rough sketching with pencil · this portrays a demon called ”astaroth”, who by myth has two...
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The Marked Traveller – tutorial
”I am a man of many faces. I am the Sun's
Son, the one which cannot be gazed upon
without blinding pain, I am the voice who
commands brotherhoods of Greed, Agony and
Lie. I am the blade of deceat, devourer of life,
my wings are black as midnight, you can see
me soaring as the Eagle Eye over all land and
sky, witnessing time and all fates passing by.
Now answer; who am I?”
the Concept started as a glimpse of a character
of which face and appearance is distincive and
the most importantly: the pose what it will
represent plays the key role. What does it
express, what does it mean, why is the
impression of non-friendly and cold? What are
those symbols and why does he have so many
of them. These questions have haunted me for
many years, the question of symbols and their
affect on the world. Don't shoot me for this,
but I had to make a powerful visualisation of
this Entity that has many forms in our hearts
and minds. When you look deep enough into
the blackest well, can you see it looking back
at you, even dragging you down into the
darkness? Same goes for the blinding light..
looking too long and too much the brightest
Sun can make you blind and see nothing but
the painful light and not any other colours of
the universe.
Phase 1:
Rough sketching with pencil
I'm a fast drawer, as you might see from the
sketch. I only made clear the poses of the
hands and the collar with the Honorary cross
on it. You may look from different sources on
the internet and historybooks what those
symbols mean and where they originate from.
Observe also the hand signals.
Illustration 1
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Phase 2:
Basic colouring
Now I've given some colour basis over the
sketch by simply using Transparent Gradient
in Photoshop in light 20-30% Screen-mode.
Phase 3:
Defining light & shadow areas
Using lasso & then adding a New Adjustment
Layer emphasized the contrast and brightness
levels in the highlight areas. This is done to
make more clearer idea on what's left in shade
and what's being pin-pointed out.
Illustration 2
Illustration 3:
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Phase 4:
Starting up the paintwork & adding textures on top. I've used a watercolour paper I painted with
very light colours and then scanned it and
modified it. It makes a great surface to have
great effect in multiple ways and decreses that
'digital' overall look nicely.
But this is just a beginning of course.
The brushwork is compiled from CS2's
brushes, some of my own and some are basic
tips.
Illustration 4:
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Phase 5:
Trying out different expressions while looking for the particular style
Here's a try-out what kind of shading the face
would have. But the character started to feel
too much of a manga- character, so that calls
for something different.
phase 6:
New composition and widening up the scene
Ok, so now there's a big leap from the previous
composition, what clrearly focused in the arms
and the face, but ruled out many things I want
to show in a wider perspective. So I decided to
make him standing like a statue or conqueror,
unable or not willing to move from this
position. The wings around are made with
lasso-tool and adding an Adjustment layer with
modified Curves on it, so the colours pop out
nicely creating a transparent effect with the
background. Then I handpainted the black
snakes under him, crawling up like reaching
hands who all want a piece of his attention.
Illustration 5:
Illustration 6:
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Phase 7:
Adding background events, shifting colour schemes, more painting..
Testing a new kind of colour pallette with
more neutral tones and atmosphere. Also made
his hair long and white, to boost up his
paleness and cold nature. The scene starts to
form up nicely and focusing many areas at the
same time.
Phase 8:
Adding colour layers, contrasts and atmosphere
Here I've made the contrast much deeper to
give more highlight to the face and upper body
& wings. This is done by tranparent gradients
and Masks, by lassoing the background and
adjusting colours, then adding Gaussian Blur
after this so the borders blend in. The
transparent cloth over his shoulders are also
done this way.
Illustration 7:
Illustration 8:
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Phases 9 & 10:
Adding photos of 'dragons' & painted new face from reference of Keanu Reeves.
(sample reference of Keanu Reeves, scanned
from poster)
Ok, I've always LOVED that photo of him. It's
been on my wall like a thousand years by now.
It tells all about him, in my opinion at least.
Sitting on a table of chains, looking straight
into your soul and a half-burned cigarrette in
hand with the most coolest suit and haircut
ever. Obvious to say that this photo inspired
greatly to change the face of my Dark Angel as
him. Kept on remembering the scene from
”Devil's Advocate”, the end scene when he
turned to Lucifer and cried out, white wings
spreaded and all beautiful.
So I started painting his face by scanning a
piece of this photo and then side by side
painting it again. Then I flipped it another way
to make the light direction suitable. Painting
real faces of people is very fun and much more
easier than imaginitve faces, must say. You just
pick up the three points in a face and mark
them and compare them with the original
picture that they fit. These points are the
middle line from forehead to chin, the points
where corners of the eyes start and then
compare the points where lower jaw angle, tip
of nose and mouth share the same horisontal
lines. Ears are very imporant to see where they
start and end. Must say that I've had my most
mistakes when making ears by relying in
memory.
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Phase 9: Changing the character's face + photos.
Phase 10: Colour shifts, details & clothes
Illustration 9:
Illustration 10:
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Final phase 11:
Drastic colour shift and final details of clothes, dragons and output using both Painter & Photoshop.
Here's the final draft of this Dark Angel.
There's a long story to start explaining the
steps from previous stage, but I try to be
logical.
The colour scheme shifted dramatically for
several reasons. Firstly I needed to make it
harmonic and less violent.
Red colour combined with black is almost
without exception a mix of restless and hateful
pair. So, since I want to see that the image
portrays a person with significant details and
viewer shouldn't feel like he/she's under some
psychic attack. Simplified process goes kind of
like this: flatten all layers, then duplicate the
background. Do a Match Colour on the top
one to achieve a harmonic colour view, so the
most dominant colour spots blend with the rest
of the tones. Then you make a drastic Selective
Colour adjustment. I succeeded achieving the
strong yellows and soft golden overlook by
decreasing neutral tones and amplifying lighter
tones and just warmed them all up. After a few
try-outs it came like this. Then all that was left
was the detailing. Did that mostly in Painter by
using Pencils and Pastels with a rough texture
giving it some natural looking roughness.
One friend of mine from the art field said that
this portrays a demon called ”Astaroth”, who
by myth has two dragons as if like 'wings' over
his back. This note came to me as a surprise,
since I didn't study that mythology before.
Strange what the subconscious can create
unintentionally.
Anyway, those two serpents final outlook took
a form of some sort of dinosaur & lizard &
dragon with a very nasty and ruthless
expressions with those blank cruel eyes
looking straight into you. Dragons have
always been really close to mankind's history
in one way or another, they are like the force
that surround some people who can 'harness'
their capabilities. All kinds of references to
dragons & serpents are found throughout
religious and myths and this is evident that I
include this aspect to my painting alonside
with the Fallen.
”Loyal servant, the blessed one amidst the
grey; Listen to the very words I speak to you:
"You must give me swords, give me chants,
give me the dream of an untouchable romance.
Look above you, and I shall look you back,
among the dancing stars is where I was born
once upon a time. The story runs deeper than
you know, my boy.
I sleep alone, naked and unfold, I have no
shields around my soul. I am mortal, nor I am
not, but I am born from each and every shout.
Praise my beauty, remember these eyes, here I
stand before you, without alibies. Without you
I am nothing, but with you I shall rule
everything.
Your love for me is the perfect sin, and that is
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how I rule - from outside and from within.
Nothing less, nothing more, for that is the
nature of my diamond soul."
– The Traveller's guide.
You know also those hand
signs and tattoos and what they
represent, right? If you're
confused with them, you can
find plenty of information
about them through various
sources, use the net. We're
surrounded by dominating and
very powerful symbols. That is
like a tremedous force keeping
everything together. Cut them
out of your life and you're like
a blank page.. or are you?
I hope you enjoyed reading
this tutorial, even though
there's no absolute technical
path to follow how this was
made. The brush tip sizes,
number of layers and hours
I've spent on this are almost
impossible to remember and
keep track, since I work so fast
and don't pay attention to
numbers and techinical details,
since I just let my
subconscious do most of the process and
execution. But no.. I'm not psychic and move
things with my mind ;)
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