Surgery Illustration Process

I thought I’d show my working process in photoshop, starting with drawing and going toward finished illustration!

This portrays the pulling/dissecting up of the gallbaldder from the liver bed.  It’s actually kind of a bloody mess; it’s not like the gallbladder just sits and hangs out by the liver, it becomes tightly invested in it via connective tissue and small vessels.

The checked background is the default background in photoshop, letting you know what’s transparent and what’s not.  I’d probably leave that out next time.

The original drawing, scanned and masked
Initial masking and tonal development

More finessing of tonal base and vignetting
even more tonal finessing
Rough color study - see the blood?
Refined color choices and flat masking
The final - more vignetting, adjustment of tone, and more color variation, and highlights.

It needed to be clear that it’s not the prettiest thing to happen in the body, but didn’t want to get gory.  The final looks rather watercolorish in some respects.

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