Last time we saw this image it looked like this. It’s the very first design sketch with only the most important elements, placed in the guide psd provided by CreateSpace, and a few colours. I have put each element on a separate layer. The cat’s on one layer and the sky on another, and I’m ready to go. And I can already see the first problem with the composition, the title is getting a bit lost.
To make the title easier to read I shrank the mirror using Photoshop’s free transform, so that the title doesn’t have to be written over it. Having the mirror on a separate layer makes shrinking and moving it a whole lot easier. I also darkened the title by painting over the typed text. This gave the text a darker more hand painted and interesting look. I painted each letter on a separate layer to give me the option of shrinking, growing, twisting and moving them to make the text in the digital painting even more organic and interesting.
The landscape behind the cat was looking a little empty so I added some grass, trees and mountains to the midground and background of the image. I also worked a little on the cat to make it a little smoother and less sketchy. There is a long way to go with the cat, but every little helps.
Next I sketched in some clouds very roughly with the graphics pad stylus – I’m doing pretty much everything on this image using just Photoshop and my inexpensive little Bamboo fun graphics tablet. To make these white hatched lines look more like clouds I just poked at them a little bit with the smudge tool. It’s quite effective, in this detail from the illustration the left of the cloud is smudged and the right is still scratchy white hatching lines created with the graphics tablet.
Next I worked on the trees. I created a layer beneath the initial sketches and added colour to make the trees a little more real looking. I also did some more work on the cat. The cat is going to be the focus of this image and little by little I’m going to be doing dabs of work on it until it’s done. This latest stage of the illustration took a couple of hours and I’m going to be coming back for a few more hours work on it real soon.
