Grungy and Terrific Sorrow Themed Concept Designing in PS

I had been contacted a few months ago about writing a tutorial for a specific image.  While I do not pretend to know the exact steps that were taken to create the “Sorrow My Soul” image below, I can walk you through similar concepts and application so that you can get a handle on how to go about creating something similar.  What I did was create a tutorial, basically guessing on the exact steps and resources used, to generate a step-by-step guideline on how to achieve similar effects.

With any tutorial, it is important for you to be able to grasp the work-flow to create the image at hand.  It is more important to me, however, that you grasp the work-flow so that you can create your own unique work.
As with every tutorial, basic Photoshop knowledge is assumed.  I am also aware that there are numerous ways to accomplish certain effects.  This merely explains it one single way, and will possibly touch on some of the variations.  With that out of the way, here goes…
Credit
First, the artwork above was created by Blackrust.com and is available on that website or via the individual artist’s Deviant Art website
Resources
To begin, it is important to have a resource pool of your own, or links to others so that you can easily sample from without having to wade your way through permissions of posting the work.  I have tried to take many photographs of textures, rust, broken concrete, and the like so that I can use them as I see fit without having to give credit to another person or ask permission to use the resource in any commercial work.
The original artist used stock photography as a base for the image.  The stock photography was found at http://splucy-stock.deviantart.com, or more specifically here.Â

 

Getting Started
To get started with the image, we would need to first remove the boring background.  No need for happy grass, trees, and a brick wall for the final image.  There are many extraction tools and Photoshop offers some of its own.  I prefer a very tedious method and that is using the eraser tool to trim out the image from the background.
I do this for two reasons:

1. It gives me more control over what is extracted.
2. If you are working on an image that will be printed, the more attention to the finer details the better the printed work will be.

Take the stock photography and paste it into a new layer in Photoshop.  It is also a good idea to either make a copy of that layer for a backup purpose, or simply save your original stock photo.  That way if you make an error and need to revert back past the point where Photoshop will allow, you always have the original to start over with.
Since you will be trimming the background away, fill the background layer with black or another dark color (Alt + Backspace will fill the selected layer with your foreground color).  Rename the layer with the stock photo “Base” or “Original”.  Also, notice that the artist chose to recreate the body and neckline, so remove that from the stock photo as well.
The Eyes
Next, let’s work on the eyes.  Many artists employed this technique which simulates the eyes being rolled back in the head.
Notice that you cannot just select the eye area and fill it with white.  That would neglect lighting and also make the eye appear flat.  What I prefer to do, rather than sample colors and have to match pixel for pixel, is to use the smudge tool.Â
Zoom in to approximately 500%.  From there, use a soft edged brush approximately 5 pixels in diameter.  From the bottom left and bottom right, smudge up toward the area you wish to cover up.  What this does is allow you to cover up the eye that needs to be covered, while bringing the colors that you need to bring in.  Sure, you could use the clone tool or the healing brush, but I have found that with this work, it is easier and quicker to use the smudge tool.  Also remember that there will be some final texture layers sitting on top of the image, so if you make a small mistake it will more than likely be covered up in the end.
 
When you zoom out, you get a plain ole white eyeball sitting there:

Once you are done, you should have something similar to the following image:

So far, we have removed the background, adjusted the eyes, and moved the female to more of the center of the image.  Another small detail was to cover up the ear piercing as well.  Next comes somewhat of the tricky part…
Adding “Grunge”
Since I do not have a single set way that I approach grunge every time I sit down in front of Photoshop, it is difficult to explain my process.  More times than not, it is trial and error for me, experimenting with many textures, brushes, and blending modes until I end up with something that I like.
For the image shown above, I did not have access to all of the textures that the original artist used, so I will substitute some of my own.  This will obviously alter the final image, but it will give you the general concept of how to apply the methods.
Find several good textures that you want to use.  Find some that are rough and some that are a little more on the smooth side.  This is when a digital camera comes in handy.  Go out and take pictures of the sidewalk, driveway, concrete or brick walls, or even mud.  Anything with a grungy textured feel to it.  I have built a gallery of resources over the years and even have my stock photography categorized so that I can easily get to it.
Place one texture layer under the Base layer and one texture layer above it (Turn off the top texture layer for now).  You will also notice that we need to bump the size of the Base layer up a little bit to match the original artwork.Â
Use CTRL + T to free transform the image on the Base layer to make it a little larger.  Next, using a soft edged brush & the eraser tool, trim away the hair and some of the forehead.Â
Remember from earlier about the extraction from the background?  Well, you will see in the end that with grunge work, you can make small mistakes which the grunge will cover up.  I have come to rely on this with some of my old works.  It really helps out when you want to trim up the image and get going.  Today, however, I try to be as thorough as possible because you never know what turn your image might take, especially if you are just experimenting with digital art.Â
Regardless, the lady’s forehead and lack of hair is something that will later blend into the textures and brushes that you will be adding.Â
You should have something similar to this:

The Mouth
Now let’s focus on the mouth.  In the original image, it would appear as if the mouth was sewn together.  There are two ways to go about this:

• Find a stock photograph and manipulate it to fit the face and image
• Create the effect without stock photos

Since I do have the same photos the original artist used, I am going to recreate them.  With most of my work, I have grown used to using a Wacom tablet.  I have found that in addition to digital painting, it allows me to zoom in and use smaller brushes with more accuracy than I could with just a mouse.  However, you can achieve the same effect without it.
With a small, soft edged brush, approximately 5 pixels in diameter, I drew the lines on the mouth myself (I used #7F7F7F as the foreground color).  The end result will look something like this:

Kinda odd looking, right?  Well, the depth and texture comes from working up the image.  As with before, I cannot tell you “grab this certain type of texture and use it” because every texture will vary the final image to an extent.  The best thing to do, and something that I do quite frequently, is to try several different textures.  Experiment with blending modes, various brushes, and a nice assortment of texture layers.
Layers Palette
After drawing the lines on the mouth, I dropped a couple more texture layers in (desaturated them; CTRL + SHIFT + U).  For the face, namely the chin and mouth area, I wanted something to match the original image, which has a lot of texture and grit to it.  So I found a picture of dirt to place on top.  I changed that layer to black & white and adjusted the blending mode so that it would better fit the image.
Next, I made some subtle adjustments to the lighting on the face.  I also painted in the body (this was done in a new layer under the “Base” layer).  I place a small Gaussian Blur (I used a radius of 2.5 pixels) to the “Neck & Body” layer so that it would more resemble the original image.
Also, since we are starting to add in a few more layers, I thought it would be good to try and organize things  just a tad.  I like to group components while I am working.  When I have to go back and make changes to a certain file, it has helped me to go back and find a neatly organized PSD file rather than a file with 50 layers all named Layer 3, Layer 40, etc.Â
I created a few new folders and moved some of the layers around.  To see where I am at, take a look to the image on the right, which is my current layers palette.  All of them should be labeled so that you can come back at a later date and know what each layer contains.

The next step is to add whatever color you want to add.  For this image, I intentionally removed the color.  I later went to add a dark red for the tears and to lightly color the rose, as an accent, but the rest of the image would remain void of any specific colors.
The original artist also opted to add some additional effects to the hands, almost “wrapping” them in a burlap like graphic.  This can be done if you have the correct resources to work with.  Simply place the burlap into a new layer above the hands, and trip away accordingly.  An important factor once you have the image trimmed is to adjust the lighting, brightness, and/or contrast so that the new layer fits nicely with the rest of the image.  Otherwise you will have a mismatch and it will be too easy to tell where your work ends and stock photography begins.
The final image:

Summary
Did the original artist create the image the same way that I did?  Who can really know for sure?  I was simply contacted and asked how to create the image, so I wrote up a tutorial for that.  There are numerous ways to accomplish effects and my way is not always the best or the fastest, but it is the way that I know.
Happy Photoshopping.