Masking & Color

So a week of working with the other techniques on a commission has still been a struggle.

One of the commissions I've been working on has been slowly progressing. I feel very much like a baboon with a stick as I do this, but at least the color is coming along. Photo reference has been insanely important. I never realized how much I didn't understand color and light until I started doing digital. Or maybe I just never had to have such a precise knowledge? Hard to tell.

Here are some process images from it:

After a bit more research I have watched a tutorial from Fantasy Art essentials by artist Svetlin Velinov (An interview with him in ImagineFX here). The interview doesn't show much for composition. The piece I watched was much more interesting, though still not my kind of artwork. But what was important was how he painted to me. I watched how he went from sketch to color to refinement but most of my focus was on the sketch to color method. He worked strongly in greyscale to start out (well, monochrome) and then did gradient color with what appeared to be masking.

So back I went to Ctl+Paint to look over their masking tutorials. So it seems this next week shall be a great deal of understanding masking and practicing these methods.

Other techniques I'm looking for good tutorials on is color scheme sketches. I found a link a while ago of a digital artist who did a series of larger thumbnails copying the basic color compositions of various famous landcape artists and landscape photographers to help himself understand color. He'd do speed sketches of their work, no detail, to get a better understanding of how color goes together. I'm struggling to find this again but I'm thinking I shall try to do one of these a day just as an exercise.

I've also seen monochrome sketches too, so maybe that would be good to start out with. Any helpful links and suggestions of exercises would be greatly appreciated!

Exploring Digital Painting

So I'm embarking on an exploration of digital art. My background is very strongly in traditional art, much of which can be seen here: http://dubhreul.wix.com/lunatteo and here: http://lunatteo.deviantart.com


Lately I have been working more and more digitally, but it has been slow going. This blog will largely start with my independent study in the exploration of digital painting, particularly speed sketching for concept art. My current internship has shown me in just a couple weeks how drastically the industry is moving towards digital. Unsurprisingly it has also shown me how incapable people seem to be when deprived of digital material too. So my goal is to be proficient in both to convey my ideas.

My first couple weeks at the internship were slow so I did a great deal of practice painting both on a cintiq and then a tablet.

Much of my reference/tutorial help was from the site http://ctrlpaint.com/ while I learned how to manage the brushes and blending.

Prior digital coloring efforts: http://lunatteo.deviantart.com/gallery/4201714

One of my early pieces before I started using tutorials:

I couldn't save when on the cintiq ^

This took over 5 hours

I started using tutorials for the following piece, which took me over 8 hours to get to the finals stage.

Details

The horse has since gotten some braids for his mane and forelock added roughly before I moved on.

The next one took me much less time to get to the stage it is at, however I am still stumbling through color use in lighting. I have a tendency to lean towards monochromatic or duotone coloration.

After watching through a few more tutorials I have decided to work more with various brush types. So that likely will show up in my practice work. Ultimately I need to be able to place color faster. The above image took 5 hours to get to that stage. My insecurities like in color hue and value as well as building up form with shapes (because I never get the shapes I want).

I have since learned that I need to work more flat hard edges and smooth them out later, but my perfectionist self likes to get in the way and hyper-focus on areas. This is not unlike my work with watercolor... but I have found that this media form is more close to colored pencil and oil painting than watercolor. I have done coloring similar to watercolor (seen here: http://lunatteo.deviantart.com/art/Ranch-Bunkhouse-Colored-359129750 ) but find myself quickly frustrated working with opacities. Still I am going back to it for shadows in some current internship work which I cannot post due to confidentiality reasons.