COMPLETE YOUR PAINTING
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This tutorial shows but a few approaches to
creating a concept character. There are an infinite
number of ways to come up with the effects in the
painting we have here. You can spend a lot of time
in the line art phase by checking proportions there
and finalising the anatomy instead of just making
corrections in post-production. You can make use
of royalty-free photos instead of manually painting
textures, or use the Smudge tool to blend your
colours instead of relying on Pen Pressure
settings. Don’t be afraid to experiment. It’s still the
best way to get oriented.14
ENHANCEMENTS ON THE CHARACTER
Similar to the process done after painting the background earlier, make
use of a Color Dodge and a Color Burn layer to enhance the values and hues of
the character. Since the background consists primarily of greens and blues, you
should accentuate the character further by using warmer colours. With soft
brushes, apply some red-orange hues along the edges of the character on the
Color Dodge layer. Then, for the shadow enhancements, apply some light greys
and various shades of purple on the Color Burn layer.15
GENERAL COLOUR ADJUSTMENTS
Once you’ve painted all elements, care must be given to ensure that all
elements look like they belong in one scene. This is where adjustment layers
come in handy. In this case, use Color Balance to simultaneously adjust the hues
of the character and the background. Naturally, certain hues will be pushed too
much as a result. To remedy this, apply some black paint to the layer mask that
comes with the adjustment layer. This will allow you to ‘erase’ parts you don’t
want the adjustment layer to influence or affect.16
ATMOSPHERIC EFFECTS
The last step in this tutorial that would involve the use of brushes would be the addition of
atmospheric effects such as bloom. Bloom is an effect in which the light extends beyond the borders of bright
areas in the picture. To add this particular effect, you will simply need to create a new layer and set its blending
mode to Screen. Then you will need to make use of an airbrush to lightly paint those light fringes. Take care
not to overdo it though, as you don’t want any part of the background to be too washed out.$)')4!,ď0!).4).'