Thursday, November 25, 2010

Holiday Kids Part Two

The following is the second installment of a "How I paint" post located here. I wouldn't really say this a detailed tutorial of how to paint, but it's more a view of my process. I have more than this done but I'm showing them in baby steps for you all that want a detailed viewing. After the underpainting is laid down I basically start in the middle ground of the painting. I realize that is a little backwards, but I like being able to fiddle with the background slightly so I can decide how much detail I want back there.




So for this I am obviously working on the children first, laying down flat, realistic colors over top of the green. The reason I use green underneath is that the transparency of your skin over your muscle tissue actually causes a slight greenish hue in shadows. So there is a fun fact for you all! :) But that's definitely not the only color you can use, it all depends on preference. For shadows I really enjoy using a grey purple on skin tones, it seems to just work in most situations. But it definitely depends on the paintings setting.


After that I started putting in colors and shadows for the lighting, which will be coming at them through the window display. Even though the display is bright, or at least will be, the darkness of the night behind them will still cause some pretty dark shadows and over take the light from behind. Making the high lights small but bright on their faces and clothing. Keep in mind textures as well, since the clothing will have a duller reflection, than shiny skin, glass, or metal. I'm also not too concerned with making things super smooth yet, since that will come later after I have the lighting and colors the way I want them.

I'll make sure to show how to change and see less of the green underpainting on the coats of the second two children next, so they all don't look alike. Also, Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy the day and remember what to really be thankful for. I hope you all enjoyed the post, and let me know if you have any questions.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Blackbird Pie

I did this for a sketch contest, I didn't win which is fine. It's practice which is always good. :) But, I couldn't stop thinking about blackbird pie and this old Australian sign my illustration professor Steve used to have in his house. It didn't look like this but it had the same theme of blackbird pie, so I decided to revolve the sketch around it for fun.

I hope you enjoy it, and the next installment of the holiday scene painting tutorial will be next. I haven't forgotten!

Saturday, November 6, 2010

WIP Holiday Kids


This is a new illustration I'm working on based around some kids peering into a toy store. I thought I'd show some more work in progress stuff on how I paint. I typically paint like the old masters did, but change the under painting colors to suit the different subjects. Instead of just relying on green, red, or some other variation. An obvious difference here is I'm working digitally, but since Im working with Painter the same rules apply.  In this one I'm using purple, red, and green under painting and just blocking in the scene with those colors. After Im satisfied with a roughed in composition I start adding on the actual layers of color for the foreground, middle, and background. Typically I start with the background first as you can see from the finished light pole, and then work forward. It tends to make my life a lot easier.

This is obviously still in it's really rough stages and I'll be working on it for the better part of today. I'll make sure to make a few more posts with different stages in trying to explain them. One day I'll actually see about live streaming myself painting. That might be fun!

I hope anyone who is interested in the process finds this informative. If you have any questions let me know!