Making of "Tac"

Well here is the tutorial how I make my illustrations. For all my work I am using two programs that I am combining together. These two programs are Adobe Illustrator CS and Adobe Photoshop CS. I am using my wacom graphire A5 sized tablet. So here we go...

Open a new file in Photoshop. With a wacom tablet I made a rough sketch of my creature that I am planning to draw using the pencil tool. Quite some time is spent on that step because the creature is kind of not existing in my head before I start drawing it but while I am drawing some ideas are popping into my head and I am trying to realize them. In this first step I'm drawing outlines in Photoshop by using the brush tool.

Once the primary sketches are made I export all outlines into Adobe Illustrator CS. I put that outlines into one layer and then I draw vector outlines over primary sketch into a new layer. For that step I am using pen tool and for making outlines a little smoother I use pencil tool as well. I must add that trough all of this steps that I will write here in this tutorial the new ideas are showing. So here in this step I add the new style of eye and some other details on the body of that creature.

When all the outlines are finished I export them back to Photoshop on new layer. I deleted layers with the previous sketches. Then I do the coloring - firstly I put a new layer under the outlines and color the whole body as seems fit to me.

Then the shadows come up. I choose a little darker color and just color the parts where I think the shadows are lying.

After that is done I take the lasso tool and choose that part of picture where two different colors are together.

When this is marked I go to Filters/Blur and pick gaussian blur. And then I just play with that tool so it seems good to me.

For extra fixes and additions and for smoother gradients between shadows I use the smudge tool and fix what is needed to be fixed.

After that a lot of work is done with the dodge and burn tool. With those two tools I make a highlights in the picture and fix up some shadows.

After all the coloring has been done I put a new layer under this creature and I work on the background the same way I am working on the creature. Here on this creature I planned not to do any background just some coloring and some shadows on the floor to make creature more three-dimensional and placed in some environment.

So I hope you have learned something with this tutorial of mine. Here is the final illustration, thanks for taking the time to read this tutorial.