Welcome To My Nightmare: My Painting Process

I am often asked many questions. The question I am asked the most is, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" The second one is "Is that your real hair?" The question I'm NEVER asked is "How do you paint such glorious pictures?" In response to that unasked question, I've decided to indulge and perhaps even enlighten my fans. . . Ah forget it! If anyone cares, here's a quick overview of my process.

I am working on a caricature of Alice Cooper and I'm using Photoshop. It isn't finished, so I cropped it for the tutorial. I start with my sketch, and make a full value drawing. Often I will start with a pencil sketch and scan it to my computer. But this time I went straight to the computer and sketched it there. Here's my original value sketch.  

After I finish my value sketch, I copy the layer, put on the bottom layer and lock it.  I keep it as a spare just in case I need it. Then on a new layer above the top sketch, I fill the canvas with one color.  Then I drop the opacity to 30-40 %.  I use this color to give an overall hue to the picture. I wanted to give him a cadaverish feel. So I chose a gaudy lime green, which is also the color of Alice Cooper's album, Billion Dollar Babies.

Using a soft brush, I block in my colors. I keep opacity down so I can see the underpainting.  One disadvantage to that, I can't pick colors from within the layer. So I have a color palette on another layer. As I lay dow the colors, they mix with the green background, like this. . . 

After I have all colors in, I flatten the color layer and the top value sketch.  Then I add a new layer at full opacity, and with hard and soft brushes, I start adding the details, and highlights.  

I'm definitely not finished with this.  The face is basically done, but I still have his clothing, and other details to finish. I am not a teacher, and I have probably left steps out. Some things are automatic to me, and I don't think about it. So if you have any questions, feel free and ask me. I'll be glad to answer them.

Thanks for looking, 

- Kyle