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I always fancy painting females with fantasy outfits. Here, I had an idea of creating a cyborg futuristic type at first but later on evolved to a more knightly amour type of outfit.

STEP 1. LET THERE BE LIGHT

I start off by defining my light source using Filter>Render>lighting effects on the background layer. Here, I place the source coming from the upper left corner. This gives me a better understanding of where my light source is and helps me better blocking shapes. I create another layer, paint a silhouette and use the dodge tool to give highlights to the image.

I always work with 2 layers, to be able to easily make changes with the background and the foreground.

STEP 2. DEFINE SHAPES

I continue blocking shapes in grayscale as I can see the values better. Once shapes are defined, I sketch over the image to see the details and shapes I wish to further achieve. And continue painting over with a standard chalk brush but still in grayscale. It’s faster to work this way and worry about the colors later.

STEP 3. COLOR

Happy with the direction I’m headed, I add a new layer above the image and set the layer to COLOR. And begin adding desired colors to the image. I use a clipping mask so I wont go over the desired image to be colored ( CTRL + G for Photoshop CS and CTRL+ALT+G for CS2 ). Then merge the color layer and the image below. I continue painting over it using the color values made as reference as my color palette.

STEP 4. CREATING SHAPES

I was bored looking at the costume I have made. It has been an overly used and abused fantasy outfit. So I tried to experiment adding spiral shapes by creating a spiral like shaped brush and start adding it up on other parts of the costume until I’m happy with it.

STEP 5. THE HELMET

I felt the body costume doesn’t complement her helmet. Once more, I experiment with my spiral brush to add details that would match her outfit.