Part 2: Peaks, Valleys and Rainforests(Rainforests not included)
Before we continue, in the layers window, hide the layer with Natasha in it. (Which I've only justnow named something more appropriate than "Layer 1". Like many others, I really suck at naming layersupon creation.) You don't have to do so, but I think it helps to see the whole of the cape you'retrying to make.
Now, let's add some flow to the cape. But before we start: here's some boring science. The waya cape flows depends on the way it's pinned up. That doesn't make sense? Okay, here's a quickdiagram:
The white lines are the top of the cape, the part that goes over the character's shoulders andis tied together to, y'know, hold the cape in place so it doesn't fall off. This produces twovertices on the shoulder from which the cape flows. The black lines indicate how the cape wouldflow from these two points.
Now, do you absolutely have to pay attention to this stuff? Probably not. In this case, the capeis mostly going to be covered in the final version of the image, so whether the way it flowsfollows the laws of physics may be immaterial... sorry, bad pun. But if you were doing a pic ofa character from behind (as in thispic by darthbakpao) then you'd want to get the flow right. Just, uh, please don't notice thefact that his cape is about a million times better than mine will end up being. Please!
Anyway, let's leave the science behind now. Choose the burn tool with whatever settings catchyour fancy (I had a diameter of 30, the range set to midtones, and a strength of 60%, but that'sjust me) and make some dark streaks in the cape, roughly following the flow outlined above.Switch to the dodge tool (I used the same settings as for the burn tool, but youdon't have to) and paint in some lighter streaks between the darker ones.Here's what we have so far:
See, I told you darthbakpao's cape was better than mine! Buthey, that looks sort of like flowing fabric! Cool, no? But unfortunately, the shape of the bottomedge of the cape doesn't actually match its flow. Y'see, the brighter areas are peaks (bulgingin towards us) and the darker areas are valleys (bulging out away from us), and the shape of thecape needs to make note of that. If that doesn't make a lick of sense, here's a diagram (yes, I'mgonna go into too much detail again... feel free to skip):
Let's say the wavy black line is a solid wall seen from the top. You, the innocent bystander,are the arrow, and are standing on the light source. The blue circled areas (peaks)are bulging out towards you, and thus closerto the light, and thus are brighter. The red circled areas (valleys) are bulging out away fromyou and the light, and are thus darker. And here's the thing: if you take a photograph from thefront (Where Mr. Innocent Bystander McArrow is), the blue areas on the wall would be a bit loweron that photo, since they're closer to you; while the red areas would be a bit higher up on thephoto, since they're further. So, for realism, we have to duplicate that on our cape.
Let's make a new path:
As you can see, the flow of the new path follows the flow of the cape, as I've described it abovein the paragraphs around the crappy line drawing. The top of this path will be the new bottom edgeof the cape. You'll note that there's some areas that, according to this curve, should be part ofthe cape but which are currently blank. Don't worry about that, it will be dealt with. (No, notlike in Pulp Fiction. Yeesh!). If you want, you can just keep the curve entirely within the capeyou've already created, but fixing this is a piece of cake. (Mmmm, cake.)
Right-click on the canvas to bring up the paths menu, and choose make selection. Deletethe extraneous parts of the valleys (the dark areas) that extend below where we want the edge of the cape.Next, invert the selection so we can add those missing bits of the cape. Smudge the peaks ofthe cape (the light areas) down to fill out the new edge:
Cool, huh? Unfortunately, if your cape ended up anything like mine, the contrast (ie,the difference in the brightness) between the peaks and the valleys is nowhere near sharpenough. So, let's sharpen the contrast.
(If you're less stingy than I am with the Dodge and Burn tools, BTW, the contrast may be fine.Turn on the layer with Natasha in it and see whether with her in the pic, the cape looks tooflat. If it looks 3D enough, then you're fine and don't need to adjust the contrast.)
There's several ways to go about this. As usual. I tend to use two in tandem, and that's whatI'll show you. (You lucky people, you!)
First, go back to the dodge and burn tools. Using a smaller brush (I used a 20pixel diameter) set to shadows at a lower strength (I used 20%), burn theinnermost parts of the valleys a bit more, then use the dodge tool at similar settingsto dodge the outermost parts of the peaks.You should end up with something like this:
Now, remember how I said I used two things in tandem to correct the contrast? Here's thesecond: curves. And for once, we're using them for what the designers intended, not for metal!(Will wonders never cease?) Go to the curves dialog box, and make something like this:
Here's how curves work, for those who've never used them for anything other than metal. (Whichmay be a quite a few people...) A diagonal line from the bottom left corner straight up to thetop right corner is the default. The horizontal axis (with the little white and black triangleson it) is your current shadows, midtones and highlights. The vertical axis is how your curveadjusts these. If you pull down the curve at a certain spot, you darken the parts of thelayer you're working on that have that level of contrast. If you pull the curve up, you lightenthem. So with the above curve, I'm slightly darkening the shadows and brightening thehighlights.
Apply the curve then turn on the Natasha layer and eyeball the cape, see whether you like the wayit looks in the pic. Ummm... I didn't, as it happens. :) So I changed it a bit more, dodgingthe highlights with an even smaller brush, burning the shadows, smudging a bit,playing around with curves some more...I'm not going to go into detail, because whether or not you think a cape works is entirelysubjective, and what you have to do to fix it is always unique. If you don't immediately likeyour cape, then you basically need to fine tune it by repeating the above steps until you dolike it. So, dodge the highlights some more, the shadows, use curves toadjust the contrast as necessary (sometime, you overdo it the first time and need to brighten theshadows and/or darken the highlights a bit)... eventually, you'll get something you're happy with.
Why, you ask, didn't I just make sure I got something I liked the first time out, and spare you allthis guff about endless minute corrections? Because if you're anything like me as an artist, youwill never, ever be happy with the first cape you make for a character. You'll always see somethingthat needs correcting, and you'll usually have to play around with these last few steps severaltimes over before you're satsified. And you need to know in advance that that'll often happen.
Anyway, pardon my rambling... let's continue. Let's put Natasha back in the picture to seehow the cape looks in context. Here's what I ended up with:
What next? Turn the page to find out...
Or, okay, maybe just click the "Next" link below.
Yeah, this one: Next.
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