http://starbrightillustrations.com/blog/2009/12/28/gimp-digital-spaceship-painting-tutorial-part-3/
This might be the third part of this GIMP digital painting tutorial, but it’s actually a good place to join. If you have been following this process from part 1 then, as you can see from the main image, a lot of progress has already been made since the start of this spaceship painting process, and even since part two of this look at the creation of a science fiction illustration.
When we last saw the illustration it looked like the image on the left. The monster was still an abstract shape and the new improved space explorer had just been hashed in.
I was still a little unhappy with the look of the spaceman however, he looked a little too much like a superhero with bulging muscles.
So after a little more work our intrepid explorer now looks a little thinner and more vulnerable. His spacesuit is the same colour – basically – as the spaceship hovering over the scene in the background and that pretty much ties him to it, I think. But it is a little boring, and there is almost the danger that he might be mistaken for some kind of expendable exploration droid. I’m going to have to be careful to do everything I can to keep him looking human.
Here in this next image we can see that with a bright high-vis orange vest on his exploration/environment suit and some bright highlights he is looking a lot more interesting.
It’s still possible to mistake him for a robot though and he’s going to need a lot more work before he’s done, but right now the monster in the background is crying out for attention.
The monster is the focus of what we are doing in the next couple of images. Here in this first image I have started building layer after layer of detail onto the monster. When I’m happy with a particular look, or the number of layers has just gotten a little unmanageable I’ll blend the layers down, repeatedly using the GIMP function of that name, until there’s just one monster layer again, and then start over.
Here this process continues with ever more detailed layers of light and shade being added to the monster using my Wacom drawing tablet. It’s starting to look less like a smooth and ugly frog, and more like a frightening crocodile thing that could really do some damage to an unsuspecting planetary explorer. I’ve added more detail to the foreground jungle too.
Now the foreground jungle is casting a shadow on the monster. I created the shadow by adding a new layer, painting a black shadow on the monster, turning the transparency of the shadow down to something like 30% and then moving it about with the smudge tool (looks like a finger) to soften it. I was really quite happy with the shadow, it seems to turn the monster from a flat shape into a real 3D creature.
The last touch – for now – was to work on the transparent data screen in the explorer’s hand. Using the shift button to make straight lines and tidy it up a bit. I hope it’s telling him to look out behind him!
The image has come a long way during the work, with 7 different jpegs showing different stages of the progress in this post alone, but there’s still a long way to go. When it is finally complete I’m thinking of putting all the images of the different stages of completion together into an animation. It might end up being quite a long animation.
