Flying The Coop

This is for my friends on YouTube who continue to send me kind letters asking what my work process is.

This picture started out as a doodle in my sketchbook. I scanned it into Photoshop, (CS6), made it a multiply layer and began blocking in color on a normal layer underneath. When I get the mid and darker values established, I create a normal layer above the line art and put in the lighter values. At the very end I add just a little black line but not too much… too much black will kill the picture. I merge all the layers together, then create a green layer underneath the art. I erase everything I dont want on the art. As I do this, the green layer underneath helps me to see what I am doing. My image is cut out and now I need a background. I type into Google “blue sky” and find some clouds which I drop into the background. I add just a bit of glow around my figure to separate him from the background and I’m done.

5 Comments on “Flying The Coop”

mark cotnam
September 19, 2012

I love seeing your process, how you pick your colors and high-lights, backgounds, etc. Just fascinating. Thanks for sharing.

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Zeb
September 20, 2012

Great work, Dennis…as always!

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jeff
September 26, 2012

Both are classic DJ images. The blue bird has a ton of page time in your Bible illustrations, and the pilot turned up on a hockey jersey along time ago. Great ideas just get better with time.

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- Dennis
  September 26, 2012
  
  Jeff, I didn’t even see that. I was just drawing a character with a bucket mouth and a bushy mustache, but you are exactly right. The little fellow riding the bird is exactly the little fellow we had on the Rangers hockey jerseys way back when! ha!
  
  Reply
jeff
September 26, 2012

Maybe his brother Clovis, they were twins ya know.

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