Making Of 'Keep the Streets Empty'

Introduction

Music has been, and still is, a great source of inspiration for me. There is nothing better than the right song for the right image. Music has, at least for me, the ability to intensify emotions. Sometime I browse through my iTunes library and get drawn to one of the songs. While listening to the sound again and again an image starts to pop into my mind. This image was inspired while I was listening to Keep The Streets Empty For Me by the band Fever Ray. The song is pretty intense and has a dark brooding mood to it. The idea to paint my own interpretation of this was set into my mind.

I already had some images in mind as to how the final illustration could look and I wanted it to have a more illustrative feeling in comparison to my other works. Normally I use a lot of custom brushes and shapes to speed up the process but for this image I wanted to use a different approach and just used three main brushes: a basic round, a painterly brush and a smudger.

The Tools And Painting Process

The Smudge tool is pretty cool when blending hard edges together. But you have to play with the right settings. When I'm using the Smudge tool, Strength is set to 20% and the brush itself is set to Sensitive pressure. The scale is 100%, with no effect. Even if I work with the Smudge tool I still use my layer technique. This mean I have my base color on one layer and my shadows and highlights on separate layers. By using the Smudge tool on the highlight you'll get some pretty nice, happy color accidents. The only downside is that this will slow down your computer a bit (but this happen when using separate layers). When I'm happy with the look I merge the layers together and create a new one for the next steps (Fig.01 - 03).

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Fig.

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Fig.

Blocking In

As I mentioned before I already had an image in mind. In such cases I start by blocking in my rough shapes and colors without any thumbnails or sketches. For this image I knew I wanted to have a street scene where the camera was pretty close to my main building. The whole scene would have a dark mood, with an old worn-out building facade. For the blocking in I used mainly a Round Hard brush (set to Opacity) and a Square brush (set to Opacity too) as well. I used some textures from my own library of textures for the wooden door and the concrete (Fig.04).

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Fig.

First Details

I added some additional colors to the wall, mostly gray values, and started to paint in the first window details. The windows are barricaded with some wooden planks, which adds to the eerie feeling and the whole mood. Until now everything was painted with the round and square brushes. The square brush was also used to show the first rough bricks (Fig.05).

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Fig.

More Details and the First Color Correction

The next step was to get a bit more texture on the wall. I used my customized shapes to do this and erased any unnecessary parts. Using customized shapes or simply normal shapes automatically creates a new layer, which will give you the option to play with the layer's opacity setting or just erase certain areas without affecting the background. Shapes can be made from most images. Just convert the image to a black and white image (not grayscale), select the black areas to make a clipping path and add it to your shapes (main menu, below brushes). On top of that I added the first details to the door (Fig.06).

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Fig.

More Details and Textures

My next step was to create a new layer for more color variations. This layer was set to Soft Light, which is a pretty easy and comfortable way to adjust and add colors. Depending on your specific needs, you can paint in the color with some brush strokes or using a soft gradient. I mostly used purple or blue tones for the additional color. For the structure on the wall I used a texture I shot quite a while ago. It is pretty useful to collect your own texture references. Just go out with a camera and shoot whatever you want, it's really helpful (Fig.07).

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Fig.

Blocking in the Creature

When I was happy with the mood I started to block in some detail and the initial shape for the creature. The creature's shape was mainly painted with the Hard Round brush. Normally I use a mid-sized round hard brush for the base shape and then start to erase certain areas for smaller details (e.g., claws etc.). This procedure goes back and forth until I'm happy with the overall shape. I also added some details as you can see on the door, the top of the image and the poster onto the wall, although I wasn't sure if these were going to be in the final image. Again I added a new layer set to Soft Light and filled it with a soft greenish gradient on the lower right side (Fig.08).

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Fig.

Creature Details

When I paint in the details for a creature or character I like to work on separate layers for mid-tones and the highlights as well. The technique I used here is described at the beginning of this tutorial. For the details I used the Smudge tool with the special Smudge brush. You'll get some pretty soft-tone blending and some happy accidents as well. If I like the look I merge the layers and create a new one for painting/smudging more details and to add brighter highlights (Fig.09).

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Fig.

Color Correction and Light Source

I wasn't happy with the barrier on the door and the poster so I decided to paint over them. I wanted the scene to feel like it was at night so I shaded the whole image using the Level Correction tool. To imply that the scene is light by some street lights I added two big diagonal shadows on the top of the images. I created a new layer, drew in the shape with the Selection tool and filled the selection with a dark brownish tone. The layer was then set to Multiply and the Opacity was set to roundabout 45 - 50%. For a three-dimensional feeling I selected the shadow area on the inner side of the window and moved it downwards a bit. I used the color balance adjustment to shift the greenish tones to blue (Fig.10).

Fig. 10

Fig. 10

Second Creature and Refining

After a short break from this image I decided to add a second creature, which, in my opinion, added a lot to the eerie feeling. I duplicated the first creature (another good reason to keep some elements on a separate layer) and moved it to the lower area of the image. To make sure that the second creature didn't look like a copy I used the Liquify tool and Transformation tools to create a new body shape. By using the Eraser tool I got rid of the unnecessary elements and painted in some new shapes like the arm and the smoky body (Fig.11).

Fig. 11

Fig. 11

Final Details and Color Grading

Now the image was close to finished. I created a new layer and started to paint in some bright highlights on the creatures. For the eyes I created a second layer, which was set to Add. I used a Soft Round brush twice the size of the eyes with a pretty bright value and painted in the glow of the eyes. To get the right look you could play around with the opacity of the layer. I used a custom cloud brush to paint in the foggy bodies. To add more of an atmosphere to the painting I created a new layer and painted in some fog using a cloud brush. Last but not least, I used the Color Balance tool for subtle color shifting. Finally I added Soft Light layers with a red and green tone to add warmth and contrast (Fig.12).

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Fig.

To see more by Markus Lovadina, check out Beginner's Guide to Digital Painting in Photoshop: Characters
Digital Painting Techniques: Volume 5
Digital Painting Techniques: Volume 6
Digital Painting Techniques: Volume 7
and Prime - The Definitive Digital Art Collection

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