The Last of Us - Fan Art

Study of the colors and stylization work of a frame from the tv series The Last Of Us. I personally loved this first season! A very captivating atmosphere, with episodes that can sometimes be very touching or very violent. I highly recommend !
Here I'll try to breakdown my process for creating this piece.

I usually start by gathering some references. As I only wanted to redraw what's visible in the screenshot, I just needed a few extra reference to have a better understanding of for the characters face from different angles.

Here's the sketch. I try to focus on capturing the essences of the characters expressions et shapes. I didn't sketch out the background as I know I'll blur it anyway so it will be a big blob of blurry color splashes at the painting stage.

Then I lay down the color flats with some lines where I want extra details. I wanted to go for a no lineart style but you always need some defining lines to give a sense of volume. It kinda act as the ambiant occlusion, when 2 planes touches.
I start with a layer where i define the whole silhouette with the skin color, then I add on top extra layers clipped to the silhouette for each group of elements, starting with what's closest to the skin (face feature, hair, clothes, props, etc.)

Then I add an extra layer mask set to Multiply mode to add the shadows. I used shades of a pastel purple (#7f7f9c). I start with big hard edge shapes then I use the smudge tool to soft the area where the light to shadow transition need to be smooth, on rounded areas.

New layer on top to give a warmer feel to the whole colors. The layer is set to Overlay mode and is filled with a light orangy-brown (#ac6d3d). I reduced the opacity to around 30%

You know when you put a flashlight behind your fingers and the edges are all red? That's what subsurface scattering is. So to give more life to the skin, I added some red-orange (#db492e) with a soft brush, low opacity on the edges of the shadows on a new layer set to Hard Light mode.

Subtle but I noticed some greenish bounce light on the reference picture. You can see it on the left side of the characters neck and jaw bones. So I added a layer set to Add (Linear Dodge) mode and paint with a soft brush with a very dark green (#001000).

The artists favorite: Rim light! New layer set to Add (Linear Dodge) mode with a Dark navy blue (#1e313e)

Then I add the specular lights to give some reflections and more volume. New layer set to Screen Mode. I painted with shades of a dark camo green (#1e313e). I know it seems weird to paint light with a dark color but when it comes to specular lights, you have to be very subtle and the Screen mode allows you to work with dark value to gradually add light (if that makes any sense).

Nothing fancy here, I just try my best to somehow recreate the background with flat shapes and the I blurred it all with a gaussian blur. Little advice: don't color pick, it's a good exercice to eyeball the color of your reference and match it as close as you can when painting. I used to suck at colors and that helped me a lot!

When I'm happy with the piece, I flatten it and add extra effects to make some change to the overall colors and contrast. I start with playing with the Color Balance. for this piece I added some blue in the shadows, some orange in the midtones and yellow for the highlights. I then use the curves adjustement to add some more contrast. After that, I add some chromatic aberrations (blue and red lines on the edges) to give a sense of realism, as it was shot with a camera. I end with a layer set to Overlay mode filled with neutral grey (#808080), add a noise effect and lower the opacity to around 15%

Thank you for reading, I hope you like it!