Twins 2
The dramatic lighting in this image comes from painting highlights on the figure in the direction of the imagined light source, then creating a background that unevenly reflects the light source, and then emphasizing those light areas as well as creating shadowy areas using the facilities of iColorama. Metabrush contributes to the texture.
I started with this sketch of mine, done with pen on paper. This was actually two 90-second sketches of the same model on the same piece of paper. I photographed the page and and cleaned it up and brightened it in iColorama using Adjust/Levels and Style/Flow at low opacity.
I opened the image in Paintstorm Studio, and on a new layer I painted over the figures with the Roller Brush 1. On another new layer I used the same brush to create a ground for the figures. I will keep the original sketch layer always as the top layer, and I changed its blend mode to Multiply, so that the other layers can be seen through it, but none of the other layers will obscure the sketch. I saved this image to my camera roll. Let's call it Image A, we will reuse it later.
On another new layer, I used the same brush to paint in some color.
On another new layer, I used the paint bucket tool to fill the layer with color. I dragged this layer to the bottom of the stack so that it would not obscure any of the other image elements on the other layers.
I created a layer mask for the fill layer, and I painted around the edges of the layer mask using the Roller Brush 1. This has the effect of erasing the contents of the fill layer wherever I painted on the layer mask.
On another new layer which I placed on top of the color layer but underneath the sketch layer, I painted some highlights and shadows with a camel hair brush. I used Image/Color Balance & Brightness to increase the brightness of this layer.
I created a new layer just beneath the sketch layer and above the highlights and shadows layer, and I painted some shadow areas of color using the Watercolor brush.
These are my layers. I saved to my camera roll. I also saved a psd file to iCloud, which preserves the layers, in case I want to return to it later.
I opened the image in iColorama and used Effect/Raise to emphasize the lines and brush strokes.
I opened the image in Metabrush, and on a duplicate layer I painted yellow in the center of the image around the figures using Paint mode, then I painted gray around the edge of the image, again in Paint mode. Then I created a new layer at the top of the layer stack, and I painted in Texture 1 mode and then Wets/Wet mode. This has the effect of smearing the image. In each of these steps, I painted with the Pen 1/19 brush. I saved this to my camera roll. Let's call this Image B.
I opened the Metabrush image in iColorama. Using Effect/Blend, I blended Image A on top of Image B in Difference mode, trying all the slider settings, including the sliders under Set.
I used Adjust/Levels to increase contrast, and Effect/Raise for emphasis. I used Effect/Light at medium opacity to pull out the highlights. This helps to lend some dramatic lighting to the image.
I used a preset under Texture/Leak at low opacity to add a lighting effect and change of hue. I used my fingers to resize and reposition the lighting effect where I wanted it. I applied the effect in Overlay mode.
I used Preset/Border preset 7 at high radius and medium opacity, to add some variable sketchiness to the background.
Finally, I applied Tone/B&W at low opacity to reduce the saturation of the image and increase the dark mood.
