From Drawing to Digital Texture / Color

Here is a drawing I recently created of the ultimate dinosaur. My son has been a big fan of dinosaurs for a while now, so I decided to make a drawing of what I thought the coolest, most terrifying, dinosaur of all time would be. It's name is Tripterastegosaurus Rex and it is a combination of the dinosaurs Triceratops, Pteranodon, Stegosaurus, and Tyrannosaurus Rex. I researched and found references of the dinosaurs, mentioned in the list above, and birds of prey. I drew the picture using the numerous photo references and I imagined how the dinosaurs might be made into a hybrid. My son saw the drawing (below) and was delighted. From there I went about coloring and texturizing the original drawing.

The original drawing was monumental. It required two pieces of paper and four scans to create the composite. The final composite is 24 x 16 inches at 350 dpi.

At this point I found textures, from my favorite texture website, such as close-ups of lichen (skin), leaf veins (wings), stippled metal (plates), and ceramic glaze (horns). I used a rubber-stamp tool in PhotoShop to paint in areas with the texture I found. Once the textures were in place I adjusted the colors to fit the palette. Then, I added low-lights (shading) using a multiply layer, in PhotoShop, and high-lights using a overlay layer. Finally, I painted in some details that did not have any texture (tongue, beak, eyes).

Here is a detail of the final picture.
Click on each picture to see a bigger image.