Miltonholmes

Art Explained: Pooltoy Lighting

Added 2023-06-24 18:47:37 +0000 UTC

It's been a while but I was having a lot of fun thinking about the lighting for this pooltoy piece and I wanted to share what I did :)

I've not explained the background or the shading of the handles in Step 2 - trust me that there's nothing special there, just the usual airbrushing!

In Steps 3 and 4 I use Blending Modes to modify the layer beneath - with Multiply a light beige darkens any colour it's over, allowing me to shade the complex texture of our deer gal in one go. Likewise Add (Glow) brightens the layer beneath, so we get a uniform shine!

The real beauty of Blending Modes is that I can change the colour layer entirely and the shading still applies! (See the second image for a green gummy pooltoy)

Additionally in Step 5 I've added an ambient glow that 'reflects' the beach and sky around the subject - the rougher a surface the more diffuse and subtle this would be, but our pooltoy friend is pretty shiny!

I'm still working on my water droplet technique (normally used in Sweaty alts...) but here in Step 7 they tend to be two layers: 1) the white shine of the drops themselves, and any particularly thick trails and 2) a Multiply layer that adds a subtle darkness on the path of the drop.