This week’s post will be about mixing photography and digital art! I created this artwork in my Digital Illustration class using Photoshop about a year ago. My inspiration was Ben Rubin’s Subway Doodles, check them out!

To begin, I used a picture I captured in Venice, California to create this piece of art. This particular photo was taken outside of the Venice Beach Freak show. I had based my monster illustration on the monster on the red sign the man is leaning on. I also wanted a picture that had people in it so I could have them reacting to the monster. This photo was perfect because there were several people in it all looking in the same general direction.

Here’s an outline of my work process. I edited the lighting on the photo first in Photoshop and did several sketches of my monster. I wanted to create the octopus-like creature that was on the sign, but with a twist; he would have fur! I had several different layers of just fur texture I made using a small brush. I made sure all of the monster’s legs were accounted for, and made it look like he was engaging in conversation with the man he has his arm around. I think the most difficult part about creating this piece was creating the fur! It’s a little hard to see, but each individual piece of fur was drawn on in different shades of purple. Another difficult thing would have to be creating shadows on such a difficult texture such as fur. If I were to redo this piece or fix it up, I would create the shadows and gradients on the monster differently. I really enjoyed working in Photoshop, and I hope to do more of this type of art soon! I encourage anyone to take a picture or find a picture they captured, and allow your imagination to do the rest!