This life-drawing is not mine! The artist is: [link]

If you'd like to see the original deviation check it out here: [link]

In his description Kuritarou said he had taken the original sketch and thrown some color and shadow onto the piece to give it some life. I loved the sketch, however I thought I'd demostrate how you can take the darkest value and the lightest value and with some creative manipulation in photoshop using the dodge and burn tool and a little screened gradient you can have a piece that's worthy of a fantasy art print or a creepy book cover.

I think as artists we all need to strive to make pieces have more life, (I know I need to work on this myself a lot of the time). However, I think we don't want to cover up our initial idea, design, drawing, whatever by pushing our values and letting the value tell the story instead of how neat the eyes look or how cool some guys armor/gun looks. Anyways, that's my 2 cents!

Enjoy!

Thanks for letting me demostrate a lighting tutorial with your piece Kuritarou! LOVE THE PIECE MAN! The anatomy and form are spot on!