[ How I work - Clockwork Scorpion]

Unlike many of the other pieces in this series, I didn't spend half a year doing thumbnails while working on other projects. This was done in a relatively short period of time. I spent somewhere in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 hours total on this, over a period of about 3 weeks.

I knew that I was going to have a scorpion and a case, so I did some research. I went to websites that had images of scorpion anatomy, as well as old medical equipment from the late 1800's to early 1900's. These are a few of the images that I found. Unfortunately I don't have addresses of the sites where I found these (D'Oh!).

Step #1
At this point I started drawing thumbnails. As you can see, these aren't high art. They're just a way of getting my ideas onto paper for future use.
Step #2
Here's the final thumbnail that I based the entire piece on. The body and needle both made it into the final illustration.
Step #3
I began blocking in each section of the body. I blocked it he legs as well. This part is by far the most tedious, because it's almost exclusively pen tooling, creating new layers, and naming them.
Step #4
Here I stated airbrushing to separate the individual sections. This is the most basic form of airbrushing, because I'm not working from a serious light source; I'm simply trying to define shape.
Step #5
I begin adding more parts to the piece.
Step #6
This is where I take the smaller details and begin to develop them. The tail begins as 3 sections that I draw: the top, links, and end. The needle is given details and basic shading as well. I took great care to make each part look as if it could really work.
Step #7
This is where I join all the sections together. I block out the legs so that I can see if everything is the right proportions. At this point the needle section at the end of the tail was much larger than it needed to be. This was taken care of later.
Step #8
I return back to the original sketch yet again to layout the vial and clasp that keeps in held in place. Duplicates of the bottle will be used elsewhere in the piece later on. It's important to save all of these smaller pieces to their individual files, otherwise the piece would be immense in size.
Step #9
This is the vial, clasp, and hookup blended with the rest of the image.
Step #10
Here I've made a small contrast adjustment, and made the needle assembly much smaller than it was.
Step #11
It's time to move onto the environment that the subject fits into. This is going to be a wooden case with felt lining. There will be several indentations that objects will fit into. For me, one of the most important things in all of these pieces is to make the objects look like they actually work. For this case that means latches, hinges, a lock, etc.
Step #12
I've flattened the scorpion and moved it onto a layer above the case. The original file remains in tact. The case is a new file that will eventually become the finished piece.
Step #13
With a lot of shading and highlighting any flat surface can look 3-dimensional. I made selections for each of the objects that I planned to put in. I also drew a key in Photoshop, and airbrushed it.
Step #14
I began to draw out the individual pieces that would make their way to the box. This included some extra needles. I would later draw several other ends that could be fit to the scorpions tail.
I needed a tourniquet, so I scanned an old Firewire cable for reference, and used it as a template for my drawing.
Step #15
I brought all of the individual elements together. Notice how there's very little shading to bring it all together.
Step #16
Here I did a lot more airbrushing to make each new object look as if it's actually sitting in the case.
Step #17
I wanted some smaller details like a plaque. This is the one I created. The Japanese Kanji is correct, and means something (I'm not telling though). :)
Step #18
A wood background was what I had always intended the case to be against. I found a great tutorial on the web and followed the steps until I got what you see here. I then took that and went further with a lot of adjustments and burning/dodging.
Step #19
Here I muted the colors. The adjustments left the image dark and green.
I adjusted the entire image to be warmer and lighter.
Step #20
I needed a latch and lock. I went to the web for lock reference, and drew the latch and lock from scratch in Photoshop
Finished Piece
Here is the finished piece. The final image is about 25 inches wide at 300 PPI. I hope that you enjoyed seeing my creative process!
 
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