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  • At the release of EXOTIQUE 6,
    Steve Sampson walks us through his magnificent Red Rum image.
    CGSociety :: Tutorial
    9 December 2010, by Steve Sampson

    Steve Sampson aka 'thedarkinker', hails from London and now lives and works in Brighton on the south coast of England. He takes up his story about the creation of 'Red Rum'.

    For a number of years I’ve worked in the comic and games industry here in the UK, while at the same time doing whatever freelance illustration and concept work that happens to come my way. While I was trained using traditional art methods I spend almost all my time now working digitally.

     
     

    Concept and Ref
    The inspiration for RedRum comes from a birthday card I did for my girlfriend. The image was of a young oriental girl with a sword called LittleBlade.

    There was something about the character that drew me back. I was just getting into painting using Photoshop, having previously done most of my artwork using Adobe Illustrator.

    I really wanted to play around with transferring my more graphic style of artwork into something more 'painterly', so I decided to try a new image featuring LittleBlade that played around with the Graphic Painting Style. The image was titled 'Hunted' and I was so excited to have it accepted for EXPOSÉ 8.

    I had done work for the comic company ComX. One of the guys there really liked the 'Hunted' image and was interested in maybe writing a story featuring Littleblade, so I thought it was time to do another image.

    I had just watched the movie '300' again and the story kind of inspired the idea for 'RedRum'. One lone warrior holding back the hordes of hell.

    After searching the web for reference and inspiration, I did a few very rough sketches, deciding on the pose I liked, then did a more finished sketch of the character.

    Being a traditionally trained illustrator, I've been trying to train myself to draw straight onto the computer more and more, but there's something about using a pencil that's hard to let go. I'm sure people understand. Perhaps it comes from thousands of years of human expression.

    For this image I didn't feel I needed to sketch the background, I'd found a photo of a pool in a forest with reflections of the trees in the water. As soon as I saw it, I imagined Littleblade standing with her sword reflected in the pool. I also found some images of a movie called 'An Empress and the Warriors' and those helped me with the far background, which would give a vague hint of the Samurai army.

     
     
     

    Blocking and Painting
    Once I have the sketch it's then scanned into the computer and then I use it as a Multiply layer for reference when I start the painting. I like to create a quick Palette swatch just as a guide for the colours and tones I have in mind for the image.

    For this image I didn't really use many special brushes, almost all the painting was done using a solid brush with a fade.

     

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    I really love all the wicked paintings you see here on CGSociety and am in awe of the skills people have, but I really want to try to keep my own style and retain a graphic feel to my work, so I don't tend to use Brushes that have an Air Brush feel to them.

    I wish I could say that I had some secret method of working but, it's just a case of putting on some cool music or a background movie and just getting stuck in. I like to work up the flesh areas first then move onto the clothing. When I'm happy with these areas I'll work on the eyes, lips and then hair. This is when the image really starts to take life.

    I have a few 'tricks' that I like to use, I'm sure they aren't unique, but they help me to add a little something to my work. For the sword hilt, I dragged a photo of a rock face into the image. Using the Magic Wand Tool with a Tolerance of around 18 to 22 I select an area of the rock surface then select Similar I have a random selection area that I then Bucket Fill on a new layer. Then it's a case of selecting the new layer and lightly painting onto the sword hilt on another New Layer.

    I find this gives me a random element that's sometimes harder to get by creating a new brush. For the hilt I then Duplicated the Layer a couple of time and changed those layers to Screen, Color Dodge and play with the Opacity.

    It's cool to play around with the Layer effects and settings, you never know what your going to get but it's always something interesting and cool.

     
    		Another 'trick' I like to use which brings Adobe Illustrator into play is to create some Vector Graphics that I feel will work for the image. In truth I have a cool library of vectors that I've produced over the years and there were three that I know would be perfect for RedRum. You could use the Pen tool in Photoshop or even just paint these elements but I love using Illustrator and it's just my way of bringing my old style into my new style of painting.

    With both Illustrator and Photoshop open (I have two monitors which helps a lot), I just drag the vectors into the Photoshop file. One of the vectors is an outline that's based on a tattoo design. I use this to add detail to the sword scabbard.

    Just like with the rock photo, I make a new layer, select the vector then just paint onto the new layer only over the scabbard, then once again play with the Layer, Overlay or Color Burn to give you something that works.

    The other vector was a dragon design that I'd done for a possible personal tattoo, I hoped this would work well for adding detail to Littleblade's kimono.

    Using the Warp Tool to get the dragon to follow the contours of the kimono then cutting and moving parts to further make him feel part of the cloth, the Layer is then changed to Color which allows the painting of the kimono to show through, really helping to bed the design to the fabric.

    Reflection and Background
    Now Littleblade is painted, she just needs stronger lighting and a few tweaks that I'll do after dealing with the pool reflection and background. Once again no magic just get stuck into the painting, get the trees and the ground painted in, always referring to the ref images.

    The pool is just a number of Layers with different Gradient fills set to Color Dodge, Screen and Vivid Light.
     
    As always just play around, it's fun and something is sure to work. Just to add something a little extra I brought in an image of some old stained paper which I then Colorized to tones of red. Then used the pool block out Layer to select the area I needed, switched the Layer to Multiply and it just brakes up the cleanness of the pool.

    The reflection of Littleblade and the trees is simple, the two layers are duplicated then Edit, Transform, Flip Vertical. Some Gaussian and Motion Blur are added then a little painting is needed to make the reflections look like they are in the water.

    A few leaves and flowers are added onto the water surface just to help the illusion. For the leaves on the ground I did create a few special Brushes but they just didn't seem to work, so I brought in another Vector, this time it was one I'd done of some random cherry blossom petals. Again I used the Warp Tool and the Distort Tool, created a number of different Layers and used these as Selections to paint into a New Layer. Duplicate the Layer then slightly off set the new layer turn it to Multiply and lightly paint in the shadows for the leaves.

    Almost there, just need to block in the samurai warriors, I just want then to be hinted at so the shapes are really just the tops of their helmets, spears and flag banners.

    Once they are painted in I've then used the stained paper image as a Linear Burn Layer just to add a little texture.

    One more thing to help push the background back.

    I have a brush that I downloaded ages ago as part of a cloud brush set, really wish I could remember who created the brush, whoever it was much respect.

    Even though this is a cloud brush it's great for adding a dust effect, for RedRum there are three layers of dust painted with different colors and set to different opacities.
     
     

    Lighting and Finishing Touches
    To add a bit more punch to the lighting I just create a couple of new layers set them to Color Dodge then Gradient fill and paint onto the areas that need more definition and stronger lighting. I do this first with the character then repeat the process for the background.

    Just to give the background area around the character a slight glow I do another Color dodge layer then make a Gradient fill ring or doughnut that's then given a little Gaussian Blur. Finally I just slowly go over the image picking out any last small details that will help pull the image together. Some finer hair strands on Littleblade, some details on the water, just where the character meets the water surface. The flowers that are blowing pass Littleblade were a nod to the original birthday card illustration.

    Well that's it. Was a fun image to do and Littleblade will no doubt turn up again in my work. The title of the work RedRum came about as I was working on the picture late one evening and 'The Shining' was on the TV in the background. When it came to the scene of the little boy writing 'murder' on the mirror, he saw the reflection in the mirror. 'RedRum.' It just seemed the perfect title for the image.

    I have two other images in EXOTIQUE 6, 'The Dark Inker', and 'Enter the Three', as well as 'The Hunted', which appeared in EXPOSÉ 8.

    I really love this way of working and am enjoying learning new techniques and tricks from all the wonderful artists out in the big wide world. The challenge for me is to take on board as much as possible while always staying true to myself and retaining my own style.

    Related links:
    Steve Sampson's CGPortfolio
    EXPOSÉ 8
    EXOTIQUE 6
    Steve Sampson's personal site

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