Hello again, everyone. This time, I wanted to showcase another tactic I use to create digital artwork so I can stay on the level with everyone. Truth is, I sometimes like to borrow poses and source images for my art. Not cut and paste, mind, but use digital manipulation and tracing to change them into something I need. I can create scenes better when I incorporate some references to help me visualize it. That probably doesn't make any sense, but that's the reason why this particular piece looks as it does.
So what am I showing here? Well... another part of my story. See, for 8 years of his life, Lee is locked up in a church. In Arizona. His understanding of trees goes as far as the shrubbery in the backyard and what little he caught a glimpse of in the park across the street before the pastor boarded up the door to the steeple. After he meets Kari, one of the new nuns, he gains access to a storage room which has all the donations to the church boxed up in it. He explores this room over the course of a few months, and winds up coming across a picture book of scenes from national forests in them.
That night, in a dream, he tries to put himself in the forest to gauge just how big the trees are. The result is really a stunted version of what he was trying to imagine. He has no idea how tall they are. Yet.
Photo Manipulation
This is the source image of my background, the redwood forests of Kings Canyon and/or Sequoia National Park. I couldn't source the photographer for sure so don't know which specifically (though both places nearly overlap in Sequoia National Forest). The foggy atmosphere fit the mood I wanted for the piece, and also allowed me to manipulate it better.
First, though, I wanted to make sure the perspective felt straight. Photoshop CS6 has some neat warping tools to help, but the main goal was the manipulation of the black and white layer, the actual feel of a background I wanted. The degree of touch-ups I had to do with the second layer to make sure the altered original sat on top of the copy did require some work since they're not both manipulated to the same degree, and there's even a third copy to fill out the canopy (which ended up merged).
I believe the artistic filter I used to create the blockiness of the black and white layer was the "cutout" filter. I set its edges slider all the way up and kept its fidelity and simplicity all the way down. My version of Photoshop is over 5 years old, so it might not be the same on your version.
Pose Tracing
The next bit was drawing Lee in the scene. I tend to save manga pages for poses I really like, and this image of Ciel from Black Butler being caged felt perfect. Specifically, it's the way his clothes are drawn. They're exactly the way I imagine them on Lee except Lee's are looser since he didn't have any fitting clothing. So I did some tracing, and obviously enough, changed his hair (which is fun/tedious to draw). Really, the only thing which ended up in the final product was the shape of the shirt and the pose itself... so I shouldn't feel too bad about it... but I do.
Final Steps
I added some grass to help make the ground look a bit less rocky. I also edited the trunk of the tree so that it didn't seem so close (and so added some more depth). This was a dream, though, so being able to know exactly how tall the trees are isn't going to work out. Besides that, for all he knows, grass feels like scratchy bed sheets.
A good quote from Futurama is from God who says, "When you do things right people won't be sure you've done anything at all." I really like that quote. It seems nonsensical, but really what it's saying is that best efforts tend to go unnoticed. In the case of this art piece, I guess I'm trying to say that, even though I borrowed as much as I did, I also don't mind if it's not art in your eyes. I just wanted to portray the dream he was having about the picture book. If you need me to explain myself more, leave me a comment. Or let me know what you think.
...I do wish I had the actual photographer for the background, though.
(Thanks for reading.)
;-)