Good Saturday evening people; I'm going to be playing a lot of Zelda:LTTP over this weekend, and just generally relax down. It's been a busy week. Thankfully this past Thursday I got an urge to once again pick up my acrylics, b/c quite honestly I've been getting a bit tired of being on the computer all the time for my artwork purposes. In fact, this could be a turning point in how I carry my art out forward for the foreseeable future.
Truly, I'd rather not talk much about it, but let's just say I'm nowhere near done w/ my traditional painting yet. Never said I was, and I really love the sense of 'freeness' it provides. So, here's a few paintings (alla-primas) I did over the past few days, w/ a very small title and description for them. The constants in these paintings are, quite simply:
-Galeria paint: Crimson, Ultramarine, Cadmium Yellow Medium Hue, Burnt Umber, Mixing White, Titanium White, Ivory Black. That's it.
-Paper: Forget the specific name, but it's Canson brand, likely 200/250gsm, linen sort mainly for watercolor, but obviously I wasn't doing watercolor techs here.
-Brushes: Mainly my flat 5, sometimes my short and the fan brush for parts of one picture.
My goal in doing these was to rediscover my interest w/ traditional painting and my acrylics, which sorta died down a good deal over the summer. In retrospect it's probably b/c they were a bit beyond me and I was too methodological w/ them. Maybe I'm too methodological w/ painting in general, so it was a very pleasant break to just grab the brush and lay the strokes where they may. Each picture follows a basic idea of small palettes, and I did most of the mixing directly on the support. If I could learn a bit more about how these colors interacted w/ each other and which ones could form good palettes together, I was set. And that's what's happening.
The Boy: The first one done. Used a three-color palette of Earth hues. Wasn't focusing on peak retention or strokes as indication of movement and energy. Reminds me of Ed off Cowboy Bebop x3.
StaringMan: 3rd one done; flesh tones are always a bitch, but in this case (and for the others) I had a general idea of what colors to pick up on the brush and in how much a load. Also, since there was no attempt at precision it went pretty well x3.
Icy World: 2nd done; worked a lot w/ Ivory Black. Black's usually shunned w/ traditional painting but I'm not stupid and latch onto common myths for the hell of it. If used sensibly it can work very well for mood. I'd love to have some Mars Black around to see how these two differ. Also worked w/ what I would Consider Payne's Grey, and a sort of purple; can't remember exactly which purple I mixed up tho.
FruitSet: One of the last done yesterday, really just wanted an excuse to use up the rest of the paint on the palette. This and the rest below more or less shared the same palette set-up, but that will probably be obvious even w/o me mentioning it.
ThatGirl: I guess these are the same women, different hairstyle notwithstanding. I like the bottom one much more, just wished I gave her more of a damn face!
TheBird: Out of the alla primas here this one's my favorite. Got to do a lot of neat peak retention tests and use brushstrokes to indicate energy and composition in most details. That was always an issue w/ me before; using brushes ill-suited for their job, and not playing enough w/ depth. I'm over that problem now ;).
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So as you can guess, I have plenty more of these to get around to doing. If things pan out soon I'll be buying back up more paint supplies, b/c now it's really dawned on me, I can't go w/o traditional. Blessed as I am for what I have been learning digitally and continue to learn there, I'd feel a bit cheap w/o my brushes and tubes of paint. Of course, each of the two have their own merits and use, so I'll continue doing fanart digitally (in terms of painting it) but will be taking a much greater initiative now to do original pieces traditionally.
Speaking of fanart, I have a new post for my Alita pic, and some sketches of Cerula (aka Daymn She's Fine!):
After a little more clean-up and inking I'll finally get to painting her on Monday. Eager to try a few new things w/ her, mainly dealing w/ transparency. I'd also like to attempt not using the lines so heavily (I started the process of that w/ Bilstein), since a lot of lines is starting to be counter-productive to my process. As for when it'll be finished,...welp, before the holidays sounds about nice (there a couple other pictures to work on too, but I might skip coloring them in favor of just inking).
Cerula is one of my favorite BAA characters; she's powerful, has heart, cunning skill and intelligence, and most importantly, a nice pair of bosoms ;). Oh, and she's a vampire, but not of the lame Twilight variety. Playing up on sex appeal aside, I dunno if I'll proceed w/ finishing these ones out, or just proceed to other renditions of the girl. The "sketch" mentality is taking over my whole process, and I'm not making it a mandatory note to finish up every picture I draw out anymore, just do what I feel like (but of course having some sense of direction along the way). Seeing as how I do like how the one on the left looks tho, I will most likely finish her up, before maybe drawing her in proper canon outfit or w/e.
Okay, that's it for my update. I'm off to cook lunch and watch Eatman and ATVOTOMS. Stay warm, awesome, and edged. Until next time, l8r out.
Good afternoon denizens of the state; today's coming forth w/ an update of the Valkyrie commission I'm doing for a friend on 1Up.com. We've done business for little over a year; he's been my only commissioner so far but I sincerely value the contact we've had, as I've learned a bit more about the model and, hey, from here things can only get better right?
As you can see here, I've mainly just been focusing on laying in the initial color blocks. Tbh I know a medium other than acrylics, like goauche or casein, would have been better for this method. That said, I only have acrylics on hand and since they're fluids, it wasn't that hard to get the consistency downpat and JUST thin enough but thick enough all the same. I think I have a very solid idea how to proceed forward w/ this piece but you must understand that almost every concept being employed here is a case of "learning as I go". In other words, it's the first picture employing most of what I've been learning over the past couple of months on my own, and I would like the final product to reflect the original vision. Still a long ways to go on that front, but we're getting there (slowly).
So far, if I can levy any complaints on what's been the toughest thing, it's actually been mixing up these colors. Yep, no pre-made paint colors other than the primaries and some white/black/brown for me x3. Trying to emulate other colors in this fashion w/ a limited palette is extremely difficult, and I've gone as far as to use GIMP for value mapping. Countless swatches have been painted and in fact more are being painted as I come up w/ different ratios for new colors. The one big drawback I see already is that, if realism was the intent, I'd be screwed over. A lot of the colors in that Valkyrie picture use heavy doses of Titanium White, which tends to dull the color. I would probably need to buy a wider range of primaries and a few complementary colors to get the same colors I've made swatches of so far but w/ greater vibrancy (of course, a little glazing could liven up some of the duller colors, but it's a very case-by-case issue).
I still need to do the color blocking for her eyes, eyelashes, eyebrows and mouth, but from there I can proceed to the next step. Very tempted still to use a variation of the dead layer technique in this..I feel it could benefit my style. I'll just read and study on it more the next few days and see just how much to incorporate it. Also been considering trying impasto and sgaffito in some areas; again, just considering the options. One thing is for certain though: I feel much more confident in my painting skills and color theory conceptualizations now, and would like to keep improving them both. Just finding the right balance of study and practice, that's what it really comes down to eh?
Next time I post anything up on this will be when she's nearly done, so in the meantime just keep a lookout for other WIPs and random musings. Be back l8r, hope you all like the work and catch 'ya next time. L8r :)
Welp, it took little more than a week off and on, serious and semi-serious (in terms of time investment) sessions and a whole lotta of testing and other shit, but she is done, at last. Here may I present the finished Mai Shiranui picture...
"Sure to give Chun-Li some food for thought x3"
(Ed. Note: Please visit my deviantArt page here for the full version. I'll post it there tomorrow)
I said it before and I'll say it again: she was a fun one to paint. It's technically marred in more than a few spots for sure--and there's nothing saying what was done here will stick in the future--but it felt like an overall step forward to do. Now that I've learned how to use mediums for dilution of the paint, I hardly think I'll ever be stepping back to the dark ages of using water alone, or perhaps water period outside of the thin initial underpaintings. There, it seems like it can be very useful, but for final work I doubt it will make a comeback. But hey, u never quite know.
I also picked up some interesting use of mediums in ways I'm not sure they were intended for..on THAT front, there's much more testing to be done, but I do feel confident in that w/ them, I can get a greater range out of the limited set of tubes I got. Even w/ that said tho there's no time to rest on laurels: there's another picture I'm doing for a friend that I have to start from scratch again tomorrow (well, not really scratch, but I'm not using the line drawing sheet I had before, even if the pose will remain about the same), and in between working on that (and posting some bits of it here), I'll try experimenting some more w/ creating color swatches and getting a better handle of the mediums.
Reminds me, too, that a new brush or two is in order. These brushes are wearing down, and new ones are always more than welcome...
That'll do it for this time; I hope u all dig my Mai piece. Maybe sometime in the future I can go over the process, but as this process is ever-changing, all the future seems like an immature moment to pick for that topic. Tomorrow I'll prop back up w/ some pictures and underpaintings for the new picture. Hint: we're taking it back to olden Norse times for this one ;). Catch 'ya l8r...
Back again peoples, after a few more hours of working on the Mai picture I started yesterday, and was supposed to be a single-sitting session. However, my own process seems to keep elongating the time compared to what it could be, so even today she's not gettin' done. In fact, it might be a few more days before she's completed.
The reason why's simple: if I spend six-seven hours a day on it (keeping in mind I'm still learning as I go along), at least a fourth or more of that time is me purely mixing my colors and making test swatches. A digital program might have all the colors I need right then and there, but by hand it's a pretty laborious process and requires pinpoint balance. Nevermind the fact diluting paint w/o water is a science in itself, so yeah, it's taking a while. Leave it to me to underestimate my own working time x3.
So for now, I'll take it a 'layer' at a time. I consider multiple glazes of the same colors to count to a layer, until I end up needed to reduce the medium amount or deepen the color in the actual mix, which is where the next layer starts. Ironically it's coming off a lot like an oil painting technique ("fat over lean")..I'm sure there are other ways to accomplish the same effects, but I'm not @ that point yet to know what they are or execute them in practice (which, really, is where it would matter).
Still, at least the basic colors have been bought out some and some details are being worked in. I'm deliberately leaving the skin for last b/c it'll require a wholly different approach than the rest of the picture, and the background should get a good spice-up sometime during all this shit. The whole thing should get done in maybe another few days, since I have other pictures to attend to in the meanwhile. That's just how it goes, I suppose.
Sorry Mai, your face won't be in the mail until quite l8r this week, but as the old adage goes, "slow and steady wins the race". Be back l8r everyone; take care and be awesome. Bye.
