Take one look at my Adobe Stock portfolio and you’ll see that I love to create animals in human clothes. In the following series of screen-capture videos (no sound), I demonstrate how I transform several hand-drawn, monochrome elements—a dog’s head and human clothes and accessories—into one cohesive colored illustration.

PART ONE: THE DOG'S HEAD

In the above videos, I begin by opening my drawing of a Great Dane’s head in Adobe Photoshop CC. I change levels and adjust the color balance, hue, saturation, brightness, and contrast. I also brush on color in another layer to add a little depth. I combine those layers and repeat the process several times, slowly building up from the hand-drawn sketch to something with more complexity.

PART TWO: THE HUMAN CLOTHING

Using similar techniques, I add my drawings of a scarf and jacket and give them color and more shadows and highlights.

PART THREE: THE BACKPACK STRAPS

I add dog-collar-inspired backpack straps in one video, and then refine them in another video.

PART 4: FINE-TUNING

In the first video above, I finesse the scarf’s highlights and shadows. In the second, I add a subtle shadow to the head.

For more of my work, check out this Adobe Stock portfolio.

June 18, 2018