Nicholas Bouvier's "Confrontation" is another sci-fi piece, this an aptly titled combat image featuring two groups at the edge of battle in some sort of futuristic military/industrial installation. Intriguingly, Bouvier says he created the image without an initial sketch, prefering instead to begin with Photoshop's airbrush tool. "Thanks to the many effects that layers afford, an artist can skip a prepatory sketch, and try any number of things." While he notes that it wasn't easy to use learn how to use Photoshop from the outset of his designs, at this point he prefers doing so because it affords him instant gratification. What is so intriguing about this is that he demonstrates how he does it (in part through the use of a Wacom tablet) by simply creating a rough sketch of the preliminary shapes with the airbrush tool. As he adds additional layers, he still manages to create something of a watercolor or pastel effect. I found it fascinating to see in detail how he managed to create an effective composition largely through the addition of layers of subsequent detail, essentially treating the computer screen like a canvas and simply adding "paint" to achieve the look he desired.
Benjamin Carre's "Blanche" was a composition created for a volume of a graphic novel series called Vampire. Carre essentially took a base snapshot image of a real world location and converted it into an atmospheric, moody, futuristic world (I"m beginning to note a theme with the works here, but that's not bad: digital illustration frequently involves science fiction and fantasy, and the images here are all exceptionally well-rendered). Using a digital camera, he took a picture of an intriguing building in an industrial setting and then combining it with a number of collaged images culled from other photographs and some new elements as well to create the final product.
Judith Darmont's "Let's Laugh" is an impressionistic collage playing off the contrast between the title and the enigmatic Mona Lisa-like subject. Like Carre, she sketches the initial image on the computer using a graphic tablet. She starts with the Brush tol and a white background (Carre likewise uses a white background, but opts for the airbrush tool as a preliminary device, which results in a quite different final product). I liked her suggestion for adding light to an image:
When building an image, one moment I love is adding light. For this I use a trick. I create a new layer in Normal mode, which I put above all the others. This layer is black, with an opacity set to 80%, so my image almost completely disappears (though I can still make out the painting). Using the Eraser with the Airbrush setting, I gradually uncover the image, erasing the black layer little by little.
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