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Art Step-By-Step from Naito February 29, 2020 08:46 AM

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I made a step-by-step progression on one of my recent contest entries. This one doesn't have additions like wings or fancy backgrounds, but maybe some people can find it useful^^ Introduction In the guide, at each step, you can view the image by clicking on the step number. I did not add them as images to the post, it will still be a lengthy one even without them. I'm using Photoshop CC 2017, but I know that a lot of people use other programs, so I won't mention specific brushes. I will, however, mention some settings, but I cannot guarantee that the program you use will have them as well or make the same effect as I am getting. What you should make sure of is that you organize your document into folders and layers. I like keeping a non visible "bkp" aka backup folder, where I keep the duplicated layers which I make before larger modifications. This way if something goes wrong, or even if the customer wishes to change something, I don't need to restart the whole prep, but can always go just one or two steps backwards into it. I also have separate folders for the horse, the mane, tail, optional details like wings (in case of wings, 1 folder for each wing) and so on. It's just nicer and easier to keep track of. In my opinion, finding the right stock is what's most important in art. You need a somewhat clear image in your mind of what you want regarding pose and lightning, then find a stock that matches it. I personally like using stock photos which are close in color to the result I want, because the less I play with colors the more quality remains. I also like defined shadows on the stock, where I can clearly see muscle lines. I try to avoid overbright lightning on the stock unless my result image will be overbright as well. Regarding image quality, the clearer the better, but unless the image is very chunky, I'm not too stressed out about it. Most of the pixels will disappear at the smudging step anyway. The prep Step 1: Cutout I first grab the image of the horse, the lasso selection tool and select around the horse as close as I can get. Then inverse the selection and delete the unwanted part. Then while I have this rough cut, I covert it to smart object, then resize the image so that the horse fits into a canvas of around 1000 pixels wide and tall. I try to work in this size because I won't lose much quality at resizing when it comes to making the horse avi cut. When I have the size, I rasterize the layer and move on. After resizing, I grab the round eraser, and cut out the horse. I first go with a bigger size, then a smaller one to cut out the details. Step 2: Mane removal I actually very rarely remove the mane of the original stock fully, but this time the theme needed a full mane removal. The same method is used for tack or dirt removal. I just use the patch tool until I'm happy with the result. Patch tool is a handy thing, but sometimes it's just not powerful enough. In those times I usually cut out a piece of the horse with lasso tool, place it on top of what I want to remove, and then go back on it with the patch to make it look natural. It's all the matter of playing with the tool and practice to get the hang of it. Step 3: Reduce noise Body prep always starts with this. I usually keep the "preserve details" and "sharpen details" on pretty low, and put the noise reduction and color noise reduction all the way up to 100%. This gives the horse a smudgy look already, but that is exactly what I want. If you don't want your horse to look so smudgy, you can just play with the settings of how strongly do you want the noise reduction to act, and the preserve details function is also useful. The sharpen details usually makes only the pixels sharp, which gives an unnatural look to the image, so I tend to avoid it. Step 4: Smudge For this, I use a soft round brush and have the smudge strength set to 10-15%. I adjust the size of the brush as I smudge more detailed areas, and use slightly bigger brush size for the belly and neck. Whenever possible I avoid using too big of a brush size, because that just smudges together stuff that don't belong together. Shades and forms for example. I always smudge following the muscle lines, not following the hair growth. I like my horses clean and smooth, so I smudge out the small veins visible on their coat. For this I smudge first along the vein's direction then against it, and smudge until it completely blends into the coat. Step 5: Color modification The stock horse always needs work on the color. Simply because the stock was not in the same kind of background with the exact same lightning and color balance as my result will be. So for this step, I usually do 2 things: First, I play with the hue to see if it does any good. The saturation is also always adjusted to fit the mood and intensity of what I want to make. More shady and misty pieces require less saturation, and bright, sunny ones need more. Secondly, I go for the color balance, and play with the shadows, midtones and highlights until I'm happy with the result. There is really no recipe for a good color change, you just need to play with these settings until you're happy with what you see. Sometimes I also play with the Shadows/Highlights tool to add more shadows or lights. In this case, I removed some highlights, because the stock I used was slightly overbright. Step 6: Markings This is the point where I usually go and grab my digital tablet, until now I work with the mouse. My hand is still steadier for the cutouts and whatnot, and playing with all the settings is also quicker. I guess this will change once I get fully used to the tablet. I only did white markings so far, never added black points for bays or birdcatcher spots or anything of sorts. I did a few sooty patterns, but those were made in a different way and I'm not so confident with those so I won't mention them yet. For white markings, be it just leg/face markings or sabino (etc.), I use the same tactic. I duplicate the horse layer (notice that until now we were working on only one layer), set the brightness to as bright as I see fit, usually between 80% and 100% (sometimes I even repeat this step to make it even brighter), and lower the saturation. Not fully reduce, but to about 20%. Then grab an eraser appropriate to the marking (sharp round for leg and face markings, sprinkled one for sabinos, etc) and erase from the markings layer where the horse has no white parts. Step 7: Shadows For this step, I create a new layer, set it's type from normal to "soft light" and grab a soft round brush with the color black. I usually have it on quite a large size and have the flow set to touch sensitivity, like this I don't have to keep adjusting the sizes, I just need to adjust my pen pressure. I make sure to draw the shadows following the stock horse's muscle shades and details. This is where I highlight the wrinkles around the eye or at the neck if it's bent. Usually I make two shadow layers, one is called "darkspots" and the other "darkerspots" for the more intense shadows. Once I'm done with applying the shadows, I grab the smudge tool, set the strength to 25% the least (sometimes even stronger) and smudge the shadows into the horse so they blend with the coat. Sometimes I even go with an eraser, with opacity pressure sensitivity enabled and take back a few parts where I feel the shadow got too intense. I then lower the opacity until I'm happy with the result. Rince and repeat on the darker shadows layer. Step 8: Lights This step is very similar to the previous one, the only difference is where you put the lights and that this time you're using white instead of black. There are usually two layers of lightning, set to soft light, smudged just like before. The lights are very powerful when it comes to drawing the attention to a certain part of the image. If there are parts of the horse which you don't find very attractive (a bump on a leg that you cannot take off or anything, really) then simply don't put light on them. Nobody will pay attention to that part unless someone scans through the whole image looking for flaws. The attention will be drawn to the areas highlighted, so use the lights wisely! Step 9: Background check Usually I choose the background after the rough cutout. I have a couple of backgrounds prepared in the folder, which I liked and belonged to the theme I wanted, and after the rough cutout, I place the horse into those backgrounds and choose the one I think fits the best. In this step, I put the background on a new layer, which is going to be below the horse layer. I take a look at the feel and temperature of the piece as a whole, then decide what kind of color should be the overall scheme. I select the layer on top (at this time it should be the "lighterspots" layer) then add a new photo filter layer on top of everything else. I play around with the density and color of the filter, until the whole thing just comes together in warmth and balance. Warning: if you need a photo filter with the density stronger than 30%, you are probably better off adjusting color balance on the background first. Note: This is the usual order of things, but for this exact piece, for some reason I cannot explain nor do I remember why, I skipped the filter part and added it only at the end. So at the end I will reference this step with the actual filter image. Step 10: Mane base In a new folder, on a new layer, necessarily above the horse layer, I add the base of the mane. I use a specific brush for the manes and tails which narrows on the two ends and is a little fatter in the middle, but I always adjust it to get a thinner feel. I decide on the mane color I want, then select a slightly darker color, and paint the mane up. I've seen that a lot of people just grab a big round brush and throw the base on, but I just don't feel it. Even if the result is the same, it just doesn't work for me. That being said, I have my little brush with the size of 1, and go strain by strain, adding the full mane like that. I do admit that I pay more attention to the end of the mane to make it flow better, but for this step this is less important. Step 11: Secondary color With this current example image, it's the mane dye, the yellow punky stuff. On normal horses, this secondary color is the color which I originally decided on as the mane color. I make a new layer, name it "shade2" then select everything on the "mane base" layer, and start painting on "shade2" with this new color. I don't necessarily follow any lightning stuff here, it's just there to make the mane look more real. Because in real life, hardly anything has just one strict color to it, everything has more shades that give the full experience of its color that we see. If I really wanted to go ham, I could be adding "shade3", "shade4", etc, but that would definitely drive me insane, so I'm fine with just two shades. You want to smudge this secondary color in as well, with the strength of about 5-10%. Step 12: Shadow The technical part of mane shadow is the almost same as body shadow. New layer, soft light, black brush, smudge, opacity adjustment. The only difference is that I have the smudge strength set to 5-10% here instead of 25. The shadow on the long hairs works a little different than it does on the body. Instead of trying to make the mane and tail look like one big object with shadow on the bottom and light on the top, you should aim for making the strains of the hair visible, and make each strain an object of its own. Here is the importance of the flow, where you need to be careful how you make your lines. This is something I started paying more attention to very recently, so I'm not an expert at it yet, but this is the way. Don't be scared of a darker line in the middle of the mane, there should be darker strains everywhere. Step 13: Light Just the same as the shadow. Light is very powerful, again, and if used well together with the shadows, you can define those strains and how they move and flow. Therefore, it's almost more important to get these two steps right than having your base mane look good in the first place. Step 14: Roots This step is unique to this piece, as I did not leave anything from the stock mane behind. In other cases, I leave the bottom of the mane on the stock, and use a large soft eraser to take off the outer parts of the mane so that I don't have to deal with connecting the mane to the body. This is the lazy way, but it works just fine for me for now. Here, however, I had no choice but try to make it look like the mane is actually on the horse. I used "hard light" black layers to create the dark part on the neck, and smudged the roots of the mane towards the body of the horse with a strength of 20-30%. I'm not entirely happy with it, but this is something I don't know how to do yet, so this was my best shot. Step 15: Tail base Same thing as mane base, but on a layer and folder below the horse body folder. Step 16: Secondary color Same thing as mane secondary color. Step 17: Shadow Same thing as the mane shadow. Maybe the only thing I want to add is be mindful of the horse's cast shadow on the tail if there is any. Step 18: Light Same thing as mane light. Step 19: Accessories This is the step where I start working on the additions, like wings, horns, or anything that goes on the horse. Here, the gal has some awesome bracelets, a necklace and a tattoo. I have them each on their own layers, and the shadows added are also separate. I have a folder for each accessory item, where I can put their shadows and highlights. Just simply cut them out like the horse, convert them into smart objects, resize until you're happy with the fit, rasterize the layer and repeat the horse prep steps. Some things don't need smudging (like these accessories on the punk horse) but wings do. The more detailed you do it, the more lifelike the result will be. Avoid smudging out the divider lines between feathers, and smudge each feather individually. I know, that's an insane amount of work. It is. But it pays off. Step 20: Body "outshadow" Outshadow is just how I got used to naming my layer for this one, so if it doesn't make sense to you, worry not, it's on me. This layer is either a hard light or soft light depending on the brightness of the horse's base color, and is used with a very large, soft edged round black brush. I first select everything on the horse's body base layer (the one we cut out in the first steps) and go on this "outshadow" layer with the brush. I follow along the stronger shadows which the horse either casts on itself, or the background requires them, where light doesn't hit at all. This is the ultimate darkness, the darkest places of the horse. These places are mainly on the edge of the horse, hence the name "out-shadow". Here I usually don't smudge, because I use a brush with the size of 400 or sometimes even bigger, and since it's a soft brush, it ensures that the edges blend in well enough. Lower opacity until results look good. Note: In this image I also played a little more with the Shadows/Highlights tool, to make the horse shine less and the darker spots more defined. These kind of adjustments are just fine, whenever you see the need, just do it. Step 21: "Outshadow" on tail and mane Just do the same thing as with the horse. Large soft black brush on a soft light or hard light layer, play with opacity, be mindful of where these shadows need to go. Step 22: "Outshine" Just the same as the "outshadow" but here I add the places where the light hits hard. Since this stock was already overbright enough, on this image I did not use my outshine layers. This would be a soft or hard light with a large soft white brush, and usually comes around the edges of the horse where the light comes from. You can see an example below: Without "outshine" With "outshine" Step 23: Photo filter See Step 9 for details. Step 24: Blur Here's where we place the focus on the horse by bluring out the background. The further something is, the more blurry it gets and the more blur you need to apply to it. As you come closer to the foreground, blur less and less, and keep only the very front slightly sharp. This is not the best example as the background is mainly black, but I guess it's fine enough of an example for now. What I didn't talk about specifically here was the grounding, as this horse was just standing in a black shadow. Not much work with grounding here. You may have noticed that when the "outshadow" was applied, the horse's hooves became one with the black foreground. That was the grounding on this image, as the place where the horse stands is not visible. Grounding could have its own step-by-step guide, as it's extremely important for a natural looking image that the horse is grounded properly. I sometimes just erase from the hooves to match the grass or whatever surface the horse is standing on, but there are times when I duplicate the background layer, move it above the horse layer and erase back from it until I'm happy with what I have. It's always different for each stock horse and each background type, so all I can say is, play with it until it looks fine. I usually paint back the shadow of the horse with blurred "soft light" black layers, but I used to use the burn tool on the grass. I found that on grassy surface the burn tool looks very very cool, but on brighter surfaces like snow or water, it just doesn't work. Epilogue If you've reached this far, I'm impressed. It took me about 1 hour to type this all out, so apologies for the occasional typos. I hope you enjoyed reading through this guide wannabe, and I could show you something new about art. Or even if you are a more experienced artist and had a good laugh about my silly attempts, that's fine, I'm glad I could make you smile! :D