Sketchbook doodles

Copyright © 2013 Robb Miller

Art Samurai homework for July 31st workshop

The theme for this workshop was "Light and Shadow". The assignment was:

Draw any character you want in an action pose, but try to show "dramatic lighting"

on the subject. Feel free to use photo referencing to help with your light/shadows, and be prepared to show the photo reference along with your homework. Be creative and have fun!

I decided to do the Punisher pointing a gun at the camera. Pretty basic concept but I wanted to concentrate on the focus of "light and shadow". 

I started by taking dozens of photo of myself in the laundry room. I used natural light from the outside window and then the laundry room fluorescent light. The TOP  photo is the original photo. I used Photoshop to lighten it (BOTTOM) to see more details. I duplicated the original photo and made it grayscale (MIDDLE) to see just lights and darks.

1. I began with a quick sketch of general shapes. I like to use a color while sketching so I feel more loose. If I sketch in black it makes me feel like I need to product the finished drawing sooner. Weird, I know!
2. I lighten the first sketch and draw over it. I either add a layer to do this or go to IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > Hue & Saturation then lighten. This is refining the shapes even more.
3. I repeat step 2 and lighten and refine.
4. I add in the dark areas and refine more.
5. I block in a quick background.
6. I add a multiplied layer and increase dark areas and shadow.
7. I stamp all layers into one (highlight the all layers up to this point and hit COMMAND+OPT+E) and hide the blue sketch layers. The new layer of all sketch layers I turn into black & white. IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > BLACK & WHITE. I took a photo of some clouds and made that into grayscale and placed it over my background clouds and adjusted it and masked out what I didn't need or like. I then merged it into the layer.
8. I found a good Punisher logo online and adjusted the opacity to low and put it onto his chest using FREE TRANSFORM and WARP located in EDIT. 
9. I inked over some areas and tightened some details.
10. I painted in some more shadows and added some highlights. I gave him a 5 o'clock shadow.
11. I cropped it and added my signature. DONE!

I feel I am improving with Art Samurai lessons. I am a little biased because I am business partners with Tom Nguyen but I get no special treatment. I am just doing the assignments to improve and for fun! Students get their homework critiqued before me.

For more information on Art Samurai, click HERE!!!

If you have questions for me, comment below or email me at:

robb@robbmiller.com

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