“Cranium Collection”

This was a big change for me. This is my first shot at painting using the new Photoshop CS5 and its dynamic painting brushes, called the Mixer Brushes. They are a HUGE difference over the old brushes as they can actually mix colors together as you would in the real world and they can simulate the look of traditional media pretty well.

Another thing I have tried for the first time here was that this is a 3D “paint over”. I had set up some low-poly skulls in a scene, arranging them how I wanted along with frame composition, then after rendering that simple scene out, I brought it into Photoshop CS5 and painted over it, using the 3D render as way to have it all blocked out in advance. It’s a faster way to experiment with composition before committing to painting in addition to having zero problems with perspective. You can see a short workflow example below.