Making of 'Junk Tree Paradise'

Introduction

Hi all! For this tutorial I used a Wacom Intuous 2 tablet, Photoshop CS4 and Painter IX. Join me as I take you through a quick demonstration of my painting process for "Junk Tree Paradise".

Step 1

I started out with some thumbnail sketches to rough out various ideas. The idea was "kids who survived the destruction of World War III find beauty and hope in the world". I chose the bottom sketch and developed the idea further (Fig.01a, Fig.01b & Fig.02).

Fig.01a

Fig.01b

Fig.02

Step 2

I added a new layer in Photoshop, underneath the drawing, and began coloring in the details (Fig.03).

Fig.03

Afterwards I made a third layer on top of everything and began to paint on top of the initial drawing and under the color layers (Fig.04).

Fig.04



Note: I also added an overlayer layer on top of everything and painted in some violets, yellows and blues to warm and saturate the picture more. Then I add a Photo Filter set to Warmer Filter (85) to warm it even more. All these things helped to give the picture more life (Fig.05).

Fig.05

Step 3

I flattened the image and decided to stretch the canvas out more horizontally as my ideas began to change. Every now and then I brought the picture into Painter and used the Round Camel Hair and Just Add Water brushes to add in details like the sky and the green ground. Then I jumped back into Photoshop and continued to paint (Fig.06).

Fig.06

In Photoshop I used the default Hard Round Brush as well as the Oil Pastel Large brush. A little trick for painting texture into the plants with the Oil Pastel Large Brush is to turn the Color Dynamics setting on and turn up the Brightness Jitter a little. It'll give the impression of more detail than you really painted by hand (Fig.07).

Fig.07

At this stage, I was also flipping the canvas constantly to make sure things were working right. This trick gives you a fresh look on the picture and clarifies any possible mistakes (Fig.08).

Fig.08

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Step 4

Even crazier than constantly flipping the canvas was stretching the canvas as more new ideas began to form. The new idea was to split the picture into two halves, like two separate paintings. One side was going to have the destruction and the other side the peace. I played a lot with the color by using Color Balance in Photoshop and Photo Filters, fooled around with different cloud designs by looking up references of clouds online, and just had fun making things up (Fig.09 - Fig.12).

Fig.09

Fig.10

Fig.11

Fig.12

Step 5

At this point I wanted to add the kids back into the picture and really make them the focal points (Fig.13 & Fig.14).

Fig.13

Fig.14

Step 6

Finishing touches are always very important. I added a heart design on the front character's shirt and added musical notes, leaves, and birds flying in the background. I also went over everything and outlined it with a black or light-colored, small brush. It seemed to really pop things out more, especially the clouds (Fig.15 - Fig.19).

Fig.15

Fig.16

Fig.17

Fig.18

Fig.19



The final result can be seen in Fig.20.

Fig.20

I hope you enjoyed the gang; take care and God bless!
Corey

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