Making of “You’ll never have me”

Phases 1 and 2

First drafts. I had no exact image in my mind what I wanted to do, so I vaguely drew the figures. Didn’t like the guy right from the start so he had to go pretty soon.

Then I thought about the lights a bit too, just using dodge and burn -tool there and adding some contrast.

Phases 2 and 3

Then we get to the painting job. Ditched the man, just erased him completely and roughly painted that in Photoshop’s basic brushes to his place. Unfortunately missed saving one version where the girl’s face is not so detailed. But the main focus should be between the monster’s eye-contact with the girl. Had some hard time figuring out how the beast should looks like, so I just used some hard basic brushes with it. Didn’t think any details and such, because it was slowly just coming together in my head. It’s kinda hard to create an emotional monster from the scratch without it looking like it’s made 100 times before.. First it looked more like a lizard or weird dragon…

..then it had alien-sections.. ok, dumped that idea soon, no aliens in my works. Besides, my impression of hairless monsters are always more cruel and evil than those with fur. So. The next phase should tell the difference..

Phases 4 and 5

Oh yeah, there has to be a lot of fur. At this point the image started to clear up, so I decreased all brush sizes and started to make it more threedimensional. So.. browns and down-to-earth colours to the monster, so it doesn’t appear cold, but strong and warm, like a male lion captured and irritated. As the beast’s looks developed, I toned down the metallic feel of the chains, so they wouldn’t get so much attention.

In this pic I switched to Painter essentials from photoshop and used Flat oils and blender-brush to the forehead of the beast. Also added more details with the mouth and chains, using basic round-brush. After this switched beck to Photoshop and adjusted the tones to more warm with color balance. Just highlighted yellows and reds and that’s it. The reason I warmed the pic is that it elaborates the emotion and romantisizes it. As blue-toned, it’s more cruel and straighforward, as warmer much more closer and easier to approach and makes the girl look more gentler.

Phases 6 and 7

Making the eye-contact. Ok, there’s a lot of details that had to be done, so I used those two brushes, basic round and flat oil brush in Painter. Then in Photoshop with burn-tool darkened the surrounding areas and shine of the chains. Left the strongest highlights to the closest parts and dimmd the further parts. Added contrast to the girl too, so she looks as she bathes in the same light as the beast. The most important things here is the beast’s expression. Is it only roaring to her, or hating her, or crying for her? Elaborating the flow of tears and wild look in its eyes made that emotion come to life. If the eyes are too small or in the dark, the emotion stays back.

In the next pic i painted her hands too, so it would look like she’s expecting that blood dripping on her rather than just hold her hand in the air without purpose. Now all the elements are in place and only needed refining and fizing colour balance, contrast and edges and details of her clothing, I moved on making the background. There I made a custom brush in Photoshop from two basic brushes and with low opacity spreaded that texture in to the back. I should point out that the figures have been on separate layers all this time, so the texture should be behind them.

And finally, the the work is finished. Surely this Making of isn’t complete, there are so many little things and details that could all need more explaing and pointing out. But hope you found this enjoyable!

Kirsi is a Finnish digital painter, who uses CS2 and Painter as her tools. She graduated as Bachelor of Fine Arts in the spring of 2006 from Finnish South Carelia Polytechnic art school, where she specialized in multimedia and became a visual artist. Her style is to paint mystique and dark fantasy, often a touch of romance in it. She has illustrated roleplaycards for Fantasy Flight Games Inc., book illustrations for Altair Australia Books, EP -covers and worked as graphic designer in advertisement and commercial industry in Finland. At the moment she works for Finnish gamehouse Tuonela Productions as Leading artist and conceptual artist illustrating novels by Lewis Walker for Black Halo Entertainment, USA.

In her personal paintings the subjects that are closest to her heart are often of relationships between the dark and light, anthropomorphic figures, dreamy and even scary charactes that speak to each other in so many ways in every man. In her freetime she likes to run and spend time in the nature with her Belgian sheepdog, Wario. She is a major movie addict and loves her Wii and Gamecube.

http://www.kirsisalonen.com | kirsisalonen@kirsisalonen.com