Craig Mullins: Gunman

STEP 1

Here is an excellent look into the early stages of Craig's work, beginning at how he establishes a loose sketch and progresses into how he lays out broad areas of light and shadow.

Draw your outline or silhouette in a mask channel so you can use it as a selection to paint through and behind throughout the process of painting.

STEP 2

Now go to your RGB color channel and make a gradation like you see here. I have in mind a dark green picture with a diffuse overhead source. Keep in mind the type of lighting when you make this grad, as it will direct everything you do from here on out. Don't go from very bright to very dark, you can do that later if needed. Of course you can experiment. Have fun, it can work, this is only one way.

Load your silhouette mask channel so that your figure is selected. Use the levels or curves to darken this area. Since you are darkening a range of pixels, you still have a nice grad in the figure, it is just on a lower scale.

STEP 3

Inverse your selection so the BG is selected. Using a paintbrush se to low opacity or using a wacom, make a few abstract shapes behind your figure to suggest something behind. I varied the color a little here and there. Keep the shapes big and general, no rendering yet. You can see that I made a lighter warmer grad at the bottom to indicate light hitting the floor. A soft blob for the shadow from the figure. I put in a vertical circular step to add a little dimension

STEP 4

Inverse your selection so the figure is selected again. I was losing the outline of the figure at the top, so I lightened it up a bit with a big soft brush. It is not really needed, but I thought it might help.

Now the form definition begins on the figure. You have the middle tone created by the initial grad, so now you have to go up in value and down in value to show the form as revealed by the overhead light. So the logic here is a surface that is horizontal is in halftone and will be left alone. The darks are surfaces that face downward or are recessed in between objects or anything that is in shadow. Block these in with nice big general shapes. Do not make them black, remember, we are working from the middle values out, we have not gotten to the dark darks yet.

STEP 5

Now go a little lighter than your midtones and any surface that faces upwards gets a lighter tone. I also added a few more darks here and there. Sometimes going lighter suggests where your darks can be refined a little more and vice versa. Work them back and forth. I also changed the basic tone of the weapons, as the would be of a different material from the armor suit. A little darker and a little cooler. Then do the darker and lighter block in procedure on the weapons as well.
Now you can make your darkest darks. The real darks come where surfaces come together and shade each other from all light, both direct and ambient. Also dark surfaces in shadow can go very dark.

STEP 6

Now go up to your lighter lights and you are about done. Now that all your major values are about where they should be, you can go on and render till you drop. I added a little definition of material to the floor. Keep in mind that you can keep any and all steps on separate layers if you want. Don't be afraid to work slowly at first. The better your block in the less noodling it will require later, and if you do detail it out, it will be on a solid foundation.(for more tutorials go to gfxartist.com or click here)

vistit Craig Mullins' website: goodbrush.com

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