SAM THOMPSON
maud - The soldier
In this image, I gave myself the brief of a veteran soldier who's been scarred by war. I decided to do just a bust so I could really focus on the details of the face and rendering it well. Giving him different elements such as the scar and also including lots of wrinkles around the eyes and laugh lines along the wings of the nose down to the corners of the mouth.
Made in: Adobe Photoshop CS6 and Adobe Illustrator CS6 with a Wacom Cintiq 13HD
Final image rendered with different colour layers through the cut and grad method. I also changed the lineart layer mode to luminosity, this allowed me to soak up the colours from behind and allow it to blend more rather than having the more bold black lines. I also used the dodge and burn tool to create a greater contrast in the tones, and also added a subtle red hue to the ears, tip of nose and cheeks. This is barely noticeable but it represents sub surface scattering that occurs in real life.
A series here showing how I went from a sketch to a finished illustration. I initially used a black oval brush that I made myself on a layer set to 20% opacity for the sketch. Then I used a brush by Kyle T Webster for the Inking process. Then I went on to colouring it.