W.I.P | Sleeping Beauty

Hey everyone! Here is a work in progress piece I’m working on right now for a Sleeping Beauties series I created. I started this one a little differently. This time I drew the basic shapes in Illustrator. Then brought the piece into Photoshop. Where I’m working with different brushes and adding textures using pattern overlays and patten brushes to the piece for the final.

Here are a few screen shots:

The first shot is the basic shapes drawn in Illustrator. You will notice my pencil sketch there, which I had scanned and then placed into Illustrator. The values shaded in pencil helped me in placing the values I needed to do in Illustrator. When drawing in Illustrator I find it easier for me to draw my shapes with the ‘pencil tool’

I usually have the pencil tool setting on Tolerances Levels: Fidelity 3% Smoothness 33% I tweak each shape as needed. I always alway always work in labeled separate layers like I do in Photoshop. It helps keep things organized and for easy finding.

The second shot is how my pieces generally look in Photoshop. First, I select all the layers in Illustrator hit crtl + c to copy then paste a Smart Object into Photoshop. The Smart Object links to the vector illustrator file. Where the vector can be resized in Photoshop to maintain its quality and can also be edited in Illustrator and automatically updates in Photoshop. I make sure I get everything the way I want to before I start building up the painting in Photoshop. For the most part I use two main brushes when painting in Photoshop, no matter what I’m working on. The brushes are from a tutorial I came across when I started getting into wanting to paint digitally. The tutorial can be found here. I also use other brushes that I find online. For the textures and patterns, I use textures I either find online or scan into Photoshop myself.

Posted by ©GigiM.

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this little insight into how I work digitally. None of my techniques or how are I start a digital illustration is ever set in stone. I’m still learning myself, if there’s something I don’t know I find examples, tutorials or just good ol’ fashioned experimenting. :O)