Doomtown

Last May I got contacted to do some work for Doomtown Reloaded and now that the set has been released I can show this painting that I did for the game.  This was by far my favorite image that I worked on on the set and I thought it would be cool to try and show a little bit of a step by step that I took in completing the painting.  For the most part I hate having large files with lots of layers, it takes longer to save and I am always afraid of photoshop crashes so I usually merge layers down once I am satisfied an area is complete so there will be a few steps missing but you should get the idea.

Okay first is the sketch, the prompt I got for the card was for a slightly crazy middle aged man working on an unruly steampunk machine.  I did this quick sketch in my sketchbook and off it went to get approval.  For some reason when I am sketching I freeze up when I try to draw within the confines of a box/layout, so although I am thinking and know the general dimensions I like to sketch something on a wide open page and then later size it and fit it into the dimensions of the page layout (which is what the black box is)

After getting approval from the AD it is off to shoot some reference,  I am cheap and do not want to hire models and because I know the expressions, look, and feel that I want for the character I usually find it easier to pose myself.  I set up some lights, put my camera on a tripod and have a remote timer in one hand and start snapping some photos.  Having good reference to work from is super important and this was one of the reasons the painting came along so easy, I had a good foundation to start from.  DO NOT skimp on the reference!

My next step is usually looking at all of the reference photos and picking out the elements I like best and combine them together, for instance a head from one photo, a body from another, favorite hands and then combining them into one image.  I merge them together and do a loose outline to help nail my proportions and get the hands and face right so I have a good base while painting.  Because I like to merge layers semi often the drawing got merged down and painted over during the course of painting but you get the idea.

On to the actual painting!  The first few steps are establishing base rendering for the all of the major elements like the background and the figure.  Once I was happy with those I started working on the steampunk machine in the foreground.  I started with basic shapes and slowly built up the rendering and detail, I merged all of those layers down unfortunately so there is nothing left of the build up of detail, however I do have a lovely shot of the figure with the base coat of paint on the body and face and he is lookin pretty ugly at this point.

Here you can see me slowly building up the figure, I keep certain elements on separate layers, especially if I am not sure if I am going to keep them or change them.  I have individual layers for the stripes on the shirt and the tools incase I want to make changes.

Here is the finished face and hands on the figure.  Not gonna lie, the facial hair was put in specifically to help cover up what felt a very strange looking face, without it you really could not tell where the nose ended and the lips began (illustrating 101, if an area is looking weird sometimes one of the best and easiest things to do is to cover it up with something else!)

Next is the smoke/atmosphere.  Not gonna lie I could not wait to paint this in A because I knew it was gonna be really cool and be fun to paint but also B to cover up large areas of the painting so I did not have to needle away at painting steampunk machinery and detail (hey, any shortcut you can find while working on a deadline, especially if it makes the painting better as a result!)

At this stage I am really happy with where the painting is at so I started thinking about making some color adjustments to help push the color.  I felt that you couldnt really feel the heat and warmth from the machine so I added an overlay layer at a very low opacity to help give the painting an overall warm "glow"

At this stage I thought that I was done, I showed the painting to some friends and my friend Mike Burns gave me a helpful paintover and showed me some places where the painting could be improved on and made better.  I went back and added those things and sent this off to my Art Director.

I hope that this was in some ways helpful, I think in the future I will have to plan these step by steps out from the beginning so you can see a better more linear progression of the painting than a series of rapid jumps.  thanks for reading
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