 |
Begin with a white field and a large brush...
set the color to a deep Vandyke-ish brown or deep rust brown. The brush opacity should be low, no more than about 10%--maybe less.
Build the blocked Silhouette of your figure.
|
 |
Deepen and warm the silhouette using the low opacity brush--until you have a more sure,
slightly-deeper-than-midrange color to act as the ground for the figure.
I don't usually paint light to dark, I paint dark to light--digitally, at least.
I use the midrange to begin the dialog between highlight and shadow. if you cant tell, I have even got hints of where the features and muscles will be already, built
solely on layers of that one color layed down in consecutive layers to built the figure.
|
 |
Here I slightly lightened the color using the brightness control. It was a little darker than I wanted.
Now I picked a lighter cream in the orange family and again--with the low opacity brush--I began to build some
preliminary highlights, denoting shape to the body, defining light source, and bringing forth some begining detail.
|
 |
Okay, here I picked an even lighter color to build further on the highlights, literally sculpting him out of the midrange color.
I then selected a deeply saturated rust color and used it to lay in some semi opaque layers of shadow.
he's
rough right now, but he's starting to pop forward.
|
 |
This stage is the longest one... It's just more of what came before. Fiddling....Using that very low opacity brush, to lay down layers of
highlight and shadow. I worked in a rust colored midrange highlight and also yellowed up my lightest tones so he wasn't so tangerine.
The laying down of more shadow and light with smaller, textured brushes set at even lower opacity (around 5%) allows for fine tuning that really builds depth.
|
 |
Laying in several subtle midranges add more realism... I kept things still in that rust palette, but really, you can do this
with any color set...Often with some starlingly wonderful effects.
More highlights build in more realism without creating the need for more detail.
Painting is a matter of tricking to the
eye to see what it needs to in order to tell the brain this is a man. T
oo much detail ruins it by giving the eye detail that isn't necessary.
So I won't go in and paint every eyelash or even really add
proper eyes. Keep it natural and subtle.
Be patient, build those
thin layers that create the texture of the work and create the depth.
|
|
He's done now...well... as done as he is going to be. LOL!
I have tightened up the details a bit, with (you guessed it) more thin layers
of highlight and shadow colors.
I also went in with the background white, and some colors from the shadow side
of the portrait and contrasted outside his body on the highlight side.
I tightened up the edges of the work too...okay, just the areas where the work
was done. Obviously he's not got hands. *grin*
At this point, I would
clip the art to size if it was meant to be a finished work...
But we will leave him like this.
He took about 20 minutes. So he
wasn't a big labor of time. But he's a nice little example of painting digitally.
Rememeber that when you are digitally painting, you ARE painting...
so you are trying to define the figure (or other item) without linework. Linework immediately says
"drawing" not "painting". Have fun and practice a lot!
Hugs!
|