Photoshop Value Study - Azazel

Recently I’ve decided that I need to get with the 20th 21st century (I’m only 11 years late!) and learn how to draw and paint using Photoshop.

Previously I have used Photoshop for “colouring in” with my Ratz cards, but creating a piece of artwork from start to finish has always been quite daunting. I could blame my archaic version of Photoshop or my small graphics tablet but in I think I am guilty of being a bit of a technophobe when it comes to laying aside my pencils and brushes and embracing pixels.

Well, they say the best way to beat a fear is to face it (although I’m sure that doesn’t count with spiders, Yuck!) so today with the help of the fantastic tutorials over at http://idrawgirls.blogspot.com/ I began my first ever start to finish Photoshop art project.

I chose to work on a value study as a starting point and in keeping with the sort of artwork done at “I Draw Girls” I chose my favourite character from the new X-Men: First Class movie, Azazel. The idea of this piece was to take a picture (in this case a promotional photo) and recreate it entirely within Photoshop using only shades of grey.

I’m quite happy with how it turned out, I started very basic and found it quite frustrating. I just couldn’t get the shades to go where I wanted them to but as I became more familiar and confident with the brushes and how the shades react together, I started to find the process enjoyable and completely lost track of time. The end result is still very loose and sketchy but as a first attempt for someone who can’t even draw a straight line in Photoshop (Yes, I’m sure there is a tool for that somewhere) I’m very happy with the effort and will definitely be trying this exercise again.