

Step 11: Adjust the canvas and composition

Since this was I cover assignment, I adjust the composition and canvas size to include space for the logo at the top of the page. I also refine details in her arm and eyepiece. Essentially, my color render is complete and I can now begin to add materials.

Step 12: Adding “Bling”

“Bling” is my nickname for material overlays and Photoshop fx. Material overlays give digital pieces a nice touch of polish and it’s really quick and easy to do. If it’s done right, it gives your pieces some nice eye-catching pop (or “bling”) without a lot of effort.

1. First I take a pre-made Borg machine texture and begin to overlay it over the machine parts.

2. Then I take a pre-made vein texture sheet and overlay it over the flesh.

In this case I play with several blending modes until I settle on “Screen” mode. Each blending mode, gives a unique effect, so I always take some time and have fun experimenting.

Detail shots of the first material pass. It’s still very subtle but adds a nice layer of detail. Since materials are so easy to do, it’s easy to get carried away. Materials can add a nice layer of polish, but it comes second to the foundation of the piece, which is solid drawing and good design.

Step 13: Adding “Bling” to the background

Well, it works so nice on the figure, let’s add some bling to the background. For this background, I experimented like crazy. Using another pre-made Borg machine texture, I used several different blending modes and PS fx to get the final result:

1. I adjust the levels and contrast of the texture.

2. I overlay the texture sheet using “negative” mode.

3. I duplicate the same texture layer and overlay it as “linear dodge”.

4. I brush out the areas around the figure using alpha masks.

Since this is a character piece, I don’t want the background to be too busy or noisy. I drop the opacity of the background texture to make it more of a subtle touch. I want to focus to still be on the character and I always believe in giving the viewer’s eyes plenty of space to rest.

Step 14: Dodge

Speaking of rest for the eye, I decide to remove the vein texture overlay and to paint the flesh details by hand. This came from stepping back away from the piece and taking some time to do research on Borg skin. Don’t be afraid to step away from your piece and get a fresh perspective.

1. l also add another layer of dodge and keep pushing the contrast. Again, starting with the head and the planes facing up I use a de-saturated greeny-gray to paint in dodge to really give the illusion of overhead spotlight on our figure. The hotspot created by the dodge was a nice happy accident.

2. Then I add dodge to the cables to give then more depth. I also use dodge to add some subtle red LED like “lights” in her legs, body and arms to help balance the red in her face. Then I push the contrast again of the silhouette.

3. Finally I paint in dots of light on the skin and refine the edges of the highlights. This gives her skin the illusion of being slightly cold, wet, transparent and plastic. Not a good look for normal female skin, but perfect for cyborg skin.

Step 15: Finishing touches

I brush in a combination of dodge and opaque color for the background. I use a more saturated greed and add touches of dodge around the head.Then, I brush in a greenish white using a textural brush to make a compositional cross of light. This marks the end of the rendering process.

Step 16: Final Image

This step was necessary because the piece was created using a Cintiq. From my experience Cintiq displays tend to have much greater contrast and saturation then a normal monitor so I wanted to adjust the image and present it the way I saw it on the Cintiq.

1. I take the finished piece and move to the second monitor.

2. I add adjustment layers and play with the curves and levels until the contrast matches what I saw on the Cintiq.

Details of the Final Image.

Generally if you working on normal tablet and monitor, this step may not be necessary. Adjustment layers are a quick and easy to apply, so it can be a fun way to make some subtle changes.

A detailed, step by step tutorial demonstration of my process in the making of a creature illustration.

As a side note, this assignment was a Concept Art test that landed me my current job at Cryptic Studios.

Step 0: Comps / Thumbnails

The first step in creating any image is the ideation process. This is the part I really have fun with.

Since the assignment was a creature illustration I created a set of creature thumbnails. Sketching small and staying loose allows the ideas and shapes to flow. I sketched about 20 mini thumbnails in this process.

I use a combination of gray markers from 20% gray to 70% gray just to create shapes and show form and lighting. To line, I use brush pen and fine tipped felt pen.

The last group of creature sketches. I was originally favoring a reptilian creature for this scene until I finally settled on the minotaur creature on the bottom left.

Now that I have decided on our creature’s design, it’s time to design the scene. I sketch small, 2″ to 3″, thumbnails to establish the overall image. I try to stay very loose and sketch quickly and allow the ideas to flow. I did about 10 thumbnails for this image. The ones selected here were the strongest compositions. After some revision and feedback, I decided to develop the thumbnail on the lower left.

Step 1: Cleanup / Line Drawing

Now I have my creature and the scene sketched/planned out, I scan in the comp and begin to clean it up in Photoshop. I wanted the focus of the image to be the creature so I developed him first. *My focus here is to have a clean, solid line drawing that will create a strong foundation for the rest of the image.

*This point is so important, I will repeat it. The drawing is the foundation of the image. If the drawing is solid, everything will fall in to place and the rendering process will go very smoothly.

Step 2: Light and Shade

Now that I have a solid line drawing I begin to add light and shade. The steps are:

1. I paint a flat, 25% gray underneath the line art. The setting is at night, so the creature will be relatively dark.

2. I create a multiply layer over the flat layer. I paint the shadows using a 5o% grey and 25% grey (for core shadows).

3. I create a Overlay layer above the shadow layer. Using a 85% grey, I paint the lights and highlights. *At this stage my focus is on good separation of lights and darks and good edges to make the forms turn.

Step 3: Foreground Elements / Defining the vignette

To create depth, space and scale, I add foreground (FG) elements. This also gives the image a nice vignette, which is a fancy word for ‘framing’ the image.

1. First, I use the comp sketch as a guide to draw the foreground shapes.

2. I fill the drawing with my darkest darks (almost going to black). This pops these elements forward and creates a nice frame for the image. *This image shows the final FG layer. I took time drawing and rendering the FG characters and the hanging stop light.

Step 4: Going ‘Opaque’

Combining our character with the FG elements I’m ready to ‘render’ the character. I create an opaque (100% opacity) layer above the line art and begin to paint over the line art. My focus is to refine the edges, model the forms and draw the viewer’s eyes into our character. Of course, I follow the old illustrator’s rule and put most of the rendering and detail in: #1 the head and #2 the hands.

A close-up of the rendering of the head and claw hand.

Step 5: Background

Using the comp sketch as a guide for the perspective, I add the background (BG) elements. The assignment was to create a night scene in Manhattan, New York. My thought process was:

1. First, do extensive research and gather reference.

2. After choosing a photo that matches closely I begin to tweak the image in Photoshop.

*To get to this BG image required a lot of photo manipulation using transformations, filters and hand painting to make it my own and fit the art style. This step could be a tutorial in itself. I used this technique to save time and to keep the focus on the character.

Step 6: Integrating the Background

Here I add background elements to better integrate the background with the character in the middleground (MG). This is all hand-painting at this point. Because the BG image was well laid out, I only had to do a minimum of perspective drawing.

A close-up of the details added here. Mostly figures and cars to really show scale, action and story-telling.

Step 7: Final Tonal Render

I add some finishing touches to finalize the tonal render:

1. Some smoke and flame loosely painted to create movement and soften edges.

2. Using a multiply layer, I create a drop shadow to really set the character in the scene. I then flatten the image to begin the next step.

Step 8: Colorizing

Even though I used this method of “colorizing” (adding color in PS using layer effects), I wanted the image to have as much of a hand-painted look as possible.

The first thing I do is create a limited palette in a seperate window. The colors were picked from reference images of Manhattan at night and then adjusted to their closest tube color counterparts. Limiting my palette this way keeps the image clean, uniform and cohesive. Taking colors from life and from actual tube paints also keeps the final image from looking muddy or too “photoshop-ey”.

Step 9: Creature Coloring

Now, I create a Color layer above the flattened tonal layer. Since the focus of this piece is the creature, I color render him first. From here I can use his hues and saturation as a guide to color and render the rest of the scene.

Step 10-a: Coloring the Background

1. I duplicate the tonal layer.

2. I create a Color layer above and fill it with a blue-purple (night sky color).

3. I merge the two layers.

*I used this color because it is an approximation of the night sky. Generally in painting landscapes, the sky color heavily influences the hues (color) of the scene.

Step 10-b: Coloring the Background cont.

1. First, I create another color layer above the flattened blue-purple layer.

2. Using my limited palette I made for myself earlier I paint in the colors loosely with large brushes.

3. Then I refine the colors and the saturation.

*Even though the scene is Manhattan, filled with bright, colorful, saturated artificial lights, I don’t want to compete with the character too much. I keep the colors slightly grey and slightly cool since our creature has a very warm local color. Again, I want the focus to be on our main character.

Step 11: Dodge and Burn

This part of the process gets a bit technical. Some working knowledge of Photoshop helps here.

1. First, I take the colored creature layer and use an alpha mask to mask out the background.

2. I put the layer with our colored BG beneath our creature so the background shows through.

3. I then merge the two layers and make minor painting adjustments.

4. I create a Color Burn layer above the flattened layer and punch in the darks to create some really nice contrast.

5. I create a Color Dodge layer and use a very light yellow-orange to ‘punch in’ the highlights and turn-up the saturation. *Again, I mostly want to focus on the head and hands.

Here’s a before and after detailing the Dodge and Burn process. Even though I’m a traditionalist at heart, it’s so much fun to play with the Dodge and Burn layers. Plus it’s an extremely quick technique and saves a lot of time.

Step 12: Final Image

Now, I just add some finishing touches. Especially around the face of our creature and the FG elements. Sign and date and we’re good to go. Check the next image for a detail shot.

A close-up our character’s mug. I mostly punched up the contrast, modeled small forms in his face and added some drool just for fun.

Thank you for viewing. If this tutorial was helpful or if you have questions about my process, please leave a comment. You can also contact me directly with any comments or feedback by email.