Kali Ciesemier

meniodd asked: Hi, I got to say that i love your work! :-) and your process shots as well. I've seen that you always star with a black & white sketch, it seems it is very important to you. What's its function and what do you do with that sketch once you got it?

Hey, thank you! I start with a B&W sketch so I can work out the tonal values of the image first and make sure they look good. Areas of high contrast draw the eye, so I like to make sure my focal points stand out correctly. Then it’s easy to use Photoshop adjustments or adjustment layers (like curves, hue/saturation, etc.) to colorize everything and still retain about the same contrast & tones. Sometimes it’s easier to just color things directly, but when I’m working with tricky lighting or a complicated image I’ve found that it’s more efficient for me to separate the tonal step from the color step. (if you end up using the hue/saturation adjustment, just make sure you click the “colorize” box, otherwise it won’t affect straight grays!) I’ll be talking more about the importance of tonal values whenever I get around to putting up my color lesson!