The Marked Traveller tutorial

I am a man of many faces. I am the Sun's Son, the one which cannot be gazed upon without blinding pain, I am the voice who commands brotherhoods of Greed, Agony and Lie. I am the blade of deceat, devourer of life, my wings are black as midnight, you can see me soaring as the Eagle Eye over all land and sky, witnessing time and all fates passing by. Now answer; who am I? the Concept started as a glimpse of a character of which face and appearance is distincive and the most importantly: the pose what it will represent plays the key role. What does it express, what does it mean, why is the impression of non-friendly and cold? What are those symbols and why does he have so many of them. These questions have haunted me for many years, the question of symbols and their affect on the world. Don't shoot me for this, but I had to make a powerful visualisation of this Entity that has many forms in our hearts and minds. When you look deep enough into the blackest well, can you see it looking back at you, even dragging you down into the darkness? Same goes for the blinding light.. looking too long and too much the brightest Sun can make you blind and see nothing but the painful light and not any other colours of the universe. Illustration 1

Phase 1:

Rough sketching with pencil

I'm a fast drawer, as you might see from the sketch. I only made clear the poses of the hands and the collar with the Honorary cross on it. You may look from different sources on the internet and historybooks what those symbols mean and where they originate from. Observe also the hand signals.

Phase 2:

Phase 3:

Basic colouring
Now I've given some colour basis over the sketch by simply using Transparent Gradient in Photoshop in light 20-30% Screen-mode.

Defining light & shadow areas

Using lasso & then adding a New Adjustment Layer emphasized the contrast and brightness levels in the highlight areas. This is done to make more clearer idea on what's left in shade and what's being pin-pointed out.

Illustration 2

Illustration 3:

Illustration 4:

Phase 4:

Starting up the paintwork & adding textures on top.

I've used a watercolour paper I painted with very light colours and then scanned it and modified it. It makes a great surface to have great effect in multiple ways and decreses that 'digital' overall look nicely. But this is just a beginning of course. The brushwork is compiled from CS2's brushes, some of my own and some are basic tips.

Phase 5:

Trying out different expressions while looking for the particular style
Here's a try-out what kind of shading the face would have. But the character started to feel too much of a manga- character, so that calls for something different.

Illustration 5:

phase 6: New composition and widening up the scene

Ok, so now there's a big leap from the previous composition, what clrearly focused in the arms and the face, but ruled out many things I want to show in a wider perspective. So I decided to make him standing like a statue or conqueror, unable or not willing to move from this position. The wings around are made with lasso-tool and adding an Adjustment layer with modified Curves on it, so the colours pop out nicely creating a transparent effect with the background. Then I handpainted the black snakes under him, crawling up like reaching hands who all want a piece of his attention.

Illustration 6:

Phase 7:

Adding background events, shifting colour schemes, more painting..

Testing a new kind of colour pallette with more neutral tones and atmosphere. Also made his hair long and white, to boost up his paleness and cold nature. The scene starts to form up nicely and focusing many areas at the same time.

Illustration 7:

Phase 8:

Adding colour layers, contrasts and atmosphere

Here I've made the contrast much deeper to give more highlight to the face and upper body & wings. This is done by tranparent gradients and Masks, by lassoing the background and adjusting colours, then adding Gaussian Blur after this so the borders blend in. The transparent cloth over his shoulders are also done this way.

Illustration 8:

Phases 9 & 10:

painting it again. Then I flipped it another way to make the light direction suitable. Painting real faces of people is very fun and much more easier than imaginitve faces, must say. You just pick up the three points in a face and mark them and compare them with the original picture that they fit. These points are the middle line from forehead to chin, the points where corners of the eyes start and then compare the points where lower jaw angle, tip of nose and mouth share the same horisontal lines. Ears are very imporant to see where they start and end. Must say that I've had my most mistakes when making ears by relying in memory.

Adding photos of 'dragons' & painted new face from reference of Keanu Reeves.

(sample reference of Keanu Reeves, scanned from poster) Ok, I've always LOVED that photo of him. It's been on my wall like a thousand years by now. It tells all about him, in my opinion at least. Sitting on a table of chains, looking straight into your soul and a half-burned cigarrette in hand with the most coolest suit and haircut ever. Obvious to say that this photo inspired greatly to change the face of my Dark Angel as him. Kept on remembering the scene from Devil's Advocate, the end scene when he turned to Lucifer and cried out, white wings spreaded and all beautiful. So I started painting his face by scanning a piece of this photo and then side by side

Phase 9:
Changing the character's face + photos.

Illustration 9:

Phase 10:
Colour shifts, details & clothes

Illustration 10:

Final phase 11:

by myth has two dragons as if like 'wings' over his back. This note came to me as a surprise, since I didn't study that mythology before. Strange what the subconscious can create unintentionally. Anyway, those two serpents final outlook took a form of some sort of dinosaur & lizard & dragon with a very nasty and ruthless expressions with those blank cruel eyes looking straight into you. Dragons have always been really close to mankind's history in one way or another, they are like the force that surround some people who can 'harness' their capabilities. All kinds of references to dragons & serpents are found throughout religious and myths and this is evident that I include this aspect to my painting alonside with the Fallen. Loyal servant, the blessed one amidst the grey; Listen to the very words I speak to you: "You must give me swords, give me chants, give me the dream of an untouchable romance. Look above you, and I shall look you back, among the dancing stars is where I was born once upon a time. The story runs deeper than you know, my boy. I sleep alone, naked and unfold, I have no shields around my soul. I am mortal, nor I am not, but I am born from each and every shout. Praise my beauty, remember these eyes, here I stand before you, without alibies. Without you I am nothing, but with you I shall rule everything. Your love for me is the perfect sin, and that is

Drastic colour shift and final details of clothes, dragons and output using both Painter & Photoshop.
Here's the final draft of this Dark Angel. There's a long story to start explaining the steps from previous stage, but I try to be logical. The colour scheme shifted dramatically for several reasons. Firstly I needed to make it harmonic and less violent. Red colour combined with black is almost without exception a mix of restless and hateful pair. So, since I want to see that the image portrays a person with significant details and viewer shouldn't feel like he/she's under some psychic attack. Simplified process goes kind of like this: flatten all layers, then duplicate the background. Do a Match Colour on the top one to achieve a harmonic colour view, so the most dominant colour spots blend with the rest of the tones. Then you make a drastic Selective Colour adjustment. I succeeded achieving the strong yellows and soft golden overlook by decreasing neutral tones and amplifying lighter tones and just warmed them all up. After a few try-outs it came like this. Then all that was left was the detailing. Did that mostly in Painter by using Pencils and Pastels with a rough texture giving it some natural looking roughness. One friend of mine from the art field said that this portrays a demon called Astaroth, who

how I rule - from outside and from within. Nothing less, nothing more, for that is the nature of my diamond soul."

The Traveller's guide.

You know also those hand signs and tattoos and what they represent, right? If you're confused with them, you can find plenty of information about them through various sources, use the net. We're surrounded by dominating and very powerful symbols. That is like a tremedous force keeping everything together. Cut them out of your life and you're like a blank page.. or are you? I hope you enjoyed reading this tutorial, even though there's no absolute technical path to follow how this was made. The brush tip sizes, number of layers and hours I've spent on this are almost impossible to remember and keep track, since I work so fast and don't pay attention to numbers and techinical details, since I just let my subconscious do most of the process and execution. But no.. I'm not psychic and move things with my mind ;)

Zooms of details: