A (98)

13

PICK OUT DETAILS

You’ve been building up paint textures under

your original face tone layers. Now you can start to

paste in various coloured splats into the Photo Dark

Tones shape and layer them on top. Try out yellow,

orange and blue splats, placing them at the edges of

eyebrows, lips and hair to pick out details. Change

the layer blending modes to achieve interesting

colour combinations. Create a simple shape with the

Lasso tool on a layer and fill with a lip colour placed

under the face tones. Do the same with the whites of

the eyes.

12

BUILD UP TEXTURE LAYERS

Now you need to darken the right side of

the head to add definition. Colour the ‘rschach.psd’

with a dark flesh tone colour and paste it into the

Gradient Map Dean head shape as before. Rotate

and position to create a darker line down the central

face area. You can further edit these texture shapes

by selecting the layer mask head shape then Layer

via Copying the texture to a new layer. Add a new

layer mask to this and fade the texture off one side

for instance. Experiment with blue splat colours

within the head mask shape to pick out forehead and

hair elements.

11

PAINT WITHOUT BRUSHES

Now you’re going to start ‘painting’ the face

without brushes. Use the Paste Into technique as it’s

a versatile way to build up really interesting visuals

quickly. Open up ‘Splat_1.psd’ and colour it with a

pale yellow. Copy it and Paste Into the Gradient Map

Dean head shape. Move the splats to the left side of

the face in the layer masks. Experiment with

placement and rotation to lighten that area and try a

Screen layer blend effect. I’ve duplicated this layer

three times with different placements. Open ‘rshach.

psd’ and repeat the process, rotating the texture in

the layer mask and picking out the nose to highlight.

09

ADD UNUSUAL TEXTURES

It’s fun to experiment with unusual textures to see what effects can be achieved and to take

advantage of happy accidents. Included on the disc is a photo of a distressed paint texture called ‘chipped_

paint.jpg’. Open this and Paste Into the same area as your colour wash. Once again, move the texture around

until satisfied, then experiment with layer blending settings and opacity. For this you can settle on a

reasonably subtle 40% on Normal.

10

GRADIENT MAPPING THE FACE

You need an underlying skin tone for the

portrait, so go back to the original Dean layer and

duplicate it. Use Levels to boost the black and white

contrast if you need to, then select a light and dark

flesh tone in the foreground/background colour

palettes. Go to Image>Adjustments>Gradient Map

and apply those colours to the black and white areas.

This should give a good flesh tone base to be placed

under the colour and definition layers.

TEXTURING THE IMAGE

GIVE YOUR ILLUSTRATION AN ORGANIC FEEL

It’s fun to experiment

with unusual textures

to see what effects can be

achieved and to take advantage

of happy accidents

COMBINE PHOTOS AND GRAPHICS