Photoshop Paint An Iconic Sci-fi Character

Film lover Kevin McGivern celebrates Alien’s 40th anniversary by painting Ripley as she’s about to turn the heat up on the xenomorph…

- Kevin McGivern

I’ve been a subscriber to ImagineFX for many years, so being asked to illustrate the cover was a great thrill for me. Films are a huge inspiration for my work, so when I found out that the brief was to paint Ellen Ripley from Alien, I was over the moon!

In this workshop, I’ll go through my entire process, documenting every step of the way, answering many of the questions that have been asked in the past about my workflow. I’ll take you through the stages of laying down the initial sketches, to creating a tight drawing, making color roughs, my painting process and those finishing touches.

I’ve found throughout my career that the more organized I am at every stage, the better the piece turns out in the end. At this point, I’ve developed a pretty solid painting process, which I’ve found is important to give your work a consistent look and feel.

The first thing for me to do is to re-watch Alien films. It’s important for me to do this because I want to gain a sense of Ripley’s character, and the feel and mood of the first film – which is 40 years old! It also gives me the chance to look for subtleties in the character that I may have missed when just watching the film purely for enjoyment.

1 Create a handful of initial sketches

The brief from the ImagineFX team was quite straightforward. I had to illustrate the “iconic Ellen Ripley from the first Alien film” with the background of the USCSS Nostromo’s interior having a loosely sketched or hand-drawn look to it, so not as to overpower the cover. The drawing may be my favorite part of the process so I allowed myself to have some fun with some different poses for Ripley. The main criteria I gave myself was that she had to look iconic and strong.

2 Create a mood board