I've just checked through my folders and I can't find the older version of that picture that has all the layers seperated. I find I end up with 100+ layers a lot of the time lately, so I tend to flatten images at various stages to make them easier to work with, and stop myself tweaking things forever.
Here are some of the main elements the picture is made up from. There's a lot of layering and painting/erasing with a tablet that brings it all together. I'm going to try and run through doing the picture again quickly from memory - it won't be very precise because I tend to make more changes to things than I really remember, but hopefully it's better than nothing.
The main elements I used:
Photograph of 2 great danes - this wasn't taken by me, I can't remember where I got it from. The main thing I was interested in was the angles of the paving slabs and the stairs in the background.
Scan of an envelope, used for texture.
A photocopy of an old painting I did, used for texture/structure.
A photograph of an old painting I did, used for texture/structure.
A painting of Paris Hilton and her friend, done on cardboard. I tried to keep this quite rough, to keep the painted texture. It's easier to smooth parts out in photoshop than it is to rough them up, at least in some ways.
A tablet painting of Paris' friend. I was playing around with the idea of using the tablet to get a more "painted" effect directly in photoshop to break down the seperation between painted element/photoshopped element. I think I still like having "real" painted elements more though.
These are only 2 of the sketches I did of Paris Hilton and her friend. I used about 5 different ones, for various different elements. For some reason I found Paris Hilton very hard to draw - she's a very distinctive looking person, but I'm still not sure exactly why.
The lettering used on the wall in the background - it's from the album "Buck up princess" by Josh Martinez.