In this tutorial I will show you how we made the figure on the left. This illustration was one of 100 historically accurate uniforms of the Russian Army and Civil Services of Imperial Russia during WWI & the Russian Revolution. To do this project three things are essential: 1) A Computer, 2) a Scanner, 3) a graphics creation program that supports layers. (Photoshop & Paint Shop Pro are excellent candidates). I will be using Photoshop, but the principles are essentially the same. Click on the thumbnail of the finished product (at left) to see a larger version. If you have a 56k modem, give the page a couple of minutes to load, as it is graphics rich. SAVE OFTEN!
[CLICK HERE] to see other period uniforms of the Republik of Vostok.

This is the cabinet photo that was used as a reference. It has been scanned at 200dpi and imported into Photoshop. Aside from being in black and white, the photo is in rough shape, and the details are unclear. It is our job to remedy those shortcomings.

We duplicated the layer, and began by increasing the contrast in spots to pick out the details. We also lightened the overall photo as the shadows hid many of the details as well. Since we were working on a copy, we aren't too concerned about going too far. Using the Lasso Tool & Erasure, we cut away the background completely. Create a new layer, and draw over the top of the photo using the Brush Tool set at 3px, Hardness 0%. Draw as much detail as you feel comfortable with.

After making the two reference layers invisible, this is the line drawing layer. Notice we did not draw in the face, as this will be worked on separately. Reactivate the original reference layer, and using the Lasso Tool, select the face. Copy, go to File/New and Paste in the face on a separate canvas. The face should be fairly large, as you scanned it in at 200dpi. Create a new layer and start blocking in the flesh tones using the contours of the underlying photo as a guide. This part is largely a matter of trial and error, but be patient.

The colors are then blended using the Smudge Tool, and by Lassoing sections, going to Filter/Blur/Gaussian Blur. When it somewhat resembles a face, change the Blending Mode to Darken or Multiply. The face should pop right out at you. You can blend the areas further by smudging, or thin the color by using the Erasure Tool using one of the soft edge brushes with the opacity set at 14%. Work the color until you are satisfied with the result. Essentially you are hand coloring the photo like they used to do "back in the day", using modern tools. Copy/Paste the face back into your figure. If you left the lasso tool activated it will drop right into where you removed it. Keep the face on its own layer for the duration of this project.

Using the same techniques as described above, we have painted in the jacket. Make sure to keep your line drawing, face and each completed area of your figure on a separate layer do not merge them till we are nearly done. One more thing...SAVE OFTEN.

The breeches and boots have been completed. Notice the color of the breeches is different than the finished figure, the product of incomplete references, that we rectified after the fact.

Now the figure is almost completed. The hat, kit, and sword have all been filled in. The hands are still incomplete because we could not tell weather or not the Corporal was wearing gloves when he had his picture taken. We opted for "no gloves" later on. The insignia, hands, misc. shadows and highlights as well as the aforementioned change of pants are all that needs to be done.

This is the finished Corporal. Oops! Wrong color drawers! Luckily there was not a lot of detail in this section of the graphic. Using the lasso Tool, we carefully drew around the pants and created a new color fill layer in the correct color. Switching the Blending Mode to Color in the Blending Mode Palette corrected the pant color. Now you can make your own paintings from photographs...the BoltCutter way! A face painting tutorial is next. Enjoy! Regards, Bolt Cutter