Workshops

LOOK TO FRAZETTA FOR INSPIRATION

dont know a single fantasy artist who isnt influenced by the art of Frank Frazetta. A combination of his innate sense of movement, the energy, the raw pulse of life he put in his images, his skills in anatomy and storytelling propelled him to the top of the illustrators pyramid. Im going to show you my way of interpreting the legacy this artiste extraordinaire has left us.

Tap into Frank Frazettas iconic style of painting without ending up with a poor copy. Jean-Sbastien Rossbach tips his hat to the master artist

Many have tried to steal his magic potion, but no one has been able to give their art even half the power that Frazetta could. So my goal isnt to copy Frazettas art. Instead, I ask myself what elements of the great mans production I like, and see if I can incorporate them into my own workflow. And what better subject could there be than a good old Conan piece? If you look closer at early Frazetta pieces youll see how he likes to draw

JeanSbastien Rossbach
COUNTRY: France JeanSbastien has worked for many major companies including Marvel, Wizards of the Coast and Ubisoft. Hes also the author of Merlin, an art book that retells the legendary wizards story. livingrope.free.fr

human figures like animals. His guys can look like gorillas. I want to draw a Conan thrusting his chest out like a gorilla. Youll also often find him at the top of a triangle composition, with an axe or sword in his hands. I like it a lot because its a simple type of composition and puts the focus on the main character, giving him potency and strength. I know Ill add a couple of enemies at his feet, but for now I dont know what theyll look like.

Because the composition is so simple and Im creating the image in Photoshop (enabling me to correct my composition at any time), I begin drawing Conan directly. Ive already done a couple of sketches to see what movement would be the most interesting, even though I already have a good idea of what Im going to do anyway. I use a bold diamond brush a personal favourite for starting to draw the shapes and anatomy. It means I can wander around the canvas and not be too precise.

The initial sketch

The aim is to first nail the good movement of the body, so I dont pay much attention to the muscles and volumes. Id do the same at a life-drawing session, and Id begin with a big charcoal or graphite pencil. Big brushes are easy-going they allow the shapes to appear in front of your eyes. Afterwards Ill rescale anything thats too big or small, and sculpt the shapes more precisely with the eraser.

Focus on movement

DVD Assets
The files you need are on your DVD in the Jean-Sbastien Rossbach folder in the Workshops section.

Now that I have an idea of my characters gesture, I begin to add some background to the piece. Again, the main character is the focus of the painting, so Ill only use fog and clouds, but the clouds are important and theyll help me build my composition. From the very beginning I knew that Id put my Conan on top of a small promontory.

Add a background
PHOTOSHOP
DIAMOND BRUSH

The brush I use the most is a big diamond brush. Its very useful for roughing out the first sketches. I also like the marks it makes when you simply paint a subject.

My composition now appears clearly. Its a triangle, and inside this triangle Ill use curvy lines that rise and fall from to the bottom left of the plane to the upper right. These wavy lines will bring a sense of energy and movement to my image. I didnt do a proper thumbnail of the composition in the beginning because I knew where I was going, but I strongly recommend that you do so before starting a painting. The composition is the most important step in the construction of an image.

Generate energy

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In depth Look to Frazetta

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Workshops
Now that Ive blocked the movement of my character and have a good idea of what my composition will be, I can begin to refine the anatomy. The anatomy is the main problem to solve in an image like this. If youre not too comfortable with it, I recommend that you use a photo reference. In fact this is what I do now: because Im not sure what his arms and hands should look like. I take a naked photo of myself (dont even think about asking me to show it my woman would kill me!) and it helps me to see where the elbow is in relation to the head, for example. I then use Photoshops Warp tool to adjust his pose.

Build the anatomy

Each part of the body, each muscle and each item of clothing must be treated according to the light source. This is what will help you build the volumes in the piece. In addition, you wont become lost in your image, not knowing what to do next. You can see that Im working in black and white here. Ill add colour later, but first I want to focus on the values of grey. Using this technique I have greater control of the full and empty spaces I have in my image. If Id used colours from the beginning, they may have distracted me, and I dont want that to happen.

Turn up the volume

Here Im focusing on Conans chest because its what I want to express: the beast inside the man! I dont want to make him look too smart either, so I begin to draw his eyes bulging. Hes also biting his lip because of the effort involved (this is a technique you often see in Simon Bisleys art, for example). The mananimal is appearing slowly in front of me.

The beast within

Now I need to identify the light sources. Light is a powerful tool that helps create atmosphere, and a character wont look the same if you throw a light on them that comes from the bottom or from the top. I decide to put a narrow yet diffuse spot on Conans chest, because its the images focal point. I keep part of his face in shadow so that his eyes appear bright and mad-looking. His axe is almost completely treated like a shadow puppet, to emphasise the threat that it represents.

Shine a light

At this point my Conan looks rather stupid with his axe raised and not a single head to crush in front of him. He screams for battle: Crom! Where are my enemies? To be perfectly honest, right now I still dont have a clue what his opponents will look like. But the composition seen from the abstract angle will help me in my task. Lets say that theyre humanoids, reptile-like with long arms and maybe something of a toad or a lizard in their faces. I begin to draw their shapes very loosely something between a reptile and a man. The good thing with monsters is that you dont have to worry too much about their anatomy; the odder they are, the cooler they look!

Make enemies

e Calibrate th Levels screen with L (Mac)

to your 10 Keep composition

The main thing I want to focus on is my composition, so I try to sit the enemies on strong lines that complement my initial wavy composition without breaking it. I first draw shadows and then build the lights slowly. As I paint, I decide on the necessary details. The ribcage of the first monster in the foreground is very defined; I want to see his bones under the skin. The arms are very long and the hands have only four hooked fingers. I flip the image horizontally to see where Ive made mistakes.

d+ Ctrl+L (PC) Cm Levels are Photoshops Im not sure useful when ion of of the calibrat my screen.

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In depth Look to Frazetta

tribute to the master artist 11 Pay The guy in the foreground is a tribute to Frazetta, in the way that hes bending his
body over. I also chose to show his backside, which is something that you only see in Frazetta pieces. It reflects the freedom the creative minds had back in the 70s. Finally, I end up adding spikes on their heads and shoulders, and a thin carapace over their flesh. Not anything too Frazetta-ish this time, but more to my personal taste.

The Curves layer

At the bottom of the Layers bar is a round icon labelled Create New Fill Or Adjustment Layer. Select this icon, choose Curves and play with the red, green and blue values to achieve some surprising colour results. This Adjustment layer is also interesting because it acts like a mask, enabling you to erase unwanted areas with the Brush tool.

shapes 12 Separate While Im refining the details, I decide to add a

backlight to the monster in the foreground. This will help separate his shape from the texture of the promontory behind him. Its always good to add a second light source that comes from the back of the characters. Its used to outline the silhouette and make it pop to the foreground.

colour 13 Add There are many ways to colour an

image in Photoshop. You can use the Colour Balance tool, create a Curves layer, apply colours with an Overlay layer and so on. I decide to use a handful of methods, starting with a coloured texture that I created earlier. Im using it as an Overlay layer that enables me to add a painted texture to my image as well as some colour indications. After that, I use the Colour Balance tool to give a yellowish tint to the whole image. Usually, I use blue and cyan for the dark values, and yellow and red for highlights.

Curves 14 Celebrate Im not too fond of the colours

straight out of the tube blue for the sky, pink for the flesh, that kind of thing. If, like me, you want to keep the fun flowing, try the Curves tool. Curves is a great way to achieve results that you would never have imagined, because it acts directly on the RGB channels. And most of the time youll produce interesting and surprising results. Finally, Im adding colours on an overlay layer.

painted touch 15 The Ive lost count of how many times

someone has asked me what my secret is for making an illustration look like its painted. I do paint my images digitally, but of course they mean real oil paint! Again, there are a couple of simple techniques to achieve this. You can make a pass on Painter and add some digital varnish to your image, or you can also import it into ArtRage and paint over some areas to add the painted touch here and there (I do this sometimes). You can also search for painted textures online and apply them on your image on an Overlay layer, which is what Ive done here. Dont hesitate to grab online textures for everything: clouds for the sky, rusted metal for the armour, fish scales for your dragons, concrete, stone for your mountains Textures are a time-saver, but remember to use them only for the finishing touch, to add the kind of detail that will make a difference. Dont begin an image with the details start with the overall composition!

Compose your image

I know, this sounds very basic, but even pros tend to forget this simple yet mandatory step. Dont be too quick take the time to think about your composition. What big shape will you use to build your scene? A triangle, a square or a circle maybe? And inside this big shape, what lines of movement will you choose? Composition is the first step and the most important decision you will have to make.

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