Painting a Fantasy Portrait - Part 4

Step Seven:

I continue to fill in the background and refine the figure. I spend the bulk of my time working on the face and hair. I concentrate on modeling the facial features using direct and reflected light. I carefully blend the colors at the edges where two colors meet. I work the hair, taking care to shape the braid design around the head.

I figure that I've got a few more hours of painting until I can call this one done.

I'm considering adding some type of ornamentation to the figure to provide a little more contrast. I'm also thinking of placing red berries under some of the leaves for the same reason.

Painting a Fantasy Portrait - Part 3

When I paint, I usually don't work on one section at a time. I move all around the canvas, painting above and below layers. That's how I continued with this painting.

Step Six:

I created a new layer above the sketch layer and start working on the foliage. I finish a few leaves to get a feel of how the rest will look when I complete them. I take a break from the leaves and create another layer and start to define the hair. I restate some of the facial features and do some work on the eyes, while sometimes bouncing back to the leaves.

I made some adjustments along the way: I make the jaw line a little fuller and adjust the nose, hairline and eyebrows.

Painting a Fantasy Portrait - Part 2

Before I get started painting, I go out to the backyard and take a look at the trees and bushes for a few minutes. Photo refs are okay, but its always good to take some time to study the real thing when you can.

Since so much of the painting will be green, I know that I'm going to need plenty of variation of the color to create the illusion of depth. I select Painter's mixing palette and mix some yellows, greens and blues.

I'm going to continue working beneath the sketch layer for the rest of this section.

Step Three:

I create a new layer and paint in the sky and tree shapes. Next, I create another layer and begin painting the foliage, working mainly from dark (blues) to light (greens). I use yellows for highlights. Later, when I'm refining the leaves, some areas will get erased out, revealing parts of the trees. That's why I used separate layers.

Step Four:

Now I create another layer and start to work on the figure. Early into the process, I decide to move the figure layer behind the foliage layer. I get my base colors down and work in light reflecting from the foliage and the sky. I use the blues for the darker shadows on the figure. I'm working at nearly 100 percent opacity, using my pen's sensitivity to control the coverage.

Note: The image that I'm using to illustrate this part is a re-paint. I got into a flow and before I knew it, I had painted past this part without taking a screen cap. I did a quick re-creation for continuity.

Step Five:

I reduce the opacity to 10 percent and begin lightly glazing the skin, mainly with the base (mid-tone) color. I glaze with the light and dark to a lesser extent. I glaze the blue shadows with the dark. This all helps to unify the painting.

I usually work with a restricted palette. Its easier to control and it forces me to really think about my color choices and how to best apply them.

We'll be working above the sketch layer the rest of the way.

Painting a Fantasy Portrait - Part 1

A lot of what I've learned about digital painting has come from artists sharing tips and techniques on the web. I try to keep up the tradition by doing the same.

My plan is to take this piece from sketch to finish, showing the process on this blog in a series of posts. The finished piece will probably get posted to a couple of sites, under my tag "digistyle," but the creation process will be a blogsclusive, only being posted here.

Step One:

I do some scribbling to get warmed up and then I'm ready to get started. I've decided to do a fantasy portrait. I look over some of the references that I've collected and choose three. Two are figures that have some of the elements that I want. The other is for background reference. After a few tries, I get a sketch down that I'm satisfied with. The sketch itself is just a reference for the painting, so it doesn't need to be perfect.

I should mention that I'm working in Corel Painter 9.5 and that the sketch and the gray foundation are on separate layers. This becomes more important as the painting progresses.

Step Two:

Next, I begin working on light and shadow. I decide on the direction of my light source and begin working from dark to light.

I work out the values in shades of gray, one layer for the figure, another for the foliage. These two layers are between the sketch layer and the solid gray layer. This becomes my road map for the painting. Its not as detailed as some other studies that I've seen, but stopping here works for me. I have enough values and "clues" to begin adding color.

Ballroom Dancing - Tango

Tango. I really like this dance. The sharp, staccato moves are killer. Its all passion and power. You just feel smooth doing it, even at my noobish level.

My current Tango faves:

• Santa Maria (Del Buen Ayre) - Gotan Project (Smooth, fast, sharp with a hint of funk!)
• Singapore - Nightshift (Geisha, samisans and Tango. Nice East meets West fusion.)
• La Cumparsita - The New 101 Strings Orchestra (Classic Tango)
• Jealousy - The New 101 Strings Orchestra (Another classic Tango)
• Hernando's Hideaway - Archie Bleyer (Hey, how often do you get to dance to castanets!?!)
  

Father's Day

My Father's Day gift from my son, a copy of Frank Frazetta ICON. I skimmed through it and its a gorgeous book. Lots of Frazetta art to enjoy and learn from.

I'm a happy camper!

Be An Artist

Take a little time to draw something yourself while you're here. I've added an online painting widget to my blog (On your right, just below "About Me."). I found it on Widgetbox. You can draw, paint and save your masterpiece. Then you can print, link or embed it on your own blog, website or social networking page for all the world to see and critique!

Have fun!

Link: http://offtype.net/image_4917854348564.gif.html

Calibration

Sometimes you discover that you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Today was one of those times for me.

My primary monitor died on a me a while ago. I've been using a smaller, spare monitor since then. Shortly after switching monitors, I began to notice that the colors in my digital paintings that I was seeing on the new monitor was not translating well when viewed on other monitors. It was especially noticeable with the darks. I chalked that up to the spare monitor not being as good as my old monitor and tried to work around it by using different color palettes.

It struck me today, I had been so bummed after losing my good monitor, that I had forgotten to calibrate the spare! A few minutes of testing and a custom scheme later, the problem was solved.

More often than not, I've found its the little things that get you!

Portraits

Of all of the things that I draw or paint, I think portraiture is my favorite. I enjoy the nuances of the face. I tend to gravitate mostly towards females, but I'll use a guy as subject every now and then. I'm not wedded to any particular style or genre. I'll do realistic, fantasy, cartoon and the occasional manga inspired portraits. There are several artists who I feel have influenced or inspired my work, but I think I'll save the "who and why" for future posts.

The first painting, "Karyn," is an older piece, done in 2002, and one of my favorites. I remember refering to a tutorial by Roberto Campus as I was painting it.

The next painting, "Marilyn," was painted in 2007. I was trying as much to capture the "essence" as I was the likeness.

The Wolverine piece is basically a study in light and shadow. It was done in early '08. The grayscale piece, also from early 2008, was a study to see how much information I could convey by using less detail.

Comics

A while ago, I was asked to come up with a comic for possible publication within a monthly magazine. I had about a week to go from a blank page to a fully realized strip with sample art. It didn't get picked up, but it was a great experience to focus my creativity in such a way.

I initially thought about doing the comic in a tradition line art style, but decided to go in a painted, illustration style (Kind of a poor man's Norman Rockwell sort of thing.).

The working title for the strip was called "Patents Pending." Here is one of the sample gags.

Drawing Day 2008 - Drawings 2

Digital pencil and eraser.
Created for Drawing Day 08 - http://www.drawingday.org

Drawing Day 2008 - Drawings

Created for Drawing Day - www.drawingday.org
My first drawing of the day, a cartoon pencil.

Unfinished Works

Like many artists, I have a boatload of unfinished works. I'll start working on a piece and slowly lose the enthusiasm that I initially had. I've decided to go back and finish some the better pieces. My goal is to finish two paintings per month from the "abandoned" pile. I'm setting my first goals low so that I'll have a better chance of success and to give myself a chance to get into this new routine. I hope that consistent effort in this endeavor will decrease the number of pieces that end up as unfinished, increase the number of finished work and help me to maintain focus.

This is the first painting from the pile that I plan on tackling.