Might as well upload my progress--although it's not much--so you can give me some criticism and answer some questions.
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Concept: Human (crap, there aren't supposed to be humans in elements
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) babies lying around being all human and stuff while the visually different Changeling tries to be like them (teddy bear, diaper, pacifier). I plan on making the babies unfocused by blurring them. I just couldn't resist being influenced by folklore of fairies replacing human infants with changelings. ^^;;
(I hope) it fits the card because the Changeling is mimicking the babies like the card mimics permanents.
Sketch: Sorry in advance if my poor drawing skills made your eyes bleed. ^^;;
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What I've been doing is having the sketch in one layer with multiply and then using the pen tool in photoshop to make the shapes.
1. What should I do after I have the basic shapes?
2. What should I use to make defining features? For example, should I just give up with the pen tool and use a brush and my trackpad to add some lighter/darker shades of the base color in a new layer?
3. Should I yada yada brush and trackpad black-and-white shades on a new layer and then set the layer blending to something?
4. Should I use gradients on the vector shapes? How would I use gradients?
So if you want to summarize my questions into 6 words, it would be "Tell me how to do everything." Now, I've read your feedback on the others, and apparently this isn't your style of teaching. ^^ But yeah, I have the time to experiment, so you don't have to tell me how to do everything, just lead the way and I'll find my way around this maze...maybe.