This tutorial for me was a fun journey of discovery, as I have recently embraced Procreate as my go-to finishing and painting application, replacing a lot of desktop editing. In my personal work I have learned to value the power of the cloud and Adobe’s cloud libraries. As someone who loves building and prepping their own stock elements for artwork, I’ve developed this tutorial to work on Photoshop on desktop as well as straight from the iPad, before finalising the artwork in Procreate.
You can either follow the full development of this project, or simply load the library file into Photoshop, and kitbash to build an abstract portrait using the same techniques without the use of the desktop application if you wish. I love discovering new ways to work and that I can now sit on the couch and ‘sketch’ beside my family, creating work at the same capacity as if I was devoted to the desk. The portability of my personal library and workflow has levelled up!
1 Prep and cut out
To begin my image I prep all my stock elements by cutting out anything I need with the Lasso tool. Once I’m happy with my initial face image, I duplicate the layer, desaturate it and set it to the Soft Light blend mode. I merge these layers and use the Camera Raw filter for a final prep. I usually bring shadows up 50% and highlights and whites 50%, finishing with an increase in clarity of 25-50%.
Jan Wessbecher
Dominic Carter talks to the visual artist about creating his own comic and why sketchbooks are great for creative experiments
Kyounghwan Kim
The Korean character concept artist speaks to Dominic Carter about staying open to ideas and the value of drawing regularly
Slawek Fedorczuk
Dominic Carter talks to the concept artist about what keeps him motivated and the advantages of using physical sketchbooks.
Raquel M. Varela
Raquel is inspired by magic, fantasy and fairy tales. She loves designing female characters from distant worlds. \"My greatest reference is Loish's art, thanks to her I learned to draw the movement and fluidity I like to convey.\"
Estrela Lourenço
Estrela is a children's book author and illustrator. Her work is influenced by her background in character animation and storyboards for clients such as Cartoon Network, and she channels comic strips like Calvin and Hobbes.
Daria Widermanska
Daria, also known as Anako, has been drawing for as long as she can remember. Inspired by Disney and classic anime, she loves creating new characters and often finds that a single sketch can spark a unique story.
Allen Douglas
Allen has been painting professionally since 1994 for the publishing and gaming industries. Inspired by folklore, he distorts the size, relationships and environments of animals, and calls his paintings 'unusual wildlife'.
Thaddeus Robeck
Thaddeus has been drawing from the moment he could hold a pencil, but it was the 2020 lockdowns that gave him the time to focus on honing his skills.
DRAW FASCINATING SYMBOLIC ARTWORK
Learn how JULIÁN DE LA MOTA creates a composition from his imagination with a focus on crafting figures, volumetric modelling, and light and shadow
First Impressions
The artist talks about his journey into the mythological world
