'ALIEN HEAD' PROCESS

Simple walkthrough for color sketch. Photoshop.

0. Basic sketch. Scanned graphite sketch @ 300 DPI. Colorized sketch to umber. Placed sketch on multiply layer over a white background.

1. Filled brown on layer beneath sketch layer. Worked in some warms/cools with slight value differences from brown fill.

2. Still on underlayer. Painted in some slight tonal information to establish figure/ground & carve head from background.

3. Blurred/blended rough paint. Sketched in additional light/surface information. Darkened socket & recessed areas of jaw. Created new overlayer above sketch layer; painted out silhouette/profile from previous steps to establish final surface.

4. Worked primarily on overlayer. Sculpted form with value, some broken color & background color added to head to keep head related to 'ambient light' of background.

5. Created new layer for white/very light paint to establish slick skin. Hard edged, round brush for 'specular pass', blending out up-facing edges for gradient. Erased some specular/white to indicate folds, wrinkles, etc. Bright background at front of face added on color dodge layer to relate to high spec on face. Painted in 'holes' for teeth, rear jar, eye reflection.

6. Added more spec, same process as previous step.

7. Further overpainted the drawing to drown out/obliterate the line value of the sketch. Adjusted saturation. Added darkest darks.Carved out chin.

Final state of sketch. This established the general color, style and lighting for the head.

Questions/comments charles@cpmorrow.com