First two hours of work on the female black and white painting.
At this point, I focused more on the face and on laying out the structure for the rest of the painting. I will try to finish the black and white layer tomorrow and get going on the color on wednesday.
[Female 01-02]
Update of the first week color portrait after Don’s comments. I had to tone down a lot of the suggestions as they made the portrait too dark for my taste, but they do improve a lot… even where the effect was subtle.
I do have a problem with fabric. I have yet to crack the principles of building drapes. Even after watching videos and tutorials, they are still a mystery to me. But I have good hopes to get there someday – I even got hair to look right somehow, so how hard can fabric really be ?
I’m also reposting the painting ‘before’ Don’s suggestions for comparisons.
As for picking on me, Don…. I only have one thing to say – bring it on I didn’t pay to get pats on the back… as you well know, I can get that for free just about anywhere on the web.
Edit: The shape of the updated mouth was bothering me, so I reverted it to the previous shape, moved over a little bit with added shadow and detail. I find it more balanced and less pouty.
[Female week 1 – 12]
Another hour of work to bring it closer to glazing. I am going to leave the dress in a rough state mostly because of time constraints and because I want to keep the focus on the face and not how elaborate the dress is
Edit: She was looking too flat for color glazing, so I had to bump values a little bit.
I will leave it at a first shot at colors for now, just to set the color scheme. Finishing the color portrait will be tomorrow’s work.
[female 04-05-06]
Final color portrait … for now. Time to move on to the male portrait.
I had to make size and position adjustments on various bodyparts in the final scene. Since I had to merge all layers to do that in Painter, it means that anything past this point will be direct paint and not glazing.
Still not very happy about the details of the dress. I have to try for ways to suggest the details without actually painting them (looking again at Mathias great example…).
She is also a little too yellow. I will address that when I finish her over the weekend.
About 5 hours overall, still in Painter despite those bloody color banding effects that Painter X introduces when you work on multiple transparent layers. I can’t wait for the next version to get rid of that bug (hopefully).
[Female 07-10]
Finished female color for the moment (after touching up based on Don’s comments… mainly giving her a little more blood under her skin ).
And… first shot at the male black and white face after one hour. I may be mistaken but getting these early sketches seems to be a little easier with each painting.
I tried sticking to basic this time – very large brushes, higher opacity and focus on larger shapes and values. There are still issues with proportions but I will fix that next time I work on it.
More tomorrow after work…
[Female 11- male 03]
Week 02 male in black and white.
I tried to a better likeness but I ended up backtracking to this version instead. For some reason, I am more comfortable working on this one than on something more realistic.
It seems most of my problems with early sketches are slight deviations in proportions. Eyes a little too big or too small, a head too thin or nose too wide. I can’t seem to escape the phase of copy/paste/free transform adjustments
Next on … color. I might be able to finish it tonight even.
[male 2-03-05]
And the progression in color.
Color glazing is nice since it is easy to switch the color layer on and off as you go to make sure you are still on the right track between colors and values. Still, I feel I prefer direct color painting as it makes me feel less like I am redoing a lot of work (to catch the right values again in color after placing them in b&w).
I applied the first multiplied layer with a 100% opacity brush instead of filling areas with the paint bucket. That way I had better control of the shape of the initial color areas.
I also had to tone down the coolness of his eyelids and the redness of his lips. My first attempt after painting the female portrait made him look very feminine
A cooler background seemed more balanced as I got closer to the end.
I didn’t go for full details but instead, I tried to get close to textures and brush strokes from the videos, especially on close ups to the eyes and lips.
The folds of his robe are still not right. After this workshop, I think I will have to draw drape after drape after drape until I finally get it.
[male 5-6-8]