Jarr ett: armed and very dangerous

Discover how Valentina created a cyberpunk vibe with added danger for her character Jarrett

“When I start working on a personal piece, my progress can be very chaotic. But for this piece, Anarchist, I set myself a pretty simple concept: I wanted to draw my original character Jarrett in a composition that would resemble a poster. I sketched him in a dynamic pose and added elements that would show his personality and dangerous style of living, but that would also bring a cyberpunk vibe to the scene.

I usually start doing my artworks in black and white, and here I used the same technique. I love using Adjustment layers for adding tones and slight coloration to the black and white sketch and here I used several layers with Color Lookup adjustment layers. I experimented with different colour profiles, but I also introduce adjustment layers in different blending modes such as Lighten, Saturation and Darker Color, because colours would then apply to different areas.

When I was satisfied with the black and white sketch it was time to add some colours. I decided to keep the colour palette very simple and I used only warm colours, with a red colour as an accent. Red can be great when trying to symbolically portray more a dangerous atmosphere because it will remind the viewer of blood. After my colours were established I detailed the piece with the Soft round pressure opacity brush.

For my finishing touches, I added Noise, Sharpen and some chromatic aberration, while moving the channel layers to achieve slight coloration on the edges.”

Introducing Jarr ett This character, Jarrett, is Valentina’s own creation, a design that appears regularly in her personal work.

Valentina likes to riff on this figure design – trying out different genres while ensuring that the core of the character remains the same.

Target pr actice Valentina use light to focus the viewer’s attention on to one side of Jarrett’s face and his gun. This is a composition technique that she uses regularly.