Motoko

As part of a development initiative, I've spent time doing tutorials and getting some coaching from Cristian Silva, a senior lead artist in one of our Australia studios. We went over the fundamentals, and he taught me some very useful Photoshop tips and tricks. It's helped tremendously with things I do on the job, and I've wanted to apply some of this new knowledge to my personal work, perhaps for a portfolio piece.

I knew Michelle Eubank-Mussoni from back in the days when I used to help staff and run anime conventions; she's a great cosplayer, with strong attention to detail and a very professional approach to costuming. I saw a pic that she posted of her dressed up as the main character from the anime/manga series "Ghost in the Shell" and thought it'd be good to use as the base for a photo illustration. I received permission to use the pic, along with a thumbs-up from the original photographer.

Motoko Kusanagi from "Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex"

From Wikipedia:

Major Motoko Kusanagi (草薙 素子 Kusanagi Motoko) is a fictional character in the Ghost in the Shell anime and manga series. She is an augmented-cybernetic human employed as the squad leader of Public Security Section 9, a fictional law-enforcement division of the real Japanese National Public Safety Commission. Being strong-willed, physically powerful, and highly intelligent, she is well known for her skills in deduction and hacking.

Source photo:

Costume and modelling by Mogchelle Cosplay. Photography by The Enthusiasts.

Photo illustration:

I "up-rezzed" the art from 72dpi to 600dpi (a bit of overkill perhaps, but I wanted the option of having something I could print big later). I had to smooth out a lot of JPEG artifacting, using two copies of the art on separate layers; the top one set to color mode, and the one underneath set to grayscale, where I could concentrate on cleaning up the art and not worry about affecting the colors. I did some editing to simplify the wrinkles in the clothing, and added rim lighting using a technique I picked up from artist Glyn Dewis on Youtube. (Being able to separate the layer styles from a layer and apply masks is a revelation.) I then did more painting on an upper layer to fix problem areas.

I was shooting for the sort of character portraiture you find in work from High 5 Games, and I like the way this photo illustration came together. I need more practice, and this is a good step towards that.

Save the Date!

My sister-in-law Alicia and her fiancé Nick had this fun comic book-inspired idea for a "Save the Date" wedding invitation, and they asked me to help illustrate it. I drew up a rough sketch, depicting the two of them as superheroes trying to "save the date" from the evil villain, on my Note II using Sketchbook Pro:

Once I got approval to proceed as well as some notes on certain things they wanted to see in the final version (something like the Hancock Building and/or Sears Tower to identify the background as the Chicago skyline, and that the hero uniforms should be primarily navy and silver to match their wedding colors), I took the illustration into Photoshop and Illustrator and got to work. Something different I did this time around was to use adjustment layers and masks to block out shadows and highlights that gave the art a cel-shading look, and then go over top in another layer to paint in halftones. It saved a lot of time when it came to trying out different color schemes on the fly, and it proved to be pretty helpful.

I feel like I found a good flow, to the point where I lost track of time, finishing the illustration at almost 2 in the morning.  Sleeplessness aside, I'm happy with how it turned out overall, and I enjoyed working on it.