Keep it quick!!

This is a painting that I just finished that is in colour and utilises the skills used in the value paintings, I also tried to keep the time down so as not to get carried away overtly with detail. The reason for this is to try and focus on lighting, by doing this is will speed up my speed painting and increase my overall work flow pipeline. There are mistakes in here and areas that need to be addressed, the first and most important is skin tone, I must take more account of the ambient light reflections from the surroundings such as the grass and clothing. I roughed out the basic forms in Painter and then finished it off on Photoshop with a series of custom brushes just to add a little detail to the otherwise flat colours.

Fabric

After I had finished the learning agreement I decided to sit down and do some fabric studies, the aim here is to try and understand how different materials work. So I did three quick still life studies of three different types of cloth, as you can see they each have a completely different way of folding depedning on who rigid the fibres are plus the specular highlights are more vibrant on the more smooth surfaced. I will be doing more of these as I progress but this was a good start.

Male torso study

This is another anatomy study done in value but this time of the male torso particually demonstrating the way the waist twists. Here we can see how the twist is performed by the Abductor region combined with the External obliques, we can also see how the Pectoralis major sits on the chest region combining with the Deltoid on the shoulders.

Male back life study

I did this anatomy study in Painter once again concentrating on just values to make sure I get the forms correct. The back is a complex network of muscles that are all connected and interwoven to give us the mobility that a able bodied person has.

This is the first of many looking purely at muscles and the aim of this is to help my modeling skills such as topology and my sculpting skills in Mudbox, the above study clearly shows the back group starting with the Occipalis at the top of the head ranging down the back until we see the Adductor magnus at the upper leg and helps build up a clearer vision of topology.

Looking at a slightly bigger picture!

I really enjoyed doing the last value study so i decided to do another one but this time incorporating both more detail in the hair and some fabric work, I used reference material again taking into account fashion and the 80's. By continuing to work in just value I am seeing a change in my work, the images seem much more three dimensional as I am focusing more on light and tone than colour. A step in the right direction I think as it will no doubt aid not just my concept paintings later but also my understanding of topology for my modeling.

Female portrait value study

I decided to leave the modeling alone today to spend some time on other areas of research for my project, I spent some of the day looking into the inspiration for my concept and refining the plan for this portion of the year. I also gave myself a little time to draw a portrait, I used several images for reference and decided use just values, this is to enable to gain a greater understanding of form.

No reference, one portrait!

This is a portrait I did in Painter using only a few of the different brushes available, the best brush set I have found for this type of painting in the acrylic as it suits my painting style. The image was then finished in Photoshop, I added skin texture and made a custom brush set to speed up the hair painting.

There are mistakes within the image and points for me to pay more attention to next time. These include the reflections on the eyes, skin tone (it is too blue making her look almost dead) and the shape of the chin. This was my first attempt at doing something like this with no reference material. Whilst I think not using material can be a good thing I am going to try the next one with reference to see what difference it can make to the image.

Facial studies

Some quick and simple facial studies done in Painter, I believe that if I have a greater understanding of the facial shape then it will aid my character modeling that will take up a vast portion of my time.

I used Painter and its blending brushes to allow me to give the images a more organic feel, whilst I do think that I am improving with then it is definitely a case of the more I do the better I will get. I have also decided to work in values in order to help me focus on form rather that tonal values, this will help me speed up my understanding and knowledge and also speeds up the illustration process.

Some chalk and memory!

This is a brief sketch done in Corel Painter X using a simple chalk brush, this was an experiment in how using Painter would benefit over Photoshop, whilst I do love Photoshop and it's vast extensive range of tools that are available where it looses out is the way the brushes in Painter replicate natural medium. So to someone like me who used to paint in acrylics and inks this feels far more natural especially when it comes to doing organic forms. I feel that this is down to the organic nature of the program unlike Photoshops which is far netter at doing less organic illustrations.

As far as texture overlaying and manipulation, brush creation and colour correction is concerned this does pail when compared to Photoshop so I do think that in order to make the complete concept pieces I have in mind a combination of the two will arise.

Learning Loomis

In order to gain a better understanding of how to make my future character illustrations more dynamic and add movement and action to them I decided to have a look at how Loomis did it and how to use the skeletal system to make this a a reality. Here are a few examples of what I did and even thought these are very scrappy it is quite clear that by using this system it adds both weight and energy to the figures, the aim it to build upon this base structure and add cloth dynamics and facial expressions to builds a more believable existence to my characters and monsters.

Anatomy Research

In this thread I will be posting all my anatomy study from not on, this will include portraits and life studies that I do as i tackle the subject head on!!!