Lost has finished its amazing run and the time is ripe to finally reveal what the Smoke Monster is: clever use of the Brush Tool in Photoshop! PS: If you don’t know how the show ends you don’t need to worry: there are no spoilers.

The result

Here’s what we’ll have on our screen at the end of this easy easy tutorial:

Get your tablet ready! No tablet? Sorry, you’re going to be disappointed by your result if you use a mouse, but keep reading please.

Soundtrack: Smokestack Lightnin’ – Howlin’ Wolf

As usual these soundtracks suggest themselves to me when I put an illustration together. This time, ladies and gentlemen, it’s none other than Howlin’ Wolf.
Not only is Smokestack Lightnin’ appropriate for this tutorial, it even inspired me to write it.
Please do yourself a favor and listen to the Howlin’ Wolf several times a day to wash away all the crap the radio and the TV have been playing for the past 30 years.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I love how this song clashes with Lost’s dark, ominous atmosphere. Imagine strolling through the jungle, listening to the blues, and suddenly meeting the smoke monster! In fact, let’s…

Meet Smokey!

Again, don’t worry, there are no spoilers here! The true nature of the smoke monster is not revealed.
Here are several screenshots of Smokey, one of the most misterious characters of Lost:

As you can see it often looks just like regular black smoke (it ain’t…), though sometimes it takes on the form of a long, thin arm. The smoke is not wispy and transparent but rather solid and thick. It also moves a lot, whirling and rolling.

We’ll go for a thick cloud of black smoke in a menacing pose.

Step 1: blocking out the image (sketch)

Find a good picture of the (preferably) Hawaiian jungle to act as backdrop to Smokey. Here’s a photo I found on Flickr (with a Creative Commons license), already cropped:

Get it on Flickr.

Draw a quick sketch of Smokey now. It’s important to try different shapes until you find one that does justice to the original character and plays well with the backdrop. Don’t waste time with how it looks, just concentrate on its shape. Here’s my sketch:

Smokey comes out from between those trees at the right of the screen and weaves through the jungle, almost coming to a stop.

Step 2: laying down the shape

With the sketch in place you can lay down the actual shape. Remember what we said about the smoke being thick, rolling and moving all the time? Paint a faily solid shape in black, making the edges quite busy with curls. You can do that with a good textured brush, controlling the size and opacity with the pen pressure setting.
I’m using one of Chris Wahl’s amazing brushes.

Step 3: the base color

The first thing you need to notice is that black smoke is not black. Rather, it’s dark gray, so make Smokey lighter.

Step 4: adding depth

The patch of light in the bottom right corner tells us that there’s light coming that way. We need to darken Smokey’s left side using either a black brush or the Burn Tool. Also add secondary shapes the same way.

Step 5: adding details

Using a gray brush and light strokes lighten up the middle and right areas: that’s where Smokey is lit. Try to suggest a series of rings along the length of the “arm”.

Now break up the ring pattern and tone down the lit areas. Paint the shadow cast onto the ground. I’ve also added a slight yellow tinge to simulate color bleed from the trees. In the last image I’ve smudged some edges and some of the inner crests to suggest movement. Surgical motion blur if you will.

You’re done with the painting. Now run for your life!

Conclusions

This tutorial is about painting smoke, any smoke, and the Lost smoke monster was of course just a pretext to make it more appealing.
I hope you learned something useful and had fun. I had lots of it but sadly this doesn’t change the fact that Lost is no more. Damn do I miss that show!