Lesson #11: How to draw a Zombie

Preparation.
Open the black and white photograph of a person and duplicate the layer. Call it "face". Make the layer with white backgrounds. Create a new layer and name it "jaw". It should look as follows:


Bring the image into a RGB format [Image> Mode> RGB Color]. Photography was still black and white, but we have an opportunity to change that. Go to [Image> Adjust> Color Balance] and set the value as indicated below:
Highlights: color levels +20 0 -15
Midtones: color levels +25 0 -25
Shadows: color levels 0 +15 -20

Shadows
Now, when she became a greenish color, we impose the shadows with burn tool: to set the exposure at 15% and burn the shadows around the eyes like this, as indicated below (right eye).



Select the airbrush and use the "color mode" on the gray shadows beyond the eyes. When you are finished it should look like (right eye):



Do the same on the chin and near the mouth to make it more gaunt appearance.



Larger image of the processed mouth...



Eyes
Well ... Now do the zombie look. First, fill the shell of the eye with white color, then make a little dot in the middle. Now, using the dodge tool make the eyes flame out. You can experiment with airbrush in "color mode". I used the red color in the left and right corner of the eye.



Clotted blood and flesh!
Well - we finished only the simplest part of the work. Now it is the time for the flesh. First make a large hole in the rotten jaws. Make a hole in the layer of "face". Dark-red small brush would be the best to create the effect of rotting meat. Use eraser to create a transparent hole. It is time to search a picture of a skull and cut him from the jaws of the image. If the newly cut layer is in color - translate it into black and white. That's about it should look like:





Go to [Image> Adjust> Color Balance] and to set the values as indicated below:
Highlights: color levels +10 0 -10
Midtones: color levels +10 0 -15
Shadows: color levels 0 0 -10

Now all this looks a little bit flat - we will try to fix it.



To create shadows, use the burn tool around the edges of the cutout.



It is time to do really terrible things. To do this you will need an airbrush with the size of 1 pixel. Use a dark red color and dark yellow/brown, but first you need to switch to a layer "face". Experimenting with fibers and pieces of flesh give the hole as septic appearance as possible. Try to zoom the picture to work best with the details, then try copying technique. Now use the burn tool and make some shadows on the right / bottom side of the hole in his cheek - so you can give it greater depth and expressiveness.
Finally, take the airbrush in the "color mode" and gives the gums dark red hue:







Scars
Let's make a small scar above her eye. First, make a small shadow:



Then make a scar deeper, adding a blood-red



Now make a shadow on the sides so that the scar seemed to be contracted.



Rotting Skin
This is the final step - to make your skin look putrid. First, add a little color, using a large diameter airbrush in "color mode". I used a greenish-red and violet.




Take the burn tool and create a set of uneven lines on his face as given below:



That's all! It would not hurt to work on small details to complete the masterpiece, but I think you can do it yourself ;)


Also, you can check out my friend website about Beltronics Radar Detectors. There are a lot of useful info here.

Photoshop Lesson #6: How to draw a realistic hair

Step 1. Start from choosing the hair color. I take a slightly cold color. Then I start adding warm colors as lights and shadows and mix them to get natural-looking curl. In this tutorial I show you only the basics so I will draw only a few curls.

Step 2. Black lines are used to create a sense of streaming curl. The lines should be soft to look natural.

Step 3. From now I start adding more colors. With the help of warm hues I lighten up the curl. Then I start adding basic shadows.


Step 4. I continue to work with the colors of the hair. There are a lot of different reflections, a myriad of different hues of the same color.

Step 5. To that moment I used only an airbrush tool and a hard brush. Now it is time to use tools with soft edges. So I choose the smudge tool and the soft brush of large size and start to blur the lines. As you can see on the picture, sometimes I mix up the hair in one heavy curl. Finally I remove the layer with the sketch that was made in the step #2.
Step 6. I blur the edges slowly making them soft. Then I begin to create "streaming flow" of hair with the help of transition colors.


Step 7. I am working with the structure of hair. To get rid of feeling of heavy and unnatural hair, I take a soft brush and airbrush tool and start drawing soft, but quite large lines passing through the curls. Before drawing the line I take an eyedropper tool and take the color from the curl.

Step 8. Using the smudge tool I stretch the lines that were drawn in the step #7. Then I use the airbrush tool to make more accurate change in colors.


Step 9. Finally, I check whether separate curls are visible. Using smudge brush with the small size, I work with the almost every separate hair to create a feeling of realistic hair.