Continued… Become a Brush tool master and colour in pre-made vectors for an Eastern-inspired painting
Follow part 1 of this tutorial
Click on the black-and-white circle at the bottom of the Layers palette to create a new adjustment layer. In the Hue/saturation properties tab that appears; drag the Saturation slider left to -15.
Create a new layer to paint a dark background underneath the flat colour layer. Use a larger airbrush to paint in a variety of dark browns around the Dragon.
Holding down shift; click on the lines layer so that all of the Dragon layers are highlighted; then group the layers (Press Cmd/Ctrl+G). Click on the circle in square icon in the Layers palette to add a layer mask to the layer group
Use your airbrush to paint on the layer mask, hiding areas of the Dragon and the background to simulate clouds. Paint the clouds so that they look like they are pointing inwards towards the Dragon to strengthen the composition.
For areas where you have painted over the Dragon, accidentally masking it out; bring it back by Ctrl + clicking on the ‘flats’ thumbnail in the Layers palette, and Cmd/Ctrl+Shift-clicking the line’s layer to make a selection of the Dragon.
Press X to switch between using Black and White, and paint the sections of the Dragon back in on the layer mask.
Open up ‘CS dirty paper.jpg’ Copy and paste the contents into the top of your image. Change the layer’s blending mode to Multiply in the Layers palette so that the texture is visible over the image. Free Transform it (Cmd/Ctrl+T) to fit the image.
Repeat this with the parchment paper JPEG, but after setting this texture to Multiply, reduce the opacity in the Layers palette to 69% and Free Transform the paper to fit your image by dragging the handles. Adding multiple textures gives the image more variation.
Add a Curves adjustment layer (click on the black/white circle in the Layers palette). In the Properties tab; drag the top right anchor point higher up to the right (see the screenshot for reference). This will slightly wash out the image.
Add a new layer with the blending mode set to Overlay. Press Shift+G to select the Gradient tool (use the following settings: foreground to transparent, 25% opacity) Using a colour of white, click and drag to make small gradients nearly centre of the image.