Medusa

So The next word to illustrate is Myth. So, I was debating on what I should illustrate for a while and in the end I finally decided that I would draw Medusa. As a twist I want to portray her not as a monster but as a woman. So I started out with some thumbnails.

I decided to go with the second thumbnail. So I went ahed and re drew medusa on marker paper and started colouring her in.

I finished colouring in Medusa, in marker and than I started adding some basic shading.

I went in and shaded her further with marker by adding in some darker green to her snakes and layering  colours.

After I finished shading i went in and inked her with a pen using heavier strokes where there are shadows and where she is touching the ground.

After I was done drawing Medusa I went online and found some stalactite photos and a cave floor photos. Than I used the selection tool in Photoshop Cs5.5 and I put them both in one file on a black background in Photoshop.

Afterwards I used the quick selection tool to cut and copy pieces of the cave floor in order to make the back wall, and i put it behind the stalactites. Afterwards I copied the selection of the stalactites and made them black than set the layer to overlay to add more contrast.

Afterwards I Added a dark green fill layer and set it to overlay in order to bring some colour to the background. And than i used an artistic dry brush filter to make it look like it was painted and not drawn and i set the layer to Luminosity.

I brought in my drawing of Medusa and I added some highlights with the pen tool by making a path and turning it into a brush stroke. I also added a drop shadow to make her look like she is standing in the cave.

In the next step I added 2 new layers. In the first layer I added another artistic watercolour paint filter and set the layer to darken in order to darken her. On the second layer I added a grain effect and I set it to lighten to show more of the values I had drawn before.

In this step I went online and found a snake shin texture than i loaded it in Photoshop and I used a mask to added into Medusa's tail and hair and I set the layer to soft light.

In this step I used a gradient overlay on Medusa in order to add some light and shadow to her figure. I masked the gradient layer with Medusa's shape to keep it from getting into the background.

Finally To finish I added a light source with a gradient in the top corner and that was my finished artwork.