I’ve been brainstorming some ideas for a Spider Mutant Cultist. He will be one of the baddies from my digital comic project.
The spider study is of a mouse spider.
Spider Mutant Cultist Concept Studies
Raven Digital Painting Studies
I’m trying to improve my general painting technique as well as study ravens for an upcoming illustration.
These were done with minutes minimal line work before going in with the paint block-ins.
Master Painting Study: John Singer Sargent – Man Wearing Laurels
So here’s my first master painting study ever! John Singer Sargent’s Man Wearing Laurels.
I’m just beginning to study painting seriously so am still trying to find me feet here.
So what did I learn doing this?
- For the initial block-in it was easier to start off with a small canvas (I’m working digitally).
- Using a big brush helped my simplify the shapes as I was blocking in.
- From a couple of discussions on Discord while I was doing this piece – I decided to learn how to use RGB sliders as this more closely mimics real life physics.
- I first estimated the colours and then checked how far I was out with the colour picker. Turns out the real colours are always darker than I reckoned.
- Having been studying light and shadow for a while now I could see where the different types of light and shadows were e.g. there’s a slight terminator/core shadow on the guy’s left cheek, the reflected light underneath his chin.
- Sargent seemed to use lots of carefully blended brush strokes as opposed to the large swipes I’ve seen some oil painters use.
And here’s the reference image:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Man_Wearing_Laurels_LACMA_40.12.10.jpg
Figure Sketches With Values 6th October
Some more figure sketches – I’m trying to get to grips with lighting the forms.
I’ve also done a study from Michael Hampton’s Figure Drawing Design and Invention – a fantastic book for learning to draw the human figure.
Conan The Barbarian Sketch
I’m trying to upload visual information into my brain by sketching from references – here’s a Conan The Barbarian sketch:
Male Torso Values Study
I recently found this article about thumbnailing using values:
http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/composition-basics-sketching-thumbnails.html
It got me experimenting with my painting process. Here’s a male torso study using the process from the Muddy Colors link above.
Captain Mothstorm: Freefall – Part 5
Still working on my Captain Mothstorm illustration.
Added some colour:
Captain Mothstorm: Freefall – Part 4
Here are the tonal values. I’ve learned that it’s easier to work in greyscale first and then add colour later.
I flipped the image for a while to keep my mind fresh.
Captain Mothstorm: Freefall – Part 3
I’ve put in a line drawing over the top of the 3D scene which was really useful for getting the perspective right:
Captain Mothstorm: Freefall – Part 2
Part 2 of my Captain Mothstorm illustration. I picked a composition from the thumbnails I did previously and then did a quick 3D model of the scene in Blender. This should help me get the perspective right.