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It's Saturday again, and you know what *that* means! Finally somewhat of a break xD. But before I go and do any recreational activities (and it feels really good outside at the moment; perfect breeze, sun's up, just enough clouds in the sky...watching my step before this becomes some poem) or wind down on some gaming goodness needing to be goodified, I'm here to post up some more progress on a couple of artwork pieces.
Before that, though, I do feel the need to mention that I cancelled the Valkyrie comission w/ the client between Thursday night and Friday morning. Thankfully they did not take it too hard and I even said that if and when I feel up to that again, they can reinstate the request and I'll likely do it.
However it has donned on me the past couple of weeks that this was NOT the proper time to start comissions. I had been working w/ this client for a while actually, when in truth I maybe shouldn't have. I say "maybe" b/c doing those pictures for them helped expand my skill reach, and likely helped give the motivation to begin my own push for self-improvement again. On the other hand, I probably kept changing styles and direction w/ each piece, which isn't so much a sign of being daring as it was a sign of being very unsure on even basic fundamentals like anatomy, perspective and the properties of the tools I was using.
So yeah,..that was then xD. I've been focusing very hard on improving in all the fundamentals and pushing myself to try harder each time, and it feels as though I might finally be producing some results that are living up to what I want to do. As I say, art is a continuously evolving process of improvement and experimentation; I can never be sure if I've settled into a "groove", and when that does happen I have to be careful not to get too comfortable or else the boredom and complacentness begins to settle in.
For now I'm feeling just the right balance is there, and would like to keep it that way. As for the "commission" stuff, well it's like I told that client; maybe sometime in September. There would still need to be a lot done in terms of setting prices, some payment model etc, but at this point I'm really more concerned w/ producing good enough work to get some publishing, maybe w/ a few magazines, books or comics. Commissions can be set to the side in the meantime.
Alright, so enough of the boring stuff eh? Let's get to it...
She's an enigmatic character despite being so flamboyant, but you could say I was only going for some sexiness here and not much more. I definitely wanted to show off her glutes in this, since that's what recently attracted me to the character. Hmm...'exxaggerate' her glutes his maybe more like it. For anyone worrying that her holiest of holies is getting a squeeze too tight into cameltoe territory, keep in mind it's kinda more like a skirt those jeans are now. Or atleast are supposed to be..they might need to look more skirt-like.
I've been trying to find a balance between my influences for a while now, and this Poison pic is sort of an evolution in that regard. Talking about a "style" isn't really relevant; it's just a reflection of what I've been learning for a long time now and am managing to put into practice. What others make of it is on their hands. I just want her to look hot xD. Painting hasn't started on her yet; I haven't even settled on a palette or color scheme/mood, but tomorrow looks alright to get that done. And from there hopefully it won't be much time to finish.
Specifically, since I want a more realistic style in general, I have to adapt to more realistic rules of lighting. I come from a traditional background and that will always shape my view on color, which is a very good thing. A while ago I read up on some stuff speaking of how the temperature of a light source can affect the shadow of objects contained in its range. I think the general rule is, in real life, the way colors and light works in that regard is that brighter, saturated colors (on the rainbow scale) absorb more light while darker, 'purer' (unsaturated, is what I'm trying to say) colors reflect more light.
This is immensely interesting, as we also know that brighter colors reflect heat while darker colors absorb heat, so there's maybe a proportional relationship between a color, it's saturation level, and the amount of light it absorbs being counter to the amount of heat it absorbs. If I can keep this in mind while painting, I maybe can finally break past some of the color and lighting barriers I feel have been keeping me on lock for some time..though I still need take many other things into consideration. Honestly, a topic like this is too in-detail to talk about in a post like this, but I just needed to get that out there, it's been on my mind like forever and will be there for all the same.
"Nevermind the orange streak there...working on it..."
Okay, so w/ that in mind maybe this Suzuka picture can be seen in a different way..or not x3. So far the painting is still in the other stages, as is the blending. The blending is actually very tricky; I want the colors to still stay clear and somewhat present, but too much blending will start making things murky. Maybe this piece has an Impressionists tone going for it right now? Truly I wouldn't know; I've only been trying to work w/ color and blending in a way that feels good and by some chance it is going in this direction x3. I don't even know much about Impressionist art, so maybe that's worth reading into in the near future as well.
Regardless I think I'm starting to get a solid grasp on how to shape the rest of this picture, so now it just comes down to how soon it can be done. Being the way things are, I'm in no rush to speed through this piece unless I'm being very careful along the way (I've barely been touching the Undo button except when the mouse gets super-screwy when I lay a stroke, and most of the actual painting is being done on one layer...yeah, that's more traditionalist habits carrying over).
That appears to be all I got for this week; well, there are other pictures around but I don't feel ready to show anything about 'em just yet ;). Their time will come, surely. Meanwhile I just want everyone to enjoy their weekend so they're refreshed for next week. Do what 'ya gotta do, basically. I'm off to have some fun (well, wash clothes and cook lunch, then fun) for now, and next week I'll part some words on that crappy movie I saw (sad really; the prequel was pretty awesome). L8r out everyone.
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