The full size is kinda big but i felt it was at a better resolution so people could see what i was talking about, and understand how i work.

Heres the text and enjoy!

Taylor

1. I usually start on a dark/darker background. This just happened to be about the color of my black coffee table.

2. I block in my colors, still a bit darker than what the final image will end up looking like. This way I can also check my composition and make sure things like color and shape are working well together.

3. On a MULTIPLY layer above the base colors, I paint in some amber shadows, and use the Hue/Sat slider till I get Exactly what I want, and erase any excess shadows.

4. After that I begin painting on top building and building the image adding more and more details. I try to work the image all over before I begin working in too much detail, so that the piece comes together as a whole rather than in chunks that might look different from each other in the end.

5. Again, more and more detail. If you painting looks like crap, I've come to realize that all good paintings look terrible about 1/3 or 1/2 way done. So as you're painting, don't Give up on it!

6. More and more detail, really working in the shadows and light. Here in a few places to get nice saturated light and glow, I created a new layer in overlay mode, used the gradient tool on round, and put some rich purple spots under the onion skin as well as some nice gold reflections near the glass to keep the shadows full of color. If you you aren't happy with the color of your shadow at this stage you can again use the hue saturation slider ( command "U" or look under "image" "adjustments" "hue Saturation" ) to get that perfect color. Bounce light and sub-surface light are very important to keep rich.

7. At this point it was mostly polish and making sure I was cleaning up the edges of my cup, onion, and cutting board. More and more polish *shwew*

8. And to finish up I used a texture I made of wood planks on the cutting board to give it some grain, and used some splatter brushes to make little speckles on the onions fleshy bits, to give them a little bit of texture. The glass as well got some scratches painted in. To top it off there was some extra shine put in on the green onions, and cuts and nicks painted into the cutting board.

thanks for looking through it all I know i blabber on a bit!