Tutorials @ imaginatorcentral.com

Digital
Layering
Photoshop 1
Photoshop 2
~page 1 2 3
Painter
Cel-style 1
Cel-style in Flash
Cel-style 3
Mixed Digital

Real Media
Prisma pencils
Mixed 1
Mixed 2
Markers

Home

If you're starting to sense a bit of repetition, it's because I tend to work on things in a certain order to help me progress quickly but effectively through a piece. So! Basic shadows...
Refinement and darker shadows...
Basic highlights...
Refined and stronger highlights. Also, you may start to notice that I've added in a backlight on some things. That's because two light sources is much more intereting than one, especially when that second light source is a different color.

Because the brown is already a bit dark and flat, the better definition will come from the highlights, not the shades. Still, the foundation for those highlights must be laid down properly.
I have to be careful not to overshade the brown trim; otherwise it becomes muddy looking.

To make the armour pieces really pop I went with very warm orange highlights. Really interesting backlight crops up on the boots at this step.

Ooh, a zoom in. The hair, in this image, was much more simple to do than what I normally try for. Only because I was going for a more stylistic look, less centered on realism.
At this point I put my Wacom tablet's pen pressure on Firm, making it easier to get tapered strokes as I worked on the hair.
I used a series of brushes on Color Dodge to get the really bright green highlights.

The eyes were also relatively simple to do. First an area of shadow...
Then an area of light shining through from the light source. Remember not to get too sucked into details when working on an image. Sure I could have done more with the eyes, but consider how small they are compared to the rest of the image. More detail would be wasted and unseen.