Digital Illustration Class-Original 2

Well another week has past...and boy has it been a busy week. This week's "Illustration Friday" topic is, "Equipment." The topic was hard at first to come up with an idea, but before I knew what was happening I was doing a topic familiar to me. As you can you tell I've never been a Boy Scout before... Boy did I HATE wearing those shorts. X_x

Right now I feel like jumping up and running all about shouting my happiness (as if I just made a wild 3 point shot in basketball.) I really enjoyed the whole process of this piece, and consider a major mile-marker of learning. i have to promise you though that it didn't turn out exactly what I had in mind, but in the end it was for the better. For example my original sketch had the character and all the objects already planted on the ground. I definitely enjoy working smaller right now (especially for this class) so i can spend more time on specifics (instead of general, wide-sweeping masterpieces...) I also found that i enjoyed working with huge bristles for my paintbrushes, with little or no smaller bristles.

Process Day 1:

1. Came up with an idea worthy of spending X,XXX,XXX hours on.
2. I Drew a simple grid over picture (just for reference)
3. Made a rough sketch based on some sketches I did earlier.
4. Added a wash over my linework (this allows for my imagination to fly, or for me to see corrections I need to make). I usually just lighten the opaicy of the layer, make a new one over it and kinda trace. Squinting helps too...anyway, after that I draw draw draw. In the end I ended with 5 layers of sketches.
5. Rough Value exploration. (This was difficult beause I was making up the light source.)
6. Turn off lines and finalize value drawing. In order to get full range of value I checked my picture against the Value study I did for Zinaida's painting (see previous blog entries).

Process Day 2:

1. I Checked the Value drawing, and made simple corrections.
2. On a new layer I traced all outlines, wherever there was going to be different colors.
3. Made a new layer and called it 'Color Flats.' Utilizing the linework I made with the trace i fill in all the colors with a base/ground color. Then i cleaned up the linework (made it go away)
4. Utilizing the quick selection tool I select the shapes for all one color on the color-flat layer and after duplicating the Final Value Study layer, I click on it, open up the COLOR BALANCE tool and adjust the settings for Shadow, mid-ground, and highlights. Then I did that for every single color. (I made sure to have my Final Value Study layer on Multiply)
5. Make a new layer and with light washes using a paintbrush adjust the colors further (more so than the color balance could) and I also added the random colors, which is the SPICE of illustrations. I also made sure to knock some saturation down in several sections, and built it up in others.
6. Since I am not responding to real life, or a painting, i adjusted the colors how I wanted. Copying all the layers together I paste it back in and play with the auto settings (auto tone, auto contrast, auto color), and the manual ones as well to see how I can improve my overall colors. Apparently this was helpful because I realized that my picture was rather dark.
7. In past experience I have found that if you copy an image and place it over itself, mess with the blending options (multiply, overlay, etc) and lower the opacity, it makes the picture very vibrant...well I did that too.
8. Well if i wasn't satisfied enough i had to keep messing with the colors...copy-merge and pasting again I added a warm/photo filter, then hit Auto contrast...and just when I thought I might be done threw in a couple Hue/saturation adjustment layers, and adjusted some other things....sigh. Basically I am trying to take alot of the guesswork out, where mistakes occur before I use the paintbrush...so I can just have fun!
9. Build 3 new brushes (all different sizes, basically have the same stroke) Set the spacing abou 4%, turned size-pressure off and turned it to opacity-pressure. This leaves the brush looking very painterly.
10. Make a new layer, lock all the others (to prevent mistakes I've made in the past) and....now I paint, PAINT, paint.
11. Once I think I 'm done I do one more auto contrast check. and Done.

What I learned/used:

• Simultaneous Contrast. When I set out to replicate Zinaida's painting I was not expecting to learn this...in fact it wasn't even on my agenda, and i feel I focused on this MORE than the vibrant colors and painterly style. I found out that it works just like line-work, but without the lines...there's a novel thought.
• Full Value and Color. Utilizing the study I did with Zinaida's painting I would occasionally check to see my range of value and color. This was very helpful.
• Use of Black. There are several parts where I used black effectively, and they are partly what make me so happy. For example i put the DARKEST dark, only in the shadows of the character to anchor him, and then of course used accents on the character and on other places to balance the picture. I think my favorite part is the left foot and how I used it there.
• Vibrant accents. I accidentally discovered the use of adding vibrant-colors in shadows and how it makes the picture more interesting and fluid (furthering the painting illusion). For the best example look at Zinaida's picture in the shadow of her blouse there is a StARK orange.
• It is not good to be tense, find yourself not breathing, holding the pen tightly, spend 8 hours straight two days in a row painting, and holding your eyes open wide...it is bad for your health. haha...no but seriously.
  

Right now I feel like a mad scientist who is enacting his EVIL plan... haha