How I Made a Lamb Chop in Photoshop

A Peek Under the Hood

Here's the process I used to create a digital illustration of a lamb chop for Rogue Flavor Showcase.

I am primarily an oil painter but digital painting has lots of benefits for creating illustrations. The materials are way less expensive and you can quickly change design elements.

The vision for this project was to create artisan foods and produce for an event highlighting farmers, chefs, bakers from Southern Oregon.

Sunlight is key for growing food, so the unifying element for all of the different foods was warm colored sunlight and strong cool colored shadows.

We were also inspired by a vintage look, so I scanned a piece of paper and overlaid the texture over the finished images to make it feel like it had been printed on textured paper.

I photographed the images myself, sourced from local products. I couldn't use stock photography because the light direction wouldn't be right, and I wanted to be as authentic as possible, using models from Rogue Valley foods.

I also didn't use AI and didn't really use the background removal tool. I used my reference photographs extensively, but I still wanted the art to feel like it was made by a human, so I allowed imperfections to remain in the art work.

It was a fun project for a great event!