As with all of my concept art I have a specific workflow. Block colour is added in separate layers allowing me to change these colours at will, later in the development process. These block colours were added with a hard round brush and 100% opacity.
The first bit of detail added was the characters skin. using many different layers, building up the skin texture. Looking closely at reference images you notice that skin is made up of many different colours including green. At this stage I had added basic shading and some sub surface scattering. This is where the light is showing up the blood that is below the outer skin level.
Dialing back the opacity of the subsurface scattering layer made the effect much more subtle. The basic shading layer was duplicated and had a field blur filter added to smooth out the skin texture. The textures were created using a custom skin brush, with a very low flow value.
The last bit of detail on the skin was the highlights. I didn't want to push this too far as my workflow includes the addition of highlights and light occlusion later in the process. These highlights were added on a normal layer style, just using a lighter skin colour and a custom skin brush.
For the characters jeans I overlayed a photographic texture of my own jeans. This was worked into using custom texture brushes in a variety of blue tones. Dirt was also added using a custom brush, giving the viewer more of an incite into the personality of this character.
Again photographic textures were used for the characters belt, working into this with custom brushes and a low flow value. Strong highlights were added to the belt buckle, pushing the idea of specular highlights on metal.
The characters shirt texture was entirely created using custom brushes, in many different layers. Slowly building up the effect of tattered, dirty clothing. At this point the body is looking a little bit flat but I am only concerned with textures at this stage of the development process. Light occlusion and highlights will come later.
Now it was time to finish off any small details such as the character weapon, eyes and boots. All created using custom brushed and a variety of brush settings.
With the overall textures completed it was time to give the character a bit of shape. Pulling him from being a flat image to something that jumps out at the viewer a little more. This was done by adding light occlusion on a multiply layer, with a dark colour and a custom brush with a low flow value. I have started using flow values more than opacity because it gives a more natural feel to shading, building up the effect in one continuous stroke.
Highlights were added on a soft light layer style. Using a light colour and custom brush with a low flow value. I wanted to really push the lighting at this point, putting a strong highlight down one side of the character really made this piece pop. I have noticed that Chris Robinson, among many other artists, use this same technique in order to give a bit of life to a character design.
Once the main pose concept was out of the way I started to work on an orthographic turn around. Using the ruler tool in Photoshop to create guides, ensuring that the front back and side sketches lined up correctly. It is very important that these details be correct when a 3D artist imports these images into a 3D package, in order to correctly translate the design into a 3D character.
Block colour was added to the orthographic projections, giving a clear distinction between different elements of the design. I decided not to add and detail to the projections, as this would have made it harder for a 3D artist to work from.
To give the model sheet a bit of flair I wanted to create a textured background. A fill layer was added with a slightly de-saturated brown colour.
Dirty textures were added using a custom texture bush and a low opacity. The paint splats are a custom brush that I created, just to add a bit of subtle interest behind each illustration. Highlights were also added to the background behind where each illustration falls. This was an attempt to pull the illustrations away from the page.
All elements were brought together and body copy added to give the viewer some information about the model sheet.
Finally I added some adjustment layers over the top of everything, pushing the curves of the piece to the desired level. The effect is subtle but I believe that it really give that professional finish.
I am very happy with this concept piece as I believe that it displays a professional standard that much of my previous work does not. I am beginning to understand the logistics of concept art to a greater degree and this concept piece definitely shows that leap forward.
If I were to improve on this piece I could have tilted the characters hat in order to add just that little bit more interest to the silhouette, even though I believe the silhouette to be very strong already. The proportions of the character were pushed just enough so that the character is believable but not too far as to alienate the design. The legs are slightly longer than that of the average human proportions, which was an attempt to give the character a bit of authority. I also tried to push the pose of the character to give his some personality and believe that this has been achieved.
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