Nubian High Priestess

Nubian High Priestess, continued
Page 3

Stage 4:
Her Highness
gets a hairdo

I copied the braid onto its own layer within the painting file, and meticulously assembled braids, copying braid layers, linking and merging the many accumulating layers as I went along. On each braid layer, I deleted the bottom of each braid so it aligned with the yellow area I had previously filled in to be the background for her yet-to-be-created bejeweled braid ferules. The sides and top of her hairdo took the same size braid; I would need to shrink the width of each braid (with the Transform option) and reduce the highlights to assemble the back and underneath braids, giving the illusion of depth, distance, and shadow. As a finishing touch, I carefully edited the back braids and moved the back-braid layer behind the front-braid layer until her hair looked as realistic and elegant as I could get it.

Stage 5:
A golden yoke

I created the collar in sections assembled over the solid yellow collar mat. I made a single collar division on another layer (by selecting and copying a vertical rectangle), and simply smudged in highlights and shadows, and applied an inner bevel to impart a thick metallic appearance (much like making a button for a web page). It was necessary to adjust the hue to make it look more like real gold than “costume gild.” This first section went in the center of the collar. I copied the layer several times and distorted each with the Transform: Distort option as I placed new sections around the collar in a nice array. The collar looked like a linked chain of metal plates—exactly as I had visualized it. Painting this section—matching all the sections—would have been quite challenging.

Stages 6 & 7:
The Priestess is
showered with jewels.

I added jewels by again drawing a sketch of the jewel, scanning it in, painting it in a separate PhotoShop file, and placing the finished jewel on its own layer within the Nubian High Priestess painting. I copied the jewel layer several times, adding a drop shadow to “embed” the jewels into each collar section. It was easy to distort the angle, change the hue, and resize each jewel. Make one jewel and you have a whole jewelry-box full of ‘em!

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