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The creation of The Malesquis: an insight intothe evolution of a beast. By John Kearney
MONSTERCREATIONS
Photoshop
Photoshop
June 200680
Workshops
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his article will provide you
with a walkthrough of my
experiences during the
creation of this project. I hope
that you pick up some useful tips and
find it entertaining and informative.
First, I assess what is required and set
a few targets. Im being asked to paint a
striking monster, which immediately
gives me the main focus of the painting.
My design has to be solid, unique, andconvincing enough to clearly visualise
its movement. I want it to look stylish
and be able to captivate the v iewers
imaginations. Lastly, I want to place it in
a setting of some peripheral interest and
create a composition with visual impact.
Its good to be ambitious! I realise that
this is no easy task, and that preparation
will aid in making my goals a reality. The
first task is to come up with a scenario.
Even a basic story will give a design
purpose and direction. I normallyscribble down some ideas that will be
John KearneyCOUNTRY: UK
CLIENTS: Konami, Sky,
ITV, Empire Interactive
John has over
seven years
experience as
a 3D graphic
artist in thevideo games industry. He
is currently freelancing
on various projects.
www.brushsize.com
DVD AssetsThe files you need
are on the DVD
FILES: Hunt_of_the_
Malesquis_1-5.psd
FOLDERS:
Full screenshots
SOFTWARE:
Photoshop CS2 (Demo)
Tused throughout the project as a source
of inspiration and guidance.
My beast will be from a breed of alien
creatures called The Malesquis. They can
only be found on one planet, a barren
and desolate place called Arrazine. This
world is a hostile environment. Its a
deadly battlefield for warriors and
hunters brave or stupid enough to enter
its domain. The deadly Malesquis are
thus a prize trophy for those wishing tobetter their reputation and wealth.
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1 The Malesquis conceptIve been given landscape
dimensions, which influences mydecision to go with a quadruped rather
than a biped. The monster has to be the
main focus, and I feel a biped would have
made the composition potentially
problematic. Using my story line, Im able
to get a feel for the kind of beast that
would work well in a harsh habitat. I
think the perfect mix would include
armoured shells, mobile limbs for
climbing rocks, an impressive arsenal
of weapons for attack, and a few
vulnerabilities, indicating that adeptwarriors would be able to challenge them.
2 Gathering referencematerial for inspirationI write a quick list of insects, animals, and
anything else that might provide useful
eye candy. Then I go about searching for
some reference, both on the internet and
in my book collection. I end up witha folder packed with numerous
photographs. Included are scorpions,
turtles, crabs, earwigs, wasps, rams, and
even seashells! Many thoughts begin to
flood my mind, so I take advantage of
them by knocking out some incredibly
crude and rudimentary sketches. The
purpose of this is to begin to get my ideas
down on paper. I dont worry too much
about the quality of my initial thumbnail
sketches; they are just mental notes,
which are there to be built upon.
3 Selecting anddeveloping a sketchUsually, I take quite a lot of time to
develop my chosen sketch. This time, I
feel impulsive and eager to get straight
into Photoshop. I choose a thumbnail
that is barely enough to start with, scan
it in, and get straight to work. I quickly
create rough landscape dimensions for
my canvas and then begin adding to the
pencil sketch, digitally. I know the pose
has to be fairly strong and clear enough
to show off the design, so I get stuck in
with some basic, loose shapes. A roughimpression of the caves is introduced so
that the environment is indicated for
compositional purposes. If ideas are
flowing, its usually a good idea to go with
them and capitalise on the inspiration.
4 Canvas set-upI carefully review the dynamics
of the creature and think more about
composition. I also make mental notes of
places where I could add the hunters and
then rotate, crop and scale the image tohalf of my intended final resolution. I do
this for two reasons: I know that I will
eventually refine and detail the whole
picture once all the basics are in place
this is the stage where the resolution
matters. Secondly, I want to use
Photoshop quickly during my initial
sketching. Once I reach a basic milestone,
I begin to think about brushes that I
might need during later stages.
Straightlines
Shift+click(PCandMa
c)
Havetroubledrawingstr
aight
lines?HolddownShiftan
d
clickatthepointwherey
ou
want thelinetoend.
Etvoila!
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5Brush management
Texture is always important to me.
More often than not, I prefer to manually
draw a lot of it rather than use large
brushes; it can make things look linear
and samey. You can define contour and
shape much better with smaller brushes
that are endowed with a hint of texture.
One of my favourites that I use in 90 per
cent of my work is the Pastel Brush,
which ships with Photoshops Natural
Media Brushes. It gives me a bit of grain
and a nice shape, which I personally
prefer for painting. I supplement thiswith custom brushes that I have drawn
myself, usually with pencil on paper. You
get a lot of organic grain for free, and this
makes things look very natural.
6 Colour andtonal foundationsI consider that tones, values, contrast and
overall lighting generally take paramount
importance. Colours can be changed
incredibly easily when working digitally.
As long as I am near the mark, I dont
worry too much about having a palette
laid out. With the knowledge that new
light sources will be added at a later stage,
I proceed to paint some blue hues of
differing brightness to give me a basic
ambience and an underpainting on
which to work. Doing this provides an
effective starting point, because the
fundamental tones of the image are set.
I recommend getting rid of the white
canvas as quickly as possible.
7Lighting and colourLighting affects absolutely
everything, so consider its colour and
intensity very carefully when selecting
and mixing surface colours. Think about
the quality of light and the effect it will
have on shadows. Light can be used to
add areas of focus, add contrast, create
atmosphere, or describe form. Since my
scene is going to be set in a dark cave, I
use the foreground hunter as a source of
light via his weapon. This is planned and
absolutely necessary, otherwise the
Malesquis face will be in darkness.
OptimisingkeyboardshortcutsI dislike using my Intuos
touch strips and prefer
keyboard shortcuts. I
permanently have one
hand on Ctrl+Z (undo)
because it often takes
multiple tries beforehitting the correct
brushstroke. My most
used shortcuts are
dispersed around Ctrl+Z,
and I find it an
inconvenience using
square brackets to
change brush size.
Therefore, I have
remapped brush-size
shortcuts from the
square brackets to [Z]
and [X] which means my
eyes never have to leave
the screen.
PROSECRETS
8 CompositionalenhancementsStalactites and stalagmites provide ideal
contrast points against the sky and
foreground, which frame the picture and
add more interest. While painting the
ground, I try to incorporate natural
patterns that will help lead the viewerseye into the picture and create depth.
Complementary light sources often add
some colour interest. If placed correctly,
they can also provide you with the ability
to use rim lighting. This enables you to
highlight one edge, a technique often
used in film and photography for
dramatic lighting. Its most striking
when used in high contrast.
Preservetransparency/(PCandMac)PreserveTransparency
(onoroff)fortheworkinglayer.
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HSB ColourpaletteColour selection is
incredibly important
when painting. Making
sure you have the right
brightness and hue can
be time-consuming and
frustrating, especiallywhen using the default
RGB Colour Palette. Try
changing it to the HSB
Colour Palette by left
clicking the small arrow
at the top right of the
Colour Window. With a
little practice, you should
find that colour selection
becomes much more
intuitive and accurate.
PROSECRETS
9 Improving weak areasand correcting mistakesIts necessary to make some comments
regarding the organic nature of painting
fantasy artwork. Making critical decisions
on the quality of your painting is vital
every step of the way. Learning to
critically assess your work is the first step
in being able to point out problems and
make corrections. Fantasy artwork is not
like drawing a portrait. You have no real
direct reference; as a result, the paintinghas to be given a chance to evolve.
10 Character and detailconsiderationsI rarely make a proper design for character
clothing in a painting like this because
the scale means that most of the detail is
just suggestive. My initial foreground
character pose isnt working too well, so I
change it to something more dynamic.
The revised characters feet are positioned
to give the impression that they have slid,with bits of debris spewing up. The
decorative cloak adds balance to his body
position. Its important to plant the
Malesquis front legs into the ground and
to add further dust and rubble around
them. I make the landscape fairly
inhospitable by adding sharp rocks and
convey depth by drawing a few distance
layers that gradually fade into the sky.
11 ComplementaryelementsI always try to think of things that
will add decorative interest and becomplementary to the look of the
finished painting. What is
complementary? It boils down to
personal preference and artistic vision.
This is where individuality shines
through. I decide that crystal sparkles
from the rocks would work well. Partially
obscured light sources tend to create glow
effects on camera lenses, so I decide to
implement them at the back of the cave.
Doing so gives the area a cinematic feel
with a hint of mystery and atmosphere.
The area that has a rocky stepped
pathway is one of curiosity and
encourages the viewers eye to roam
around the picture. These little touchescan add a lot to a painting.
12 Adjusting dull sectionsIf an area needs a bit of life or slight
colour variation, Ill simply create a new
layer, change it to Overlay or Hard Light,
and hit this layer with hints of my desired
colours using a soft-edged brush. This
keeps the texture you have underneath
but changes the underlying colour, the
intensity of it, and adds vibrancy in the
process. I use this sparingly.
Screenmode
[F](PCandMac)
Forswitchingscreen
modesa greatwaytos
ave
yourselftime when
working awayon
yourpicture.
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13 Its bugging me!If anything is catching my eye and
annoying me, then I feel compelled to
change it. The horn crown feels a bit too
clichd and too similar to a Triceratops
for my liking. This design doesnt work
too well when I imagine the Malesquis
brought to life. If placed in a f ilm orgame, the head movement would have
looked severely restricted due to the
horns clashing into the shell. It bugged
me the whole time, so I decide to try an
alternative near the very end. It occurs to
me that the themed muscle tissue might
work well as a neck and be consistent
with the design of the limbs and tails.
The tissue suggests the neck can extend
out, increasing its manoeuvrability, and
enabling Malesquis to quickly strike with
a snap of its jaws. The result is a weirder
design, similar to a tortoise, but definitely
more threatening!
14 Adding effects andfinishing touchesMy custom brushes are used to create the
debris, dust, and little sparkles. The
debris/sparkle brush consists of noisy
smudges and dots. I adjust the Scatter
and Angle Jitter settings of the brush, so
its sprayed randomly when painting.
The dust is created with a brush that I
demonstrate how to create in my Exodus
answer in this months Q+A section (see
page 36). As a final measure, I flattened
the image and make colour corrections
using Levels dialog. At this stage, I
sometimes like to hit the image with a
few subtle glows in key places. I do this
by creating a new layer, setting the layer
mode to Colour Dodge, and painting the
blooms with a soft-edged brush.
15 SummaryIt takes a great deal of time andeffort to be able to put something down
in a way that enables others to capture
the essence of your idea or fantasy. You
need to balance technical ability with
creativity and be willing to suffer plenty
of frustration in the process. Painting a
picture is often a struggle against
yourself, but the sense of achievement
when you are finished is enough to make
you go through it all over again.
Overall, I think I manage to achievequite a few of my goals with my picture
of The Malesquis, so I am reasonably
pleased with the result! I hope this article
has inspired you, and has helped
demonstrate a workflow for creating
your own fantastical beasts from concept
to completion.
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