My project in Playful Animal Illustration with Photoshop course

For my project for this course, I knew I wanted to have a go at drawing some whales (I've been drawing a lot of birds recently, so needed a bit of a break!), and decided to draw different species of whales.

I've never even thought of using patterns as overlays within my work, so this was totally new to me. I had so much fun experimenting with this technique, though - possibly a bit too much, as I ended up using a lot of different patterns!

I tried to combine various patterns with different layer blend modes to create a range of textures and effects for each individual whale.

Then, using Gareth's advice, I used different brushes and layer masks to add more texture and contrast to the background.

Finally, I added in a small drop shadow as well as some highlights to the whales, and added some final adjustment layers. I studied photojournalism at university, so am used to using various adjustment layers, but bizarrely, it never even occurred to me to introduce this to my illustrations! I had a great deal of fun with the channel mixer options, especially.

With my final piece, I'm a little bit unsure as to how effective my use of patterns is - I worry I may have gone a little bit overboard, oops!

Overall, I had so much with this project. I have definitely learned a lot, and can't wait to experiment more with these techniques!