The Making of Winter Mist II

Welcome to the walkthrough of Winter Mist II. Here I'll be detailing how I went about creating this piece, from beginning sketches to final texturing and lighting. A lot of work and time went into this piece, and there's a whole lot of photoshop juju that went into the making of the tree element and its surrounding atmosphere, so bear with me.

Again, give the page a moment to load... there are twenty images here at about 10-20kb each.

Original concept sketch		Secondary tree variation		Final tree sketch

Like the original, Winter Mist II started with concept sketches. After doodling a bit and producing the original concept sketch, I realized it was time for some research. I always say that starting a new piece is like writing a paper... you've got to do research to get your facts straight so you know what you're talking about. Sadly, my study of trees (albeit really interesting) yielded many good ideas that never saw the light of day... the secondary and final tree sketches both deviate decidedly from reality in their shape and structure.

Principal shape & shadows		Highlights and midtones		Contour blending

Once I had my final sketch I used it as a blueprint for the official tree drawing. I don't freehand paint very much (although I should get back into the habit) so most of my images are more "constructed" than "drawn". By this I mean I work with shapes and textures as separate entities and combine them with environments created largely separate from the objects that are to go into them. In the case of Winter Mist II, I merged traditional art techniques with my construction method and developed a "shape" for the tree that could be subsequently shaded to specification and later merged into an environment of sorts.

From the base shape, I started laying out the shadows using one of Photoshop's preset hard brushes. I did the same for the highlights and for the middle tones of the tree (I chose a generic beige color for the tree since I always toy with color separately anyway in the final stages of an image). Once I had the basic highlights/shadows laid out, I began blending these extremes together by shading with mid-tones via a transparent brush. As I applied color strokes, I tried to obtain a smooth color transition from light to dark while still retaining the individual brushstrokes of the shading process (more on this later). This shading process was more important to developing the shape and form of the tree than actually defining its surface, that would be achieved in a later step via texturing (again, more on this later). Involving an incredible amount of repetitive brush-strokes, the shading of this piece was the longest, most arduous part of the whole creative process.

More blending & patterning		Shading & patterning closeup

The final touch for the shading process came in the form of subtle patterning. This was achieved with a handful of custom texture brushes created to break up the sometimes monotonous flow of form-defining color applied earlier. I also allowed the original sketch to show through a good deal in some places, as the scanned pencil shading had an absolutely wonderful texture in itself, and I didn't want to waste that.

Once I had the tree shaded and "shaped" to my satisfaction, I went to work trying to make what was a decidedly two dimensional object look 3D via shadowing and highlighting using the dodge and burn tools. The trick with shading a two-dimensional shape to look 3D is all in the edges... the main body is easy, but how the edges look can make or break the illusion. All told, I think I was probably about 80% successful in carrying out the transformation from image to object... but then, you'll have to be the judge. Regardless, having finished this stage of the creative process, I turned to the next crucial step in making my tree look realistic... creating bark.

Texturing		Embossing highlights / shadows		Hue change / depth shading

My secret recipe for tree bark can be summarized in one word: brushstrokes. When I researched trees for the original Winter Mist, I did some bark sketches and it occurred to me that a lot of work was already going into the shading used to define the shape of the tree, and a similar amount of work was needed to draw bark texturing on top of it. So why waste time? What if there was a way to make one process work for both ends? It turns out, there is. As I shaded the tree, I made sure to retain my brushstrokes which, as a nice side effect from my using transparent brushes, had innumerable little segments inherent in them. Even more convenient, since I was using the brushwork to define the shape and form of the tree, these tiny segments also conformed to the tree contours exactly, making a perfect base for a contour-specific texture if I ever saw one.

If you remember in my Create a Realistic Planet tutorial, I used the emboss filter to bring out highlights of planetary surface features based on the overall texture of the planet. In creating Winter Mist II I've done much the same thing with the brushstrokes and established shading of the tree, using my contour-defining strokes to define the cracks and chunks that one would usually see in tree bark. I employed this method in the original Winter Mist tree as well, although not nearly as successfully. By breaking the emboss filter into multiple layers, I can also reinforce the idea that the tree is a truly three-dimensional object by removing highlights in the shadows and minimizing shadows where the tree itself should be fairly bright. The actual number of highlight and shadow layers I used to achieve the final bark texture is unknown even to me, as I merged, blended, and duplicated with wild abandon during the creative process. I'd hazard to guess that there are at least ten to fifteen separate layers that are combined to establishing my "bark" texture.

The only drawback in this process is that if you cut corners in your shading, it sticks out like a sore thumb... but since I'm a perfectionist by nature (and was planning to cover large portions of the tree with moss anyway) this is a shortcoming I all too happily accepted.

Moss layer		Moss closeup		Applied moss

There's nothing quite like finding a mistake that could possibly cost you hours of painstaking work... and then slowly and deliberately covering that mistake with moss, obscuring it from view forever.

The moss texture was created using a technique similar to that of the bark, namely, generating highlights based on underlying shading. The brush texture of the moss itself was a combination of brushwork with custom brushes (again, specific to this project) and a good deal of nitpicky dodge/burn tweaking. I started with a basic "shape" for the moss (think scribbles) and from there used the burn and dodge tools to shade and texture the moss from a 2D splash of color to a 3D mass of plush, almost furry vegetation. In many cases the dodge and burn tools also incorporated texturing, so I could work in highlights on individual strands of moss, as it were. The idea was to make a surface that was "fuzzy," something that was decidedly more difficult than I had anticipated (probably on par with clouds). In order to keep my image modularized (I like things tidy, even when dealing with such unruly subjects as moss) I kept my moss confined to its own layer system, separate from the tree. This helped immensely, as it made it possible to treat the moss like a "blanket" or coating within Photoshop, much more easily tweaked into adhering correctly to the tree's contours. Additional lighting to the tree and moss was accomplished via dodge/burn tools after the two subjects were flattened together.

Main atmosphere		Applied atmosphere		Adding an environment

Once I had my completed tree object (all textured, "mossed", and rarin' to go), the next essential step was to create an environment for it. As you can probably tell by now, when I say that I "construct" my pieces, I truly mean it. I treated this piece like an actual 3D construct, creating my "subject" and then the landscape and lighting around it. True to this system, the atmosphere took the shape of multiple layers sitting on top of the now-flattened tree. The layer started as a gradient, and soon came to incorporate all manner of light blurs, wisps, and shadows via freehand burning and dodging (I must say... I really came to love those dodge/burn tools in this piece). Once applied, it surpassed even my expectations, "lighting" my tree exceptionally well. As a simple layer, the atmosphere was easy to manipulate as needed since I was, in effect, "drawing" the light as it played around the shape of my tree. Additional tree pieces were added in the background to suggest depth and to contribute a more interesting story for the tree. One of Winter Mist's shortcomings was that I shied away from creating a more compelling environment for it, leaving it standing alone in a pool of mist when it could've benefited from a little company. I had no intentions of repeating that mistake this time 'round.

When I had a composition that was nearly dead-on to what I was aiming for, I flattened the entire production and moved to my personal favorite part of creating a new piece of art... the final touches.

Dynamic light / orientation		Color adjustments		Final || winter mist II

With the almost finished piece in a convenient flattened state, I spent several hours just tweaking small things. The orientation of the image, as is the case with so many of my works, got a horizontal flip to bring out a fresher perspective. The coloring, too, got a considerable makeover via several stages of curves adjustment, levels, color balance, saturation, etc. This was a highly critical step, as the color of the piece makes the mood more often than not, and I wanted to achieve a serene presence for this tree. Additionally, I made a few changes to the tree itself, including removing a major knot that had been called... somewhat evocative of female genitalia (to be polite). I don't know HOW these things get into my pieces, but they just do. I also made good use of the liquefy filter in Photoshop, using it to enhance the contours that my shading hadn't done justice to, and making the tree "pop" more as a truly three-dimensional object.

Finally I have a completed piece. Taking just over two months to complete, chewing up six and a half gigabytes of space on my hard drive with all its component stages and versions, and measuring 5000px tall by 3000px wide, this image was a beast to produce. Personally, however, I think the results were well worth it.