INSANE Digital Painting Technique - Photobashing Concept Art Tutorial Photoshop

this video is sponsored by envato
elements
hey guys how's it going hope you're
having a wonderful day in this video
tutorial i'll create this digital
illustration from start to finish
while also showing you an incredible new
photo bashing technique which will
really help you add photographic
detail in your artwork quickly and
effectively you'll also learn how to use
images in 3d to help you in your digital
painting or concept art workflow
so without wasting any more time let's
do this
so the first thing i do is to drop a
base plate image onto the canvas
this is really helpful because now i can
build stuff on top of it
and i can take color reference to this
base image
after that i added a photograph of the
sky because
right now i'm looking to establish some
sort of horizon
and get the basic sky and water done i
chose a dramatic sky
to create more interest in the artwork
next i selected a blue color and started
painting some rock shapes
these rocks are at a distance so i used
a lighter value of blue for them
then i moved on to the bigger rock shape
in the mid ground
i used a darker valley of blue for this
one because it's closer to us as viewers
i also added a little rock to accompany
the big one just to add some contrast in
terms of size
now the area in the middle is too empty
so i created some more shapes there
again these would be at a distance so
comparatively
lighter value is used for them they are
also taller and pointier at the top so
we have a combination of three types of
interesting shapes
on the very left we have some shapes
that look like distant mountains
on the right side we have some big
blocky shapes closer to us
and in the middle we have some really
interesting taller
rocks that almost look like a man-made
structure just to balance these shapes
out in the composition
we can of course tweak some shapes here
and there view the artwork at a distance
and see what looks best to the eye now i
darken the sky at the top left create a
vignette effect and to keep the viewers
interest in the middle of the
composition
this also washed out some details on the
sky and added a cool
dark cloud effect which i'm really
enjoying i also made a selection around
the cloud in the middle
copied it rescaled it and transformed it
to the point where it looked
good i also want to mention that
sometimes using a photo
as it is in your artwork might limit
your creativity
when it comes to composition so you can
either change the photo significantly or
you can first
paint the shapes just like i did for
this artwork after you paint the main
shapes and compositions you can add
photographic details
later let me show you the technique
through which we're gonna add those
photographic details
we'll do that using something called the
layer mask so let's say i want to have
this rock in my painting
i'll fill this rock with a solid color
we'll name this layer as
rock shape now i have this picture of a
rock here
i'll just put it over my rock shape
layer
now it's very important that our rock
shape and the photo texture image both
are on separate layers the photo texture
layer should be on the top
of the painted layer now here's what you
gotta do you gotta move your mouse
cursor between these two layers
then press and hold the alt key and then
click see what happens
the photo texture layer is inside the
rock shape layer
you can move it transform it warp it
experiment with it as much as you like
until it looks good once you're happy
with it here's what you need to
do click on this icon which says layer
mask
right at the bottom of this layers menu
it will add this white box next to your
texture layer
now click on that box and with the black
color selected
use your paint bucket tool to fill that
black color
on your rock see what happens the
texture is gone but we're gonna paint
the texture back so
choose the texture brush that you like
and this time select the white color now
start painting on the rock and see the
magic happen
so for this technique to work in this
artwork it's very important that these
rock shapes are on separate layers
using the same technique that i just
showed i inserted
a photograph of this mountain into the
shape of those
rocks i painted earlier i transformed it
resized it moved it around until i felt
like it fitted better then i created a
layer mask
filled it out with black so it
disappeared from the canvas and then
selected the white color and painted the
underlaying photograph
back into the artwork i'm painting it on
the right side of the rock where the
light is hitting
if i want to paint back the details i
have to select the white color and if i
want to erase what i painted i select
black i also adjusted the levels and
erased the photo where it's not needed
now using the same brush tool if you
paint it with black color
it will erase the texture layer and if
you paint it with white
it will add that underlying texture this
is a really really useful technique
i'll be using the same method to create
photographic details on all of the other
shapes that i painted
starting with the one on the left this
technique saves us a lot of time
now some artists might want to hand
paint all those details using custom
brushes
instead of photos and that's fine too
but that would take a lot of time and
mostly for concept art jobs you don't
have much time
you are required to produce results fast
and generate
ideas very quickly so you gotta find
ways to speed up the process
that's where these photos in 3d come in
they really add a ton of detail in a
very little time
also it happens very often that you
create two to three artworks
send it to the client and to them only
one is usable
and the other two might be discarded so
if you put hours and hours working
on that excruciating detail in an
artwork and the client just discards it
it'll hurt more compared to something
you spent
a few hours on you wouldn't worry about
that but this reveals a true fact
the client doesn't give a damn about how
long you have spent on the details of
those rocks he doesn't care if you have
used custom brushes or photos or 3d what
he's interested in is the final result
the whole artwork
does it solve a problem for the client
does it convey the mood
does it give direction to the 3d artists
to work from
if it does all of the other stuff is not
important
so here as you can see i've used photo
texture on
all of the distant mountains and i've
added another rock shape in the middle
so we have the basic composition ready
we have the sky
and the sea and the distant mountains
now we need a pirate ship i need to get
a photograph of a pirate ship exactly
for
this particular angle i need it from the
back view and it needs to fit here on
the left side of my composition
it should also be copyright free and
it's better if it's a png so that i
don't have to kill myself
making clean selections around all those
ropes and stuff
of course you can spend several hours
looking for the perfect photo to fit
into your artwork but if you're smart
and want to save time
you can use the 3d asset from envato
elements which is also the sponsor for
today's video if you don't know what
envato elements
is it's a must-have tool for artists and
creatives they have a huge
library of over 52 million assets that
you can use in your creative projects
which include royalty free stock photos
footage fonts
music templates graphics 3d and more let
me show you how it works
so i needed a pirate ship for my artwork
here on the search bar i selected 3d
and entered pirate ship it gave me a lot
of assets to choose from
i selected the one that i like rotated
it to
an angle that i needed and hit download
this photo was downloaded as png which i
can slap
right onto my composition in photoshop
it's that easy
no need to make selections around a
photo no need to waste your time
removing background of the image
just set it to the right angle download
it and use it in your artwork you can
download as many assets as you want with
just
one subscription which is really
affordable and worth every dollar so use
the link down in the description to get
your subscription
now you won't regret it trust me on this
one so now we have the ship in
our artwork i made some color
adjustments to the ship
made a selection around it and on a new
layer filled that selection with
a dark blue color then i created a new
layer mask around this layer and
painted back the details of the shape
mostly on the right side where the light
should be hitting i also kept some of
the areas blue
and in shadow with less detail this
really helped the ship
fit in the environment better i also
transformed the ship
and tried to correct the angle which i
felt was slightly off then i painted
shadow just
underneath the ship with a darker color
of blue and also some waves and water
splashes using one of my favorite
brushes
by the way if you want to get this free
brush pack please feel free to download
it through the link below
i don't think you'd need any other brush
if you have this brush back
it's massive after that i'll just be
tweaking some levels correcting some
edges and painting some light and shadow
on the ship
mostly i use only one brush to do that i
call it the father of all brushes
if you want to see that in action go
check out my other video on free brushes
and their use
i'll link it here that video did really
well by the way
you all seem to like it very much so
thank you so much for your appreciation
by the way if you haven't joined the
discord channel i'll put a link down in
the description for you
you can share your artwork and stuff
there i really enjoy looking at all of
your
artwork i also plan to do some paint
over videos in the future so make sure
you drop your entries and i might be
able to repaint your artwork there are
illustrations that i do for my freelance
clients
and commissioned work i can't post them
on youtube because
youtube is for videos right so i post
those artworks on instagram
if you haven't followed me there please
do you'll find so much exclusive content
there
alright so once i finished working on
the ship i moved on to the sky
i wanted the clouds to be a lot bigger
to kind of fill
the left side of my composition i also
wanted the whites of the clouds to show
behind the ship
it will make the ship's form re-better
after that
i refined the edges and i'll add some
highlights on the ship
mostly on our right side of those sails
the sails also look
very dark at the moment so i'll add a
lighter color at the bottom of them
after that
some more white splashes just underneath
the ship
and highlights on the water i added some
more splashes on those
rocks as well next it's time to work on
the big rock
on the front so i found a suitable
picture scaled it up
used the texture of the rocks within
that shape i painted i'll experiment
with it
move it around and see where it looks
good once i'm happy with it
i'll change some settings play around
with levels and color adjustments
to make it a bit darker and bluish so
that it fits better in the environment
then i thought i'd paint some highlights
maybe some greens at some of the places
on this big rock so yeah i'm doing that
the foreground looked too empty so i
painted some more rock shapes in the
foreground i
made them relatively darker i'll work on
it later but first
that distant pointy mountain doesn't
look very good to me it's too
distracting so
i just corrected that and then there are
some minor adjustments with the texture
of this front
rock i cut a little patch from that
photo and pasted it on top of the area
where it looked
weird and then corrected the brightness
and color temperature to
match everything i felt this rock lacked
shadows so i painted some darks where
needed i often use a soft
round brush with a low opacity to create
separation between things that are at
different distances
just like i did with these rocks it's a
really handy technique and helps a lot
in creating some atmospheric perspective
in your scenes
i also darkened the water just beneath
the big rock and painted some more
details on the water waves emerging from
the back of the ship
and now i'll be adding a photo texture
to the foreground rocks and match color
later on using levels saturation color
balance and brightness sliders i also
picked up some 3d trees from envato
elements
matched their lighting and color to our
artwork and put them on the foreground i
darkened the sky from the top left but
kept the clouds fairly lighter after
that i just made some quick little
adjustments here and there
and then i selected a light brownish
color set the layers blending mode to
color
dodge and painted highlights on
different areas mainly at the top edges
of the rocks
and even on the background lastly i
added some birds and made
minor adjustments overall i'm really
happy with the results
let me know what you guys think i hope
you learned something from this video
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i'd really appreciate that
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alright then i'll see you guys in the
next one take care