How did research, colour, adjustments and the Brush tool all help Bao Luu create this masterpiece?
To start with, I made a pencil sketch on paper. When I was a child I drew a lot, such as Pokémon, cartoon and manga characters; it’s a good way to get creative before taking the picture to Photoshop and adding colour, brush strokes and lighting.
I scanned the sketch onto my computer and opened it up in Photoshop; I then began to create line art over the original pencil sketch. I used this line art as a guide layer when I was creating all the individual elements of the image, which I hid and showed as I was working.
I painted the objects in the scene – such as the rocks, whale, coral, turtles, jellyfish and so on – painting objects on each layer. This makes it much easier to edit individual elements. I used clipping masks to add lighting, shade and colour to each layer.
When everything was done, I created extra layers to add small details to complete the picture, such as the bubbles. Finally, I created some adjustment layers – Levels and Color Balance – to help me adjust the blue colour of the final picture.