First produced image

Copying what Neal Adams produces is no easy task...

Getting ready to draw my own designs, I chose a Neal Adams image I liked and tried copying it. I believe by doing this it will help me to develop my skills at impersonating his style. Here is the outcome...


Stage 1:

 

On an A5 sketch pad, I sketched out the drawing completely in pencil. Once happy with it, I went over it in fine liner and black marker.

Stage 2:

Bringing the saturation down to 0 and using the Ctrl+L function in Photoshop, I altered the image so that everything drawn was completely black. Now the image was ready for colouring...



Stage 3:





































Changing the drawn image layer blend mode to 'Multiply' enabled me to create layers underneath the image to colour. This way you don't have to worry about going outside the lines. Four separate layers were used for the colouration of the suit, mask/gloves/cape, the skin and the belt. Now it was time for shading...


Final Image:

The image was brought to completion by adding a layer with an 'Overlay' blend mode over the top of all the coloured layers, but underneath the drawing. On this layer I used a medium grey for the shading, using different opacities for different strengths of shadow.
After the shading was done, I added another layer to draw the highlights on top, again using different opacities.
Once the image of Batman was complete, I added a gradient to the background to finalise the production.