[samdragon]

I mentioned I would help you(mantis) out some more with the image you where working on.
I'm sorry that I didn't put too much time into it, i'm pretty busy with outside stuff right now. So to make up for it, I included a version with the layers still intact for you to play around with. Grab the file and mess with the layers or add new ones of your own and see what you can get.
for those of you who are new to photoshop or painter, this may help shed some light on working with layers. Each layer is used for a different "part" of the image. One is for the gray, one is for the white highlights and the other is for the inkoutline.
Ok, here is the image

this image was taken from the image Mantis was working on.
here is the link to the zip file that contains the photoshop layers version. http://pages.preferred.com/~smdragon/layers.zip

I did this image in painter BTW, i saved it out in photoshop for those of you who do not have painter.

And to also help mantis out some more. I'll give ya link to a face i recently did. There are many many many styles one can work in. One of my favorite is the scratchboard, just straight black and white. You have to use thin lines that are close together to give the impression of gray or half tone areas. So it requires some thinking before you put down a stroke. I don't think I've seen many scratchboard images on here before. Oh, it's not real scratch board, of course, it's digital..Painter..
I hope this will help some people out with some of the basics of photoshop layers, or painter layers. And maybe incourage some others to try a different way of working with black and white.
http://www.pennygraphics.com/samdragon/2dhtml/sanctuary.htm

[samdragon]

interesting...I'll push this up just incase someone wants to give it a chance

[SporQ]

cool, i missed this thread. i've used layers many times in the past, but never for drawing, i'll give it a whirl if ya dont mind

btw, that b&w image of yours is terrific. it looks just like you carved it from a block of wood and made a print

SporQ

[SporQ]

oh, and a question... layers in painter?? im guessing that my copy of painter classic left that particular feature out???

[samdragon]

yeah, unfortunately painter classic doesn't have the layer ability of painter 6. But you can get the basic idea with this.
Good luck