Zandrakyr is a character of my Husband's... he keeps me very entertained! I was winging it with the clothes, for the most part, and I'm happy with the way it turned out. This is definitely the most detailed digital painting I've actually completed thus far.

It was heavily influenced by Alucard from Castlevania, Symphony of the Night, and the face was modeled after Jude Law... Done in Photoshop, obviously!

With the face I tried a different sort of technique, doing the shading completely in greyscale (white and black over a midtone) and then putting color over the top on a separate layer...

Heaps of thanks to my wonderful Husband Tom (who is very patient) and to a bunch of people for the pictures I used as references:

[link] *Stock-Karr // [link] *GspotSIMULANT // [link] ~vallendesterstock // [link] =Falln-Stock // [link] ~SpiteStock // [link]









EDIT: Here is a brief rundown on the technique I used (in photoshop CS2 with a tablet) for the face, which was surprisingly easy and quick, though definitely not flawless.

I begin with five layers. Bottom to top:

1 - a layer filled with flat midtone (I use bluish-grey), locked
2 - empty layer for "whites"
3 - empty layer for "blacks"
4 - empty layer set on "color" blending mode
5 - a rough sketch as a guideline set to multiply (on varying opacities as I go)


1 - The midtone never gets changed unless if the whole layer needs to be lighter or darker.

2 & 3 - With an extremely soft brush (brushes>other dynamics>opacity jitter = pen pressure) I start painting in lighter parts in pure white color on the white layer and darker parts in pure black color on the black layer until the whole piece has a nicely blended shading rather than stark blacks, midtones and whites. I go easy on the white and black - the layers should be pretty darn translucent without the midtone layer unless its an extremely dark or bright picture. I begin with a large brush and work my way down in size as the details begin to emerge. I always keep the blacks to the black layer and the whites to the white layer, though its easy to slip up sometimes and start mixing the two...

4 - When the shading is finished, softly brush in skin-tones on the layer set to color, perhaps taking colors from a reference, until the shading below loses its grey-scale tones and takes on the real colors of the painting. Don't fill the whole layer with the same color - that will look pretty flat and bland.

5 - Use the original sketch as a guide when beginning the shading but as the shading develops and becomes more intricate, reduce the opacity of this layer until it starts to obstruct your view of the painting too much and becomes unecessary... unless your finished piece has lines, of course. I keep it around (invisibly) for reference for as long as I can just because I'm obsessive like that... lol.


Later on down the line if you need to change something about the shading you can do so on the individual white and dark layers and anything you do will keep the same coloring as before unless you change the layer set on color. Since I am a perfectionist and want as many options as possible this suits me perfectly. Alternately, you can change the coloration to suit your needs very easily without changing the shading.

If you need to throw in some extra shadows or highlights that you aren't sure you'll keep (like me, always trying out options but not wanting them to be cemented in place...) you can put those in extra layers above the black and white layer, but below the color layer.

I found this to be really easy and quick if I have a good reference to use! If even one or two people read this then I'm happy! lol

As has been noted to me since posting this, the flaw in this is that it was much easier just to rely on the large soft brush for shading general skin-tones and I didn't pay any mind to the actual texture of the skin itself. I'll figure that bit out soon, I'm sure. Don't forget I'm pretty much pulling all this out of my arse as I go. lol