Marked Traveller Tutorial

7/31/2019 Marked Traveller Tutorial

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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.

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.

Illustration 1


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Phase 2:

Basic colouring

Now I've given some colour basis over thesketch by simply using Transparent Gradient

in Photoshop in light 20-30% Screen-mode.

Phase 3:

Defining light & shadowareas

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:


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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.

Illustration 4:


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Phase 5:

Trying out differentexpressions 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.

phase 6:

New composition and wideningup 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 reachinghands who all want a piece of his attention.

Illustration 5:

Illustration 6:


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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 thesame time.

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 7:

Illustration 8:


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Phases 9 & 10:

Adding photos of 'dragons' &painted new face from

reference of Keanu Reeves.

(sample reference of Keanu Reeves, scannedfrom 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

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 theystart and end. Must say that I've had my most

mistakes when making ears by relying in

memory.


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Phase 9:

Changing the character's face + photos.

Phase 10:

Colour shifts, details & clothes

Illustration 9:

Illustration 10:


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Final phase 11:

Drastic colour shift and finaldetails of clothes, dragons

and output using bothPainter & 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 forseveral 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

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 forcethat 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


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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'resurrounded 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 ;)


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Zooms of details:


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Documents

Marked Traveller Tutorial