Saturday, May 25, 2013

Generic Demon-San

So I'm back from my vacay. Still learning form. These were done before, at the suggestion of my friend Avery. They helped out a ton, but I have a lot to learn.



Make sure you err on the side of the dark.
Keep it in midtones, then put in the darkest darks, then put in lightest lights.
There are thousands of different ways to render form. It doesn't need to be 100% accurate all the time. Just make sure it looks cool.
Keep things loose until the very end. Always.
Its about corners and highlights. Those are the hardest and show the most form.
Render the major plane changes at a time.

Sculpt the form as quickly as possible. Leave the planes simple, then go in with the divets and veins.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

My kinda gal


So pretty...

Don't edit form, just get better at simplifying. Average your transition values, then add your high-value points. It's a lot easier than editing low-value points over and over. That's how the masters did it. Building up.

There are two ways to render -  airbrushy, and hard edges. Know when to use both. Make conscious decisions where you want to smudge and where you want to keep your planes sharp, because edge sharpness affects values as well. Choose your big gradients the same way you choose your big edges.

Break your image into less than 10 swatches. Then mix in and out of them. Oil painters have to mix everything by hand, so they simplify the palette as much as possible. Trouble is, in digital colours don't mix so smoothly....hmmm..

Photoshop is a big distraction, because it has so many tools and options. Paint as efficiently as possible. Don't get lost in editing. Do it all in one stroke.

Keep your painting mostly dark, then add one area (no more than a sixth of the painting) where all the bright values are. eg. Brom.




Thanks for your advice, Josh. I'm still really bad at it, but hopefully it'll help. :D

Friday, May 10, 2013

Form..

I forgot how.


Friday, May 3, 2013

Selfy

Values are relative. Don't try to measure values when you're trying to sculpt form. After you rough in your planes, just control and refine gradients until it looks correct.

The more a plane faces the light, the less value change you need to "bend" it.

Probably gonna get some animal skulls to still life it up.


Ugh.. could not get that cheek/forehead to look right for the life of me. I'm so sorry.