4.5 Dodge and Burn

And and welcome back to lesson 11 of creating a fantasy book cover. So in the last lesson we got this far with our texture is all now on the bottom half of his body. But we need to make sure it blends well. So, what we're gonna do, zoom in, on the actual mass we're going to get a gradient from black to transparent. From the top to the bottom I'll just get rid of that white at the top. Just do it a few times if need be. And we'll get our white brush on the soft and just go up onto scourge. Reveal some of the white or at least try and get some of the grungy green back in there but not too much of the white. So like that. I'm gonna take off his hand. We don't want any on his hand. So zoom in here to sort out the fingers. Just over there. If you want you can also make like a presertion of the hand just so you don't have to do this again. If you wanna add some more textures. How long is his fingers? There you go, about there. Okay and there. Get rid of that bit there. Okay, just wanna get rid of any parts over here. So once someone is laying over here we don't want too much though. Maybe if you want to reveal that lever, I'm gonna actually cover it up. It will not be seen. Okay, that's better. Good, I think the angle's a bit off, so I'll actually unlock this here. So on your layer, unlink it. Click on the actual image, not the actual mask and just rotate it slightly, just so its a bit more evident at the top, so let's try to get an area that looks really good. So I'm thinking make sure that obviously the boot on the right hand side is all in the scene in the image. There, that looks pretty good. Okay so we need to get rid of the spear now, as well, from this selection. So you can get your pencil from the top down to the bottom. And do the same right there, click up, do the selection, right-click, fill path and just go to black. Okay, looks fine. I think there's a little bit of a line there. Just we missed out, our selection's a little bit too big, and to get the white out I'm actually gonna go down it, holding. Click once at the top. Click. Hold Shift. Go to the bottom. Click again, and it'll get rid of it. Okay, that looks good. So, we're getting somewhere here. So now we need to add in some shadow work because it all just looks like it just sticks to him. And there's no like evident separation. So we need to do that. So first of all what we're going to do is to work on the lower half, and we'll go up and focus on his head later on. So his bottom half first. Let's get attached to our character, cuz we actually apply it to a character which is up here. So will a group here, let's close the group. Make a new layer, attach it, holding alt on my keyboard. Go to Edit, Fill, 50% grey and change this to soft light. Okay and make sure its soft light. When you get your Burn Tool, you can black and white brush as well, but I like using the Burn Tool on the dodge, so I need the Burn Tool, mid tons. I'm gonna bring it out to about 30%, protect tones on. Making sure it's mid tones. And wanna try and just basically reappear some of the shadows basically. We can refine certain areas, we're gonna use little highlights and the brown. And the basically the shadows to make objects stand out a little bit more like this belt. So let's work on the belt first, so we'll just zoom in. This is really good time to use your tablet if you have one. I'm not going to be using one. If you want to keep more control bring exposure down a lot lower. And you get a lot more control if you just keep doing it over and over again to get your desired effect. So basically what we're gonna be doing is go over the belt here. Just trying to define the shadows a little bit more. Now if you want to actually just select one part of its shadow and not just get the shadow on to the belt, just get your polygon tool up here. Polygon lasso. Make a straight edge and just do completely around is fine. And we can do that and use the burn tool and just do inside of this shadow. So that means might go on to the belt, and it might make it a little bit more of a realistic shadow like that. Let's zoom out. We're probably going to do it over heavy and I'm gonna have to lower the opacity but that's fine. We always go over heavy on the shadow and highlight work. It just seems to be that way when you're working with shadows. So the spear's gonna have a shadow on his belt here. On the sides, this is just, I'm gonna do that trick, hold click on the top, hold shift, goes to the bottom. Click again and it'll create a shade line or a shadow, so just do that multiple times. Click+alt hit. I'm sorry, Shift hit and then zoom out. See it's got a good shadow on there now. Make sure it goes all the way up his body. So let's do it all the way up to the top a few times, like so, okay. So let's do the rest of him. So these little creases here you can actually make a little bit more detailed. Now what you can do is you can actually alt between highlight and shadow by holding Alt on your keyboard. So hold Alt, as you can see holding Alt it goes to the highlights. So then shadow let go, highlight, hold Alt. It's a really good way, it just means it's very quick to do this. So when I highlight around here in the shadow. You can even accentuate these little edges here. You can see there's a shadow line there. Let's do the shadow and underneath it do a highlight. I mean it'll just come out a little bit more. Okay, so again, just go through try to make a bit more shadow work, a shadow there, a highlight there. Okay, that looks good. Do the same this side, I think that's converging a little bit too much, it's blending in. So let's make the straight line there and a shadow, let's make another shadow there. Maybe open the big one, and that's gonna stand out a lot more as you can see. Okay, so this right-hand side of him as well. Got a good shadow going on there just to extenuate that even more. Highlight, highlight, shadow, shadow. Yeah, a little bit more shadow where his belt meets his skin as well and his clothes. Okay, shadow his spear as well, get a little more shadow work from there. There you go. Okay, on his knee, as well. Let's get some shadow down here, and with these crevasses in the leg as well. So, highlight maybe the top part, so just highlight right at the top of it. So, like that, and then shadow the bottom parts, like so. This might take a while, it’s sorta a lengthy process, but just take your time on it. Don’t rush it. Okay, shadow. Some shadow work to be done here. Now you can change this to shadows as well, and you might make it a little bit more fierce, the shadow work. A bit more heavy. Okay it's done by his knee. Also accentuate the actual shadow of the character as well. Bottom of the spear I am definitely getting some shadows, zoom out. So as you can see we've gone a little bit too heavy on his leg there. So for lower to or an alternative way, get a brush, click D on your keyboard, go back to the neutrals and then change this b point to 50. And change it to 50% black or 50% gray. And then with a soft round you can just go over it, and it basically just gets rid of it, it's like using a rubber. Cuz our actual layer is 50% gray. Anything with just the same is gonna be just getting rid of it. Go back to normal. So do that again. Not so heavy this time. The shadow there, or the skirt thing, okay. So again it's a little bit too much there, on his legs. We'll just [INAUDIBLE] our [INAUDIBLE] down on the gray and just click a few times. There you go, okay. Thinking a little bit more on his right hand side as well, needs a bit of work. Okay. That's looking a lot better. So do the same side as his right hand leg as well. So let's go through create shadow work. Let's get. So highlight this left hand side, and shadow the inside. Like so. Okay. So as you can see, we just found an error there, and we got a little bit of a texture missing. [INAUDIBLE] So, we're actually gonna have to fix that. Or make it a little more 3D like by adding these textures, a little bit more realistic, on the shadow work. Okay, so the shadow of his arm, got a good shadow there. Okay, and under his fingers he definitely needs a shadow there. That's one of the arrows, major arrows. Let's zoom in for that because I wanna make sure that this looks good. So there, let's get around his fingers. Okay. So it's better already. Brush bigger. There you go. See the hand much more clearly now than you did. So actually you take it off and on. You see the work we've done already. Looks good. Little bit more. Too much in the center here, so now we're actually going to get rid of that a little bit. There you go. A bit lighter. Okay. Basically, what we're gonna do now, is go around to each of the holes. So it's actually just show you a few them, a bit more shoddy work and highlight in the corners. So what I'm doing is basically accentuating each of these edges, so I'm making the shadows a little bit more deep inside of the shadow into the holes. And on the edges trying to add a little bit of a highlight just to make a little bit more like it fits into the scene, into the image. So as you can see there's a highlight there, highlight on the edges. Just makes him pop a little bit more. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go around all these holes, I'm gonna pause it now and I'll get back to you in a second. Okay, so I'm back. So I've done most of the holes here as you can see. I'll turn it off and on on his chest, you see that there just got a little bit more darker in certain areas. I've done a little bit too much much. I'm actually gonna use the brush to rub some of this out, especially on his arm there. It's too dark there. Let's get rid of that. As you can see, around certain areas, they're a little bit brighter and darker especially on a chest around here, it looks a little bit better. Okay, so now I'm actually insinuate, or make the bit more of a shadow under certain areas. So let's get that shadow again on the burn tool. Get the shadows. I'm actually gonna add some shadows here, so underneath his chest there. Make sure we can make that a little bit more evident, so it's clear to the viewer straight away. If you wanna add in some abs here as well, try and just make a few. So I know you wouldn't obviously have many abs with those holes in his chest but just have a hint of it. So if you want to zoom out here it might be a little bit easier to see. Something like that. So you can see I've added a bit more of a chest there. So maybe if you want to make a split in the middle there. There you go, a little bit more of cut there. Zoom out. He has a bit of a pear-shaped looking chest there, so let's make sure we do this correct, so I think a bit bigger brush and just go straight up There you go. It looks a lot better. And use the highlight tool [INAUDIBLE] should lighten certain areas. So you can see that's where the chest meets. Okay, and change to mid tones. Do the same thing in certain areas. Use the highlight brush of the dodge tool. Holding Alt to brighten certain areas and darken certain areas. Okay zoom out. Okay that looks good, you can tell that it's actually his chest there, maybe its a little bit too bright maybe. Let's darken it up a little bit more with the burn. Lower down that highlight a little bit. Looking a bit shiny. Okay, so that looks good. So now we're gonna do the bit under his arm, but I'm actually going to use a black brush for this, not use the actual 50% grey. So let's make a new layer, attach it, get a brush. Hit D on your keyboard to black. Flow down to about 10%, same with the opacity. And then this just add in some shadow work. So the burn tool is good, but it actually burns the color, and we don't wanna burn the color. We just want to add some shadow work. So just get the brush here and just go over certain areas a few times. Add a bit more shadow work, maybe a little bit higher opacity, 36%. There you go. You see that the shadow is actually black, and it's not just affecting the color. We don't want that at all. Okay, so, on the shadows around his chest there. Looks like he's got a massive zit there for some reason. Must be the texture. Okay. Under his neck. Make that a bit more evident. Changes to multiply won't do much, but just make sure you're following and same rules. Under his ear, let's do a shadow by his fingers, as well, to make sure his fingers pop out a little more. So, like that. On the upper side of his arm, as well, okay. Looks good. On his hand here, next to his arms, that has a bit of a shadow. Okay, so, I'm happy with what we've done here, looks really good. Let's zoom out a little bit. As you can see, like I said before, we have to lower down the opacity of these, cuz they're looking a bit too harsh. When we're zoomed in, full scale, it looks really good. But when we actually zoom out and have a look, the shadows are way too harsh. So, actually lower this down, so we got this one here. On the actual 50% gray there, let's change that to zero opacity then bring it up until you like what you're looking at. So I'm just gonna slowly bring it up. I'm thinking about there is good for that, 70%. On the shadow work, same again. Zero and bring up until you like it. So something subtle, as you can see we just made things pop out a little bit more. Okay, so that's the end of this lesson. So please join the next lesson to continue this course. I want to fix that little error there in between lessons.