Sketches

[Firelode]

Hey, don't post new threads often, here's some sketches I've been messing with.

First up is a bad impression of me, no glasses for starters!
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/Firelode/Blog%20images/Me_01.jpg

Now we have a 10 minute sketch of Gordon Freeman being strangled:
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/Firelode/Black%20Mesa%20Source/GordonStrangled_01.jpg

A 40 minute sketch of Gordon being strangled (poor guy never gets a break):
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/Firelode/Black%20Mesa%20Source/GordonStrangled_02.jpg

Last up some sketches with ink and marker on paper not on the computer that were scanned for your perusal.
http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/Firelode/Concepts/IronspikeSketches_01.jpg

Hope you guys like them, more to come as the days move on.

[Firelode]

Saw Hallboy 2 and quite liked Mr. Wink, here he is:

[StarSlayer]

Mr. Wink looks ace. Lots of interesting characters in HellBoy 2.

[Firelode]

Inspired by many things, including Tovette and his awesome Project Cosmos I spent a couple of hours throwing this together, it's better than I expected it to be after so long away from digital painting, it's still WIP, I'll work on it some more today and tomorrow and post an update soon.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/Firelode/Sol%20Ratio/IncomingWIP_01.jpg

[StarSlayer]

I see him stretching his arms out wide yelling in frustration about how big the fish he caught was :). Anyway thumbs up so far.

[Firelode]

Another 2 hours tonight the update includes the contrast for the dramatic lighting (dark on the left light on the right) and some detail additions mainly to the skin but there were some on the eyes too. I've realised the the right eye is too small which is easily remedied, not so easy is the tiny nose precipitating a huge gap between the bottom of the nose and the top of the mouth but I think I can extend his nose with a little bit of work.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/Firelode/Sol%20Ratio/IncomingWIP_02.jpg

[Firelode]

So the nose and the eye really hacked me off so I spent 20 minutes cutting and pasting, not final but the difference is pronounced.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y160/Firelode/Sol%20Ratio/IncomingWIP_03.jpg

[StarSlayer]

Good call on the nose, personally I think the left eye might be a bit more in perspective if it where in between the size of before and after. Good progress!

[Tovette]

Ok, I took a look at your wip. I can see where you're having trouble, but rather than try to describe it to you in words, I made a PSD (I hope you use photoshop lol) file for you to download.

It contains a redraw I made of your original image. Use it as a guide, and to help you with color and color theory I supplied the palette- mix them, darken/lighten them (don't go to full black or white though) to create the tones you need to make the painting.

This will be your exercise :)

PSD link (http://www.projectcosmos.net/firelode_tut.psd)

[Firelode]

Starslayer - Thanks very much I think the progress is coming along quite well.

Tovette - That's awesome the redraw is great :) the colours look good too, I was clearly going for too much colour range and using white and black seems like you're colours have a tighter relationship to each other, colour theory it is then, I will get painting this evening when I return from work. Thankyou for spending time on this I know you've got to be busy.

[Tovette]

Hey no problem, firelode. When you paint him remember the direction the main light is coming from and try to see the shapes of the face as simpler objects to help render the form. Also, don't go into tight details too quickly. Stay loose. If you find yourself noodling with details pull back and pick another area. Good luck. :)

[Firelode]

Tovette kindly sent me a some lineart of his version of the above image and I attempted to paint it, over and over again, anyway I never liked the outcome and I got frustrated, went on the internet and looked up how other artists use their paintbrushes in Photoshop.

As it turns out almost no-one sets their brush to have shape dynamics that set the brush to fade out at a set point while painting, which used to aggravate the hell out of me anyway. I found this out about 2 hours ago and have since painted Jamie Bamber as Lee Adama (which is what I was trying to do anyways) so now I'm going to go back and see how much of a difference this makes to my painting, I'm not really sure if this will make it easier or harder but it's worth a try.

Crit is always welcome folks,