Work in progress

For this post, I thought I would do something a bit different. I'm working on a new illustration right now. It's quite large as it will be for an exhibit backdrop. So I'm working at a fairly low resolution, but the file size is still pushing 1 Gb. The final image has two main components to it. This first one is what I usually do, a crazy piece of machinery. It cuts threads into metal pipe. I'm sure you always wondered how that worked, right? Well, here is a very early stage in the process.

You can see parts that look blank and parts that are textured and painted. Because these are hard-edged, geometrical shapes, I use Photoshop's vector Shape tools to build them, then use those layers as clipping masks for the painted textures on layers above to make it look realistic. To save myself time, I try to take advantage of layer styles like drop shadow, glows, bevel and emboss, inner shadow, gradient overlay, and so on to add realistic effects to the shapes. This helps, but can only go so far, so hand painting is usually needed. But they both work together for a nice effect.

The face of this machine is a big, thick metal tube. It is obviously round, but since this is a perspective view, you see it foreshortened. It is hard to work in perspective and get things right, especially if you are dealing with circles. That's why parts like this are created head on with no perspective. I turn that part into a smart object with as many layers as I need to get the desired effect, then transform it into place in the main PSD. That way, I can go back and fine tune the perspective (done with Skew and Distort) and also work on the original smart object, then update the final result. Here is what the flat, untransformed image in the smart object looks like. You may notice that the bottom right quarter looks unfinished. That's because it is. It will be covered up the the pipe pieces that hold it in place. No need to do more work than you have to.

I hope you like it so far. Stay tuned for more progress.