[sacrelicious]

This was in the WIP forum in a much earlier form. I've decided that I like it enough to call it finished- I'd only want to maybe get more textures in there, which I'm not entirely sure how to do anyway. Here it is:



This is my depiction of Richard III, as portrayed (brilliantly) by my Shakespeare professor last September here at UCSB. Shakespeare's Richard is a foul, murderous, silver-tongued despot; a creature of pure evil, which I tried to depict here. This is my first real stab at a more stylistic, photomanippy type of work, so please take a look and let me know what you think!

[Tinusch]

I really like the textures you've got there. The image of evil and tyranny is well conveyed, but I think you could go a lot further with textures like those. Looks more like graffiti right now.

[[Shizo]]

Yeah, i think it was me who suggested you to use textures on there.. thats not what i meant though =]
In the new pic above, texture is too heavy while sketch is lost.
I meant something more subtle like that drawing of an adidas/b-boy/hip-hopper dude that i saw earlier.

Also not one texture throughout whole image, but: one colored texture for face, another for bg, etc

..i think!

[B3AND1P]

The texture in the background is a photo right? I think It would be cool if you created the texture in photoshop as well as the drawing, because right now the background has a real photorealistic look while the forground looks more hand drawn. If you want the forground to sink into the photo texture better just let me know and I can give you some tips.

[sacrelicious]

Hey guys, I agree with you all 100% about the texture stuff. I just don't know how to do it right yet. B3AND1P, I would love any tips you could give me. Thanks everyone for your replies.

P.S. Somebody please do us all a favor and kill Amanda.

[Tinusch]

*bump*

[B3AND1P]

Ok, I will do my best

1: try to find an image that is very flat lighting wise. Try to stay away from textures taken with a flash. You can always add lighting later but for right now start with something evenly lit.





Here is a texture I got from Jeremy Engleman's public texture collection. All of his pictures are on there for free, but I recommend you buy one of his cds if you really want to use his stuff.

Public Textures by Jeremy Engleman

2: draw your image or whatever. I'm not gonna spend a whole lot of time doing this Remember always do everything on a separate unique layer. I made this simple text with the airbrush and tried to make it look like spray paint.



3: ok now copy the layer you just made to another layer, change the first layer to Color mode and the one above it to overlay. You may have to duplicate the overlay layer if the text isn't bright enough.



4: now what I like to do is add some elements over the entire image to further push the drawing and the background together. Here I made a new completely black layer, then added some horizontal grain (filter/texture/grain). I set the intensity all the way up and the contrast all the way down. I then rotated the layer, added some glass distortion, and upped the contrast a little. I set this layer to Multiply with about 11% opacity. Of course you should change any of these settings depending on how it works with your image.



5: the next process is a little complicated but I think it adds a lot to the image. Turn visibility off on all layers that show the drawing so you should only be showing the background and any noise or grain layers. Next select all (ctrl-a) and copy visible (ctrl-shift-c) and paste the new image to its own layer. Select a light color with the eyedropper and use "select/color range" to copy everything with that color to its own layer. Delete the layer that you used to grab the light colors and throw your new layer to the top of the stack and set it to screen with a low opacity. Turn all layers to visible. What you just did was make it seem as though part of your drawing has been warn away from weather or whatever. You may not want to use this technique for every image but it’s a good thing to learn.





6: Last but not least put a hue/saturation and a levels adjustment layer to the top of the stack and mess with em until everything looks the way you want it. Don't forget to go over all the layers and experiment with opacity and mode.




Download the PSD!

I hope I helped you in some way. I can make a tut on how to make a texture from scratch but its a much more complicated process.

[ February 03, 2002: Message edited by: B3AND1P ]

[sacrelicious]

Hey, thanks a lot B3AND1P! I will read your advice very closely and perhaps put it to use in a new piece. It's tough for me to find time to do this stuff, but I'll try. Again, thanks very much!