Digital Art - "Reflections"
(Felicity Homman)
South Warren Middle School
To make this drawing, I used Photoshop CS3. It ended up having around 90 layers, and was very complicated as a final project.
I first started out with a basic sketch over a gray background, which really proved helpful along the way. I then used the dump tool on a separate layer to make the whole screen a dark grey. I erased sections to shape it into the form I wanted, the shape of an animal’s head.
Then, I had to make a special brush for the program, in order to make the fur easier in general. You have to make a grayscale picture and draw what you want one stroke to look like, then clean up the image and save it as a brush preset. I made a rough, crescent design so it curves naturally without looking fake. I then made around 20 layers and used a different black or gray shade for each one, and then another 30 for browns, reducing the opacity of the layer so they overlap and look more realistic in general.
I then merged the fur layers to create one large one, and used the dodge tool to create some lighter hairs here and there. Then, creating quite a few more layers, I used the various settings on ellipse tool to make it appear to be water dripping down the animal’s head.
Now, the eye was certainly the most complicated portion. First, to achieve a nice, spherical shape I used the ellipse tool and set it on ‘Overlay’ so that it didn’t fill itself in, but still had an outline. Then, I added highlights with a regular brush tool, then smudging them slightly. I created a new layer and overlaid the whole thing with a deep cyan, then putting it under the highlights so they appeared on top of the color. Then, using the dodge and burn tools both I drew slightly curved lighter and darker lines all around so that it had a texture like a real eyes iris does. Then, using the ellipse tool once again, I made a very transparent water-like effect to give it a shine. Then, after creating another brush, I added a translucent black cloudy look to it and outline the whole thing in black, then softening the whole image with a very transparent layer of white. I then adjusted the opacity on each layer so it fitted what I had in mind, a nice, subtle look of fur that reflected a real animal’s but didn’t draw away from the eye.
I first started out with a basic sketch over a gray background, which really proved helpful along the way. I then used the dump tool on a separate layer to make the whole screen a dark grey. I erased sections to shape it into the form I wanted, the shape of an animal’s head.
Then, I had to make a special brush for the program, in order to make the fur easier in general. You have to make a grayscale picture and draw what you want one stroke to look like, then clean up the image and save it as a brush preset. I made a rough, crescent design so it curves naturally without looking fake. I then made around 20 layers and used a different black or gray shade for each one, and then another 30 for browns, reducing the opacity of the layer so they overlap and look more realistic in general.
I then merged the fur layers to create one large one, and used the dodge tool to create some lighter hairs here and there. Then, creating quite a few more layers, I used the various settings on ellipse tool to make it appear to be water dripping down the animal’s head.
Now, the eye was certainly the most complicated portion. First, to achieve a nice, spherical shape I used the ellipse tool and set it on ‘Overlay’ so that it didn’t fill itself in, but still had an outline. Then, I added highlights with a regular brush tool, then smudging them slightly. I created a new layer and overlaid the whole thing with a deep cyan, then putting it under the highlights so they appeared on top of the color. Then, using the dodge and burn tools both I drew slightly curved lighter and darker lines all around so that it had a texture like a real eyes iris does. Then, using the ellipse tool once again, I made a very transparent water-like effect to give it a shine. Then, after creating another brush, I added a translucent black cloudy look to it and outline the whole thing in black, then softening the whole image with a very transparent layer of white. I then adjusted the opacity on each layer so it fitted what I had in mind, a nice, subtle look of fur that reflected a real animal’s but didn’t draw away from the eye.