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Chapter 1: Inspirations and idea.

You may consider this as less important, but it is very helpful when you realize what exactly you want to draw. Separate what is main theme from what should be left in background. Basically I wanted to surprise audience with that bed standing in the middle of some mysterious forest. When gaze move to that bed you probably think "why the hell is standing here...", than you may notice little boy in his pyjama guided by a fairy. But in first look he's hard to be seen, and that is what i wanted to achieve -make somebody to think what is doing that bed among the trees. What inspired me for this one is one of Pink Floyd's album cover with lots of beds standing on the lonely beach in early morning. I don't remember which album I'm talking about, more, I've never seen it, only read about it in music magazine but it was main inspiration for that picture.

Chapter 2: Getting started.

I made this one using Adobe Photoshop and my wacom tablet. It makes no difference if you using PS7 or PS8 since all used options/tools are available in version 7. First we need to decide what resolution is suitable for our image. Original size of my is 3000x2250 pixels but half of that would be also enough I guess. It is better to work with large resolutions cause you don't need to draw in extreme zoom mode when you are able to see separate pixels. First what we need to do is fill white background with some more appropriate color. Because I wanted to draw forest, it is natural to choose something between green and blue. I don't like making outline sketch, so I go straight to colour scheme and composition. In the beginning I don't use large amount of various colours. With straight strong strokes I wanna get right composition and place all things in my scene.

brush settings

It is very important to draw image "global" not only one part. It is very common that people work on detail of an eye for example, when mouth and nose are don't even started. Don't do that, work one every part of image in the same time. That will make your picture well designed. And it is way easier to catch and correct all errors and imperfections of composition/color/or whatever, when it's not too late. With only few colours I draw base shapes and areas of my scene. I use hard brush with "wet edges" mode. Remember to make it sensitive to pen pressure, and set spacing to 1% to get smooth strokes. I use opacity about 77% for that brush and pressing pen harder I get more intensive colour.

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Chapter 3: making a mess.

That is my favorite part of making images. At this stage I don't care about any detail. I'm totally free conducting various experiments with colours and brush properties. Most important is to get good light effect and colour scheme. Mess with colours as long as it needs to look good. Keep in mind that all things in real world aren't one colour. So when i draw a tree trunk for example I don't use only bronze/green. When you realize that every thing in real world does have plenty of colours (very subtle sometimes but it does) your works will get a new fresh, mature look. You see I add more colors to my scene and work on composition. I decided to put that thin long branches -I've never seen something like that in real forest but I though they could fit here and bring a little bit fairy-tale mood which I expected.

I bring more contrast to the trees using dark blue colour. Remember not to draw shadows with black -there are no BLACK shadows in real world. They may be very very dark and strong but still -no black.

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Now it's time for smaller brush. I've started marking scratches on trunks and placing some bushes and foliage. Still no details here but all shapes emerge slowly. Keep playing with various colours and brush's opacity at 25%-40%. Moreover, I use for a first time since the beginning different brush style (not size/opacity only). You may notice even standard photoshop leaves brush -why not? I've also prepared brush I thought could be used for simulating trunks roughness.

Dedicated photoshop leaves brush seems to be very handy to mess with. Same thing with my brush prepared for trunks roughness. I suggest you to draw it on new layer so you can correct opacity any time. When you finish and everything is ok, just merge it with background.

settings of brush for trunks roughness.

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Now it is time for a little trick. To get nice "dirty" texture of image I use layers blending method. I simply choose one of my already finished image, paste it on layer above my messy background and change blending mode to "overlay" or "hard light". This are my favorite modes but feel free to try the rest of them. Now decrease opacity of blended layer to get nice subtle effect. If you don't have your own pictures to overlay you may take some of texture images could be found with google.com

my favorite standard 3ds max texture

before...

if you look very careful you can see blended stones

...and after texture blending

example of my recent work used for layer blending

My favorite texture is standard 3ds max texture -some rusted metal. Blend as much garbage as you need, you can get very interesting effect with different images. Remember you don't have to apply blended layer to whole image. You can put it only on specified areas -for example the trunks or grass -by erasing unwanted parts with eraser tool. Of course you can prepare by yourself some texture image. Some people claims that you are not allowed to sign work with your name when you use third party stuff for layer manipulations. Well, I leave that for your consideration. I usually use most of my recent works for blending (sometimes I set so low layer opacity it is very hard visible). Some of them fit and some don't -try as many as you can.

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Ok, blended garbage brought beautiful roughness to image and interesting colour range.

Well, it is time to add some details. A little moss here and there -chalk brush very suitable here, a lot of small branches laying on the ground among mossy rocks. I still use large brushes for that job and I pick already existing colours with eyedropper tool (key shortcut: pressed alt). There is no need of increasing color range.

chalk brush is just perfect for moss texture

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I decided to let some sunrays in -it brings a very warm mood. And that's the end of making mess. We got nice composed picture with good colour range. It really doesn't matter that are no details

sunrays were made with very low brush opacity

After adding details and maybe some extra colors from palette you can make it much better of course, but it won't be revolution. Unless you change most everything of course. It is very important moment of my work -design composition and mood are already finished. Here is where most creative work ends. Now it is time to pick up small brush and draw all those details. Hard work starts here.

Chapter4: The BIG cleanup

Like I said -no mercy. With brush size about 3 pixels I draw all grass straws, rocks, moss, branches and small flowers. I also prepared brush for small needles -great for forest's ground. Notice I still use only existing colors (eyedropper tool). I've also increased contrast of image (image/adjustments/brightness/contrast). It is my weakness -afraid of putting strong dark color in shadows areas -that's why I often correct that with this helpful option. After drawing some detail stuff I realized that image gets too colorful and sweet. That cold dark atmosphere, when you are not sure if you are in warm smelly, green and full of friendly elfs and fairies forest, or cold sleazy foggy and vicious with some causing goosebump voices in background. I wanted something between, so I decided to make whole a little darker. That's why it is very important to draw every part of image in same time -you've got perfect control, and you see how every object coexist with another.

hard work on details

"needles" brush is almost the same as my previous brush. Main change its brush tip shape

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I decided to use some photoshop filter what is unusual 'cause I hardly ever do that. Anyway I duplicated my background to layer above and filtered it through watercolor filter. It gave a high contrast dark areas. Now using erase tool (opacity 40%) remove most of filtered layer and left only subtle parts. It is colder now.yet. At this moment you already know how your image will basically look like.

to duplicate current layer (or background) drag it and drop on "create new layer" button

simply erase unwanted parts with "eraser" tool at low opacity

I used "healing brush" tool to copy some moss on the tree trunks

tree trunk: before and after "healing brush" tool

It is a fortune I guess, but I got very nice area of green so decided to use it for trunks in foreground. I didn't want to make moss texture once again. I thought about clone tool but realized that healing brush tool is much better for this job. So, I cloned what I needed and retouched it with small brush until it got unique look. For that blue background behind the trees use airbrush tool with small opacity. It is much easier when you put value on separate layer and then erase unwanted parts.

Chapter5: It's getting clear

I still miss some extra light effect. I decide to put some very bright light areas like in real forest when sunrays get through leaves and branches. With dodge tool I draw some light spots. Now choose brush tool and picking colours with eyedropper I draw some bright grass straws and details. Most of work is done. Now with all my patience I finish drawing all the details. There is no need to put extra colors, what's more, I'm afraid it is too colorful already.

bring some light with "dodge" tool

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Chapter6: Hard finish...

Somebody said that biggest advantage of digital painting is endless amount of variations you can easy make and it's biggest disadvantage at the same time. You can spend hours and hours on trying various parameters and wondering which version of image is better. I got that to. Especially when you put loads of work in your pic and now you wanna make it as good as it is possible. I couldn't decide if I want beautiful strong colors after applying auto levels (image/adjustments/auto levels) or darker mood of original picture so I mixed it up.

result of applied gradient mask on layer (please notice, you can't add mask to background) I duplicated background to layer above applied "auto levels" and created layer mask filled with black/white gradient (remember, if you wanna fill mask with gradient (not image) you must be in mask mode (simply click on mask miniature; to return to image editing mode click image miniature -see screen on the left). Some people claims that it was a mistake. Well, it is my choice.

image and mask miniatures...

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from left: original background; duplicated background with auto levels applied and gradient mask; final result

final version of image That's all from me. Hope you've founded this "making of" useful. There are many techniques of creating digital painting of course. It is just one of them. mime /EVERMOTION Team PS. I believe there is full resolution image available somewhere on evermotion site.

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