Origin — Cover Artwork
Africa is continent of amazing biological and cultural diversity. This is a commission for a Cover Art for a magazine of articles and poems written about the African continent and its diversity. I was given the task of painting the cover of this magazine to emphasize this concept. This Digital Artwork is made on Procreate and then edited on Adobe Photoshop.
As a result I came up with this idea of painting a tribal face merged with the outline of this continent, which coincidentally matched the profile of a side face.
To start, I started adding solid colors using ‘Oriental Brush’ on Procreate, and chose a few base colors of my palette which included -
Brown for the base color of the facial outline
Magenta for the top right corner light source
Blue for the ocean outline to distinguish the continent shape
Next, I started adding different shades of these same colors to add depth and make prominent edges for each part. I assumed the light source direction is from Top Right corner as shown below.
I added textures of Green to start adding effects of the topography of the continent. It was also important to keep adding colors to bring out the facial features, like the lips and eyes and nose, simultaneously.
I added a dark outline for the shoulder with a similar shade of blue so that it seems a part of the ocean.
At this point, none of the colors are mixed together, just blocking the canvas areas.
Started adding smaller details with the same Oriental Brush.
The right edge of the continent was made darker to create a subtle difference between the face and the continent.
It is very important to understand where to stop being deliberate and let the colors match a bit. Otherwise the painting looks like an amateur collage of colors.
Started adding the darkest tones for the eyelids and lips.
Notice how a dark blue line decides the outline of the back of the head. Even without making details you can add these subtle features to preserve both the shapes of a face and a continent.
Adding the Breaks in the facial features using the outline of the Ocean.
I kept the balance between the two shapes to not let them look unattached.
Also adding the darker shades on the nose and the hair ribbons.
Adding high brightness tones of colors on the forehead to emphasize the light source and also a diffused backlight reflection using Blue.
Adding final touches and the tribal face paint to finish the artwork!
Importing the artwork on Adobe Photoshop to create the final magazine cover with added text.
Using a BOLD font for the heading, a medium font for introduction and thin font for footer.
I also decided to add a dark shade of gradient on the top and bottom of the art to emphasize the text in white.
Finally, below is the Cover Art!
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