Repulsive Graphics [CFCU]

7🔹Grayscale + Book Cover Preview

Grayscale. You might've seen me throw that word around in previous chapters. It's a technique where artists paint in, you guessed it, grayscale. Basically you're adding the shadows and highlights to construct form.

Anything, and I mean anything, can be painted in black and white. Don't believe me? Take a black and white picture of yourself. Your camera just painted you in grayscale.

Grayscale is, in my opinion, definitely one of the tools every artist should have mastered.

Painting process: 1 hour
Image specs: 3500x3500, 600dpi

It took me about an hour to do just the stomach/abs. It would've been faster, but I was painting on my laptop instead of my PC, which decided to lag harder than wifi at the bottom of the ocean.

Anyways, I started out with the sketch of my girl, Mystalline. This is actually the beginning stages of the book cover to my novel. As you can see, I'm currently zoomed in to her torso.

Don't be frightened by the sudden transition in the picture below. All I literally did was shade the stomach according to where light would hit and where the shadows would sit. If you're trying grayscale out and not doing too hot, it's all good! Just look up reference pictures on google and try imitating the shading on them. I have a pretty okay grasp of muscles/anatomy so I didn't use a reference picture for this.

Also, I am very aware that I've dis-proportioned her boobs with the shading. Don't worry, I'll fix it, but for the purpose of getting through this tutorial, let's pretend I shaded it perfectly ;D

In the picture below, you can see the different areas where the shadows are darker/more intense. There's also a good amount of contrast between harsh shadows and blended out shadows, which is kinda how the shadows behave on a human body. There are straight, solid shadow lines and then there are some shadows that have been blended out like an ombre.

Next, I added a new clipping layer [soft light] on top of the shading and colored it in a light tan with a hint of red.

Next, to really push the realism aspect, I added accent colors! Used some dark reds in places where the shadows would be really intense. I also added faint hints of white to the highest peaks of her stomach to show the light bouncing off it.

Thank you for following this short and kinda lame chapter. The completed illustration will be released soon along with its tutorial. The painting is for my upcoming illustrated fantasy novel, "The Death of a Dream".