Caricature Step 02 - Flats

This is the second step, the flats. (also, this didn't take me the 5 hours gap since I last posted, I went out! lol)

It's not much of an update for this image (it would look more impressive on a more detailed picture!) but it's an important step when colouring, as on a more detailed picture you can start to set the tone of the image.

Here's a brief idea of what's going on in Photoshop at this point, and why.

I have quite a few different layers in Photoshop set up, some people try to keep it to the least amount as possible, and although I often do too sometimes having several can be very useful, as it will give you greater control later on.
Naming them and keeping them in the right order is very important so you can keep track of what's going on.

From the top I have a layer named Hair, this is empty at the moment but will later contain.....Hair! This is at the top as the hair will need to be above the inks layer if it's any colour other than the colour of the inks, which is black.
Below is the Inks layer, usually with a scanned sketch this would be set to "Multiply" so that only the dark lines are visible, but as I have the inks with a transparent background this isn't needed and is left set at "Normal".
Below this is the Skin layer, which contains the skin colours, under both the Hair and Inks so it won't effect either of them when painting.
Below these are the Mouth, Eyes and Bow tie layers, in that order, all of these are below the Skin layer above for the same reason as the Skin being below the inks and Hair, if I want to paint just the teeth, or just the eyes, I won't have to worry about the brush going onto the flesh colour of his face and ruining it.
Below all of these is the background layer, which in this instance I will leave and worry about closer to the end of the painting.

At the moment it's also worth noting that the Skin, Mouth, Eyes and Bow Tie layers all have the transparency box locked, this means I can freely paint on each layer knowing that I'm safe and can't paint anywhere that isn't already painted on that layer.
So if I'm painting around his eyelids I won't have to worry about going over onto his eye itself, and the same thing of doing the lips and not going onto the teeth and gums.
Handy!

The next update will be a little more interesting image wise as I should have a lot of the actual painting of the skin texture done, as that's the third step....Texture!