Maelstrom Walk Through

Hello, my friends!  :)

A lot of you have asked about my creative process.  You're in luck!  During the latest piece I did called "Maelstrom" I finally remembered to take screen shots of my progress.  ;)  (Actually, I kept bugging and pestering two good friends, Sandra & Heather for their expert opinions.  LOL)  Thank you for your never - ending patience ladies!

Even if they did lose patience, they were gracious enough not to tell me to go take a L O N G swim out in the gator pond out back.  Heh

This is just an overview ... not a complete tutorial.  Meaning I will not describe how I did step-by-step.  Maybe one day but I just don't have it in me today.  LOL

Step One:  The original photo of Morgan

Step Two:  Extracting Morgan

Step Three:  Painting Hair on Morgan

Step Four:  Paint Tentacles

Step Five:  Create Body to go with Tentacles and Movement to the Cape

Step Six:  Add a Staff & Change Color of Tentacles

Step Seven:  Start Adding Background - Use awesome water brushes from Cryztal Rain -  Change Staff - Change Color of Cape to Red

Step Eight:  Change color of cape to Green - Begin Darkening up the Mood - Add glow to staff using Cryztal Rain's "Bokeh Lightz" brushes & glow to hair

Step Nine:  Add Texture and Shading to the tentacle body

Step Ten:   Change color of the cape ... A G A I N.  Slowly start to question your sanity.

 

Step Eleven:  Confirm that you've lost all sense of self-preservation because you've decided to make it a Double Page.  Start all over with a new background using Lorie Davison's fabulous art.

 

Step Twelve:  Clean up the maelstrom and make it darker.

Step Thirteen:  Add the Black Pearl (not really the Black Pearl) from Eena's Creations and flip the page to see if you like seeing it from this perspective. 

Step Fourteen:  Decide you were right the first time and wait 15 minutes for your image to flip back over.  Add some more awesome water brushes from Cryztal Rain.  Add some more land to add the illusion of depth of focus and Darken up the image even more.

Step Fifteen:  Add MORE brushwork with the water for waves and dripping off the tentacles.  Add some spoooooky lightning.  All brushes from Cryztal Rain and even more goodies from the artistic phenomena known as Lorie Davison.  Then go even DARKER!

Step Sixteen:   Did I say go darker ... I meant REALLY go to the DARK Side ... and added some hair accessories.

Step Seventeen:  Decide you may have gone too far with the hair accessories with the help of a good friend (thank you, Sandra).  Spam ... I mean ... e-mail your friend with about 7 different hair styles, until she's tired of you and you're happy and she's ready to add you to her spam filter.  And lighten up the bottom right hand waves.

Close - Ups

Side B:

That's it!  

Done in Photoshop CS5

Total Work Time:  Around 40 hours

Products Used by the following Designers:

Cryztal Rain:  Shop

Lorie Davison:  Shop

Eena's Creations:  Shop