environments As you can see, the pasted photograph looks good but we don’t yet have the quality that we need. Remember that we are using this photograph only as a base from which to paint our own clouds. Now create another layer and change the blend mode of it to Overlay, and set it to 80% Opacity; select a gray color and start painting your own clouds. (Note: Don’t use white in Overlay blend mode for the clouds because the white color will burn the image below, and we don’t want a shiny cloud; we need a matte brown one.) So, paint the highlights using gray on your sandstorm cloud, and then – with black or a dark gray color – start painting in some shadows. Play around with the opacity of your brush to achieve some interesting shapes. Tip: If you use the numbers
Fig.05
on your keyboard whilst painting then you can
needs more light and shading work, don’t you
paint using a high opacity brush – always use
quickly and easily change the opacity of your
think? Check the bottom of the cloud: it doesn’t
50% or less when painting clouds or smooth
brush – try it! This short cut is very helpful.
have a great amount of shadows at the base,
surfaces.)
and so to fix this simply create a new layer in Let’s now go back to our cloud to smooth
Multiply blend mode, and paint using a brown
The shadows are okay now, so let’s start work
the edges. For this you can either use the
color at the base of your cloud. When done,
on the highlights. Repeat the same procedure
Smudge tool (R) or paint several strokes using
change the Opacity of the layer to around 40%.
that we used for the shadows: create a
a low opacity brush (I always use the latter
Now create another layer in Overlay blend
new layer in Overlay mode and paint in the
technique). When you finish you should have
mode, and paint with a big soft brush at the
highlights using gray. Try to follow the direction
an image such as Fig.06. It looks good but it
bottom of the cloud. (Note: Remember not to
of the clouds to create volume (Fig.07). The
Fig.06
Chapter 06
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