Artimancer

Recently I decided that I needed to do at least some minor daily art project for myself for the sake of my sanity. Something that’s completely independent of any work or project endeavors. After some of the conversation and feedback I’ve gotten in a thread elsewhere over the last few days, I decided that I would start today, doing something raw, with complete disclosure of the process. Here it is, staight and to the point, so that anyone can follow it step-by-step with a piece of theirs, if they choose. The changes are subtle in the latter 6 steps– I may swap the images out with larger, clickable, linked-image versions in the next day or so.

I started off in ArtRage on a 4"x6" 200ppi canvas:

1) 10min Grayscale speedpainting on first layer (not background). This was a mix of the roller, brush, and palette knife tools.
2) Duplicated original layer. Dropped original layer to 40% opacity. Turned duplicate into overlay layer.
3) Created layer under first layer to establish color underpainting, just roller and palette knife. Created layer on top of other layers to establish minor linework with brush.

Then I ported the painting to Photoshop.

4) Duplicated color underpainting layer (still below everything else). Ran it through the watercolor filter, shifted it to a multiply layer, and dropped it to 14% opacity.
5) Selected the whole image, copied it merged, and pasted it on top. Filtered with poster edges, and changed layer opacity to 42%.
6) Pasted same previously selected layer on top. Filtered it with paint daubs, changed layer opacity to 25%.

7) Pasted again. Filtered it with dark strokes, desaturated it, shifted to overlay layer, and dropped opacity to 20%. Erased selectively to start bringing more pop to the image.
8) Pasted again. Filtered it with accented edges. Dropped opacity to 46% Erased much more of the layer, selective, just leaving certain areas that I wanted highlighted.
9) Pasted again. Shifted to multiply layer at 46%. A bit more selective erasing to accentuate the depth.

Finish version:

(Click image for full size.)

Just under 2.5 hours, if that. 12 layers, counting the blank background and the signature layer.