Create a Dark Steampunk Digital Painting
on Feb 23 in Digital Painting by Piotr Foksowicz
In this tutorial, I’d like to show you how to create a brilliant steampunk style digital painting with symmetrical composition and dark, obscure atmosphere. You will learn a few useful tricks and methods for creating digital paintings in Photoshop.
Final Digital Painting
Document settings
Let us start with document that has dimensions like A4 sheet of paper (3508×2480 pixels) and 300 dpi. The color format is RGB. I have changed my work’s size two times during painting, so in the end it had 3000×1996 pixels. Ability to change painting’s size is one of the huge advantages of digital painting so feel free to do it when necessary but it would be good if you could end up with original A4 size.
Sketching
Usually I am starting my works by making a few quick sketches on a paper or using a graphic tablet (it takes me 10-15mins) . In this case I have used tablet. For sketches I am using basic brushes, usually rounded ones. It is worth to make a few sketches to find correct composition that you like. Keep in mind that you shouldn’t draw too many details in the beginning. Sketch is used to arrange the painting and stimulate imagination. Also, I’m not able to tell you WHAT to draw but HOW to draw so use your imagination and think of some symmetrical scene or try to recreate mine one. Use your Brush Tool (B) and different shades of grey. Here’s a quick sketch:
The Idea
Now it is time to specify your idea. Once you create your sketch you should have clearer idea on how should it look like in the end but most likely it is not as clear as necessary. There are a few ways to start this stage. You can colorize all your work at once or keep working with your sketch and then add colors by stages. In this case I’ll use the second method because I want my ilustration to be rich in various details and I don’t want to lose anything. At this point you can really have fun and make experiments with colors and layers blending modes to find some good atmosphere for your work. Keep adding more and more details and then colorize everything with different colors. For coloring I usually use soft round brush, with big size but low opacity (it was set to 40%).
Symmetry Fix
If your illustration should be symmertical, you can split your work into two pieces, copy one of them and use ‘Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal’ to flip the copy. After that you’ll have to flat layers by going to ‘Layer>Flatten’. By doing that you can be sure that your work is perfectly symmetrical. Make sure that there is no empty space between these two halves.
Sketch Details
At this point you should have only a rough, symmetrical sketch with some colors to specify the atmosphere of the scene. Now I usually increase colors that should be stronger than the others and look for shape of individual elements. Look at the screenshots below to see what I’m talking about. I increased the contrast, used brighter colors, painted some little details and the entire painting has instantly changes dramatically. Stronger colors and little details gives amazing results. That little changes can really make your work pop but you have to slowly paint them one by one. You can flip your work horizontally sometimes to easier catch some mistakes or get a new idea (which isn’t as much important if you’re working with symmetrical piece of artwork but it helps also here). It gives you some kind of a fresh and new look.
Light Sources
I decided to make a few changes in the lower part of my image to cover more floor and increase space. I have also inserted some kind of blinds on the upper window to decrease amount of light coming inside – illustration was meant to be dark. I was focusing more on light source in the middle of the image.
Details
Once you’ve done all that you can finally start adding more and more little details. It’s not hard but it’s time-consuming. I suggest to spend enough time on that because it really pays off then. Keep improving ornaments and pipes until you are absolutely happy with everything. Notice that I removed the old scuplture and replaced it with something else (that’s what I mean – you have to take care of every single element of your work once more). The new sculpture is much more detailed but I had to delete pipes behind its back. I still don’t have any idea on how should a character sitting in front of the keyboard look like. I decided to leave it for now. If you have a problem with some element of your work during the painting it is sometimes better to leave it for a little while and wait for some idea that should eventually come to you mind (but keep drawing/painting other elements). After all the improvements I suggest to work on lights again. Light in painting process is something very important. It creates an atmospheare and makes your work richer. While you are working with lights you have to remember that different materials reflect light differently. Change color tone accordingly. You have probably already noticed that I iterate a few times doing the same things but each time I’m adding more and more details.
More Details
When priorities like light and colors are set we can focus on details. Let’s add more flares and textures (I was adding some textures all the time but you can start doing that right now instead of just using brushes). We’ve got all of the most important elements done. Less important elements should be pushed to the background (by darkening them). I spend much time on in this stage laying with various textures and brushes.
Main Character
I decided to change position of the main character. Show a little bit of his face and turn him the the right. It makes the character look like he’s more in the foreground. It makes all the work more dynamic and interesting.
Final Touches
In the end I have added a grunge texture to the illustration, and erased it where it wasn’t nesessery. For texture I have used mix layer blending mode. After that it’s time for the last details and corrections.
Conclusion
That is all. I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know what do you think about my work below!
A great tutorial for “Creating a Dark Steampunk Digital Painting” by Piotr Foksowicz …. awesome, I love steampunk style !!
Clear Color Usage.
Keep Up dude..