Making Of Hellboy´s BAR by Filedeus

STEP 1: Rough work and sketch

Click on any picture to enlarge.

First, I did some very small and quick sketches with a blue pencil, a mechanical pencil and quick speedpaint using Photoshop (4-5 minutes) in order to find the concept and the composition of the illustration. Then, I collected some references, mostly from Google and one photo of me to achieve information about the lights and shadows in Hellboy´s gabardine that is more accurate.  When I found the final concept, I started working on the sketch line of the illustration. This is a portrait of Hellboy and I wanted to do a very simple background in order to focus the attention on the character, so I didn´t pay attention to the background. I started drawing a basic sketch line in Photoshop CS3 with my Wacom Cintiq 12WX in a layer over the canvas with a soft standard brush.

In a new layer over the previous one, I drew a clean line. This method is like using a real drawer light box, which is exactly the same technique I use when I draw using "real" analogical tools.

STEP 2: First tonal values

When the draw line was ready, I eliminated the "rough sketch layer" and I created basic and flat tonal values in black and white in the "canvas layer" using selections and filling them with the paint bucket. Now it’s ready to go to Painter.

STEP 3: Using acrylics in Painter

I worked only with two layers in Painter X: the canvas layer with the flat tonal values and the drawline layer to use it as a reference. I prefer to use only one layer to paint because this is a very organic way to work, like using real acrylics. When I worked with Photoshop, I used many layers to paint with the airbrushes, but now I prefer to use only one layer (and the draw line layer of course). This method is more intuitive and quick as it is similar to the way I learned to work when I was an art student. I used the acrylic tool; mostly the "captured bristle" and I painted the shadows and lights in a grayscale.

This is a great way to work for me because it´s easier to find the right tonal values using only a grayscale. In this phase, I worked only with the acrylic tool and, of course with a lot of Ctrl Z. God bless Control Z! The physicists should be working on a way to incorporate Ctrl Z into real life. Seriously! Forget the Hadron Collider; we want real life Control Z! [fig.8]

 

The background is very simple so I didn´t use a line reference to paint it. When the paint was finished in grayscale, it was time to back to Photoshop to work with the color and texture.

STEP 4: Color and texture

 

Back in Photoshop, I added some layers with different texture brushes and different layer properties. This was a very intuitive and chaotic phase. I used some brushes from the Yang Xueguo´s "good brush set" (I really love this brush set, thanks a lot Yang for sharing it) including some custom brushes and some standard brushes. The only rules are to have fun, find the appropriate texture filling, pay attention to the tonal values and how the textures can affect composition.

 

When the texture work is over it´s time to work with the color. I used some layers in "color mode", some in "subexpose" for the character and the background and some in "overexpose" for the neon lights, and finally, I painted the environment lights over Hellboy. I added a couple of adjustment layers: one in color balance mode and the other one in "exposition" mode. Then, I added a last layer on top using an old paper scanned in multiply mode with 40% opacity in order to achieve a more "organic" filling.

And that’s all folks: This is the final illustration.

I hope you like it and thank you for reading. Good art and good luck to everyone.

Links

Discuss In The Forum

CG Gallery Filedeus Portfolio   Blog: felideus.blogspot.com  Website: www.felideus.com