Sketchbook Thread of Heozart

[Eiki]

hey, that s a unique style of yours on the first pages! :arteest:
very interesting and creative stuff here


like to see more :)

[anandpg]

Yes! very different! Welcome back! looking forward to more of your work!

[Heozart]

BapKe and Anand, thanks! I probably should mention that I usually draw from reference, books, movies, pictures from the internet, etc. I am using a brush pen for a lot of these drawings. It is great for dynamic lines, but I have yet to figure out how to shade with it effectively.

Here's a new page from today. I can't wait till Kung Fu Panda comes out on DVD so I can watch it again.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Sketchbook/2008-06-23.jpg

[AztcFireFlower]

Hey! I recognize those lovely Loomis heads. Excellent source of info.
Nice inks! There is a definite confidence to your lines. That's a very ccool way to practice yuor figure work.
Have you tried a watercolor wash for shadows over your ink lines? You can feather the edges out with water. Or even a gradated value with several markers. That would look sweet.

To answer your question on construction: It's exactly that. To draw the muscle over the initial gesture line/lay-in. So, it's a process where you block in a form's space including gesture, than define or carve out the muscle over this.
As in the Loomis heads where you see the lines of placement for eyes, mouth, etc. on a block form, those are construction lines. The eye and mouth, nose shapes are placed over or carved out of this block. That's construction. You're already doing it. You now apply this same process to a life drawing.

[Heozart]

Esmeralda, I can't thank you enough for your suggestion to feather with water! I bought a grey Faber-Castell brushpen to use for that purpose, and I have been rather unimpressed. I went over these new drawings with a damp brush, and I like it! I think I am going to get some watercolor pencils and see what they add. Oh, and thank you for explaining construction, too.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Sketchbook/2008-06-24.jpg

[itayg]

great stuff. i really like the cartoon characters studies.

cant wait to see more,

itay

[Heozart]

Thanks for the comment itayg. Those cartoon characters help me have some fun. :arteest: I think Corpse Bride in particular is a great source to learn facial expression from. While they are exaggerated, the puppets' expressions are still bound by physical limits. I should do more focused studies from Corpse Bride when I get a chance. I got lazy today and didn't draw anything, but here are some Sweeney Todd studies I did back in May.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/2008-05-06.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/2008-05-07.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/2008-05-09.jpg

And Lord Barkis from Corpse Bride:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/LordBarkis2.jpg

[Heozart]

So I was walking down the street yesterday to get dinner, and saw this art gallery where they have daily life drawing sessions. I knew what I needed to do and bought a monthly pass. Here are my very first life drawings:

1-5 minute poses:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-26-01.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-26-02.jpg

10 minute:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-26-03.jpg

30 minute:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-26-04.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-26-05.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-26-06.jpg

The lighting was confusing because they were coming from different directions. Should I emphasize only the most dominant light source and try to ignore other sources as I have in some of the 30 minute poses, or should I draw what I see and leave most of the figure in light?

[Intervain]

totally agree about Kung-Fu Panda - it was awesome :) Especially the turtle ;)

and I love Corpse Bride :D Nice studies all round!:thumbsup:

[NR43]

great stuff!
keep at it ;)

[Heozart]

Magdalena, hehe, yeah I loved the turtle. And Tai Lung was really scary for an animation character. I will be watching Wall-E soon. It will be hard to top Kung Fu Panda with a robot, but Pixar has never disappointed me so hopefully it will be good.

Johan, thanks for visiting.

From today's life drawing session. I was struggling to get the hang of it for some reason, especially with the quicker poses. I am going to tomorrow's gesture drawing session, so hopefully I will learn something.

1-minute:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-28-01.jpg

2-minute:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-28-02.jpg

5-minute:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-28-03.jpg

10-minute:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-28-04.jpg

45-minute:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-28-05.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-06-28-06.jpg

[Heozart]

I have been to two more life drawing sessions since my last post, but I did not take pictures of my drawings because I was disappointed by them. I will keep going though, and will post decent ones.

Hand #1 from the workshop. 1 hour in photoshop
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Hands/01.jpg

Kung Fu Panda study, done in Painter Essentials. I don't quite understand this program, but trying to get used to it since I am waiting for Painter X in the mail.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/Po.jpg

[ceruleanvii]

Nice sketches, I really like the ink and brush ones, you have great linework!

Enjoy your life drawing sessions, I really get a lot out of going to mine, though some days are definitely better than others. Look at it this way, even if you don't get a great drawing, you've learned something - least that's what I tell myself :)

Looking forward to more!

[Heozart]

Ceruleanvii, thanks. I do enjoy the life drawing sessions. I just hope that when I mess up, I am learning what not to do rather than reinforcing bad habits.

Hands 03. This one took forever at 5 hours. Now that I compare it to the reference, head became too small and the hand looks funny. I am still quite happy with how it turned out. This is probably my best painting yet, although it isn't saying much. Part of the reason this took so long was because I tried using soft brushes. I have avoided using soft brushes in the past because I don't like things looking too.....well, soft. I learned that it is much easier for smooth blending, and I just need to go in after with a hard brush to define edges.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Hands/03.jpg

[Heozart]

From earlier this week:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-07-10-01.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-07-10-02.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-07-10-03.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-07-10-04.jpg

Thought I'd try digital at life drawing this morning:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-07-13-01.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Life%20Drawing/2008-07-13-02.jpg

[Kishii]

Awesome love your Kung fu panda's!

[NR43]

Lovely studies Wes

[sycen]

Great studies :thumbsup:

[Heozart]

Hi all,

So I finally got my copy of Painter X! I thought I'd give it a try at life drawing yesterday. I mostly used charcoal and pastel brushes for these.

http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/1723/200807171io0.jpg
http://img224.imageshack.us/img224/5631/200807172un9.jpg
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/7268/200807173ha4.jpg
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/9679/200807174ws2.jpg
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/5015/200807175dn1.jpg

The last pose was just perfect. There were all kinds of funky foreshortenings happening. I want to learn to use the oil brushes, but I get totally lost because I have never done a real oil painting. Still, I think I am going to love Painter once I get used to all the features.

[NR43]

Wonderufl sketches!
I'm sure you'll love Painter once you get the hang of it :)

[Heozart]

From today's session. Felt brave enough to try acrylic brushes for the two 45 minute poses. I will have to try acrylic again at tomorrow's long pose.

http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/4098/200807191fw1.jpg
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/6132/200807192ak3.jpg
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/7536/200807193ez6.jpg
http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/5677/200807194kl6.jpg

[magtataho]

It took me a good 20 minutes to load everything in your thread (leeching off a mystery neighbor's wifi since we haven't had any internet for 2 months), but it was worth it - I love the character in your inks ( ' u ' ) and you seem to have a solid grasp on form too! Hope to see more from this thread.

[Heozart]

Magtataho, thanks for your comments, but 20 minutes?! :eek: I hope my images aren't too big for these forums. I need to do more character studies, but I haven't done a lot of those since I started going to life drawing.

Here are some randome experiments in Painter. I love how free and expressive you can be with the digital ink brushes.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Misc/2008-07-20.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Misc/Dragon.jpg

[alenah]

hi Heozart/Wes (not sure - is this your name?),
nice work in here!
Lord Barkis style looks really great, and a lot of your sketches are really nice!
and how is your Painter X - I mean - getting used to it after a few days?? I am sure you´ll love it :)
I´ll sure check out whats new in your thread more often :)
a.

[Heozart]

Hi Alena, thanks for visiting! Yes, you can call me Wes. I still have a lot to learn in Painter, but I am having a lot of fun. The tutorials at http://homepage.mac.com/pixlart/main.htm have been immensely helpful. Without them I would be still fumbling all over the canvas.

That said, I miss some features from Photoshop; the color square where you can pick a color by saturation and brightness, save for web, darkened outside area when cropping, and geneal ease of editing images. If something is out of proportion in my sketch for example, all I had to do in Photoshop was use the lasso tool then hit V to resize. In Painter, there seems to be an extra step involved where you have to turn the selection into a floating object first. On one of the 30 minute poses from today (which I am not posting) I think I spent at least 5 minutes trying to figure out how to resize the head, because when I dragged the arrows it only resized the outline of the selection but not what was in the selection. So I was aggravated a little, but I still love Painter.

So here are some poses from today. I didn't like how many of them turned out, but I guess we all have our good days and bad days.

http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/4286/200807221tn8.jpg

http://img367.imageshack.us/img367/1924/200807222yt4.jpg

[NR43]

Hi Wes,

You can get the color square in Painter by double clicking on your current color thumb.

The quick transforming procedure is indeed not quick enough in Painter.

I might be wise to make some hotkeys for the actions you use most!
It's in the preference menu somewhere...

It may be a good idea to check that hotkeys list anyway, because that is how I found out about a few very interesting things:

SPACEBAR to pan the canvas
e to rotate the canvas
ALT to pick a color
CTRL to move (if you first make a selection it will copy the selected area onto a new layer, which you can move first and then drop or merge with your original layer)
CTRL + ALT and then drag to quickly change brushsize
b to go back to brush mode
f to move a layer

Those are the keys I use most in Painter IX.5 (not sure if they have the same default key in Painter X)

Hope it helps

[anandpg]

Hey Wes!
Awesome stuff!! give us more!:bounce:

[alenah]

.. yes, Wes, thats right - if you are used to Photoshop, you might find some of its features missing - or not "working that well" .. but - on the contrary - there is a lot of features in Painter, that Photoshop doesn´t have ..
it is good to realize that those programs canot be compared to each other easily, since they are simply so much different, each one is established/determined for a different purpose - Painter for painting, Photoshop for image editing above all .. well - both of them let you do all of various work, but - nothing compares to Photoshop as far as image editing/2d post-processing/precise masking is concerned, and - nothing compares to Painter as far as painting is concerned (in my opinion/experience) ...
if you´ll find your way how to use the "good" of both, you might perhaps be happy with both of them in the end :)

btw - your last sketches added look really great!
a.

[ceruleanvii]

Great figure sketches, very energetic!

So how are you liking doing life drawing digitally? I'm not quite comfortable with it yet, the little laptop screen frustrates me, I'm used to working bigger/looser. Do you have any tips to share?

[Heozart]

Johan, oh yeah, I remember that color square from your sketchbook thread. Thanks for those hotkeys. I've been using most of those already, but had to reassign some keys to match Photoshop. Rotating the canvas while trying to Erase is no longer an issue! Ctrl + Alt + drag to resize is indeed very handy. I actually set it to one of the hotkeys on my tablet. Another shortcut I am finding helpful is Ctrl + Alt + 0 to zoom in to 100%. I believe the shortcuts are the same for IX.5 and X. The tutorials I mentioned in my last post are written for either IX or IX.5 and everything works the same in X.

Anand, thank you so much! It means a lot coming from such an accomplished artist as yourself.

Alena, thanks for your insights. Do you usually save your files as .PSD while working in Painter or only when you need to swap to Photoshop?

Ceruleanvii, I feel like I can do more faster in digital, but it may be because I don't have a whole lot of experience working traditionally. But I have to agree, the range of motion feels limited when I want to do some big sweeping lines. What are your screen and tablet sizes? My laptop screen is 17 inches and my wacom is 6x11. Even with a big screen size for a laptop, I find myself constantly zooming in and out (which is why I find Ctrl + Alt + 0 useful to quickly go to full size.) Start with big gesture lines while zoomed out, zoom in on a section to work on the details, zoom back out to check the proportions, zoom in on another section and so forth. Where do you place your tablet at life drawing? Do they have drawing tables? Where I go they only have horses, so I flip one up to get a high surface for my laptop, but it is too high to get comfortable with a tablet. I balance it on my lap, holding it with my non-drawing hand with the thumb over the hotkeys, and it seems to work ok. So I don't really have any tips other than the obvious, but if I notice something I will be sure to let you know.

Since I didn't want to post without pictures, here's something different. I made it early last year for a friend's birthday. I haven't done any more stained glass pieces since then, but I would like to get back into it one of these days.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/Nevaeh1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/Nevaeh2.jpg

[Heozart]

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/WIP1.jpg

This is something I've been working on all week. It is a WIP of my first commissioned piece :applause: for a City of Heroes player. For those not familiar, it is an online game where you can create your own superheroes. The two main figures are Comrade Hero and Graviton Girl, two of his characters. In the background is a statue of Atlas holding a massive globe and the city hall. The city hall is missing pillars but I figured I'd add them once I start painting.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/CH-Rough-2.jpg
Here's a rough study I painted on top of a screenshot from the game before starting the sketch. For the actual painting, I think I am going to tone down the blue in the background to keep the most contrast on the figures.

I know I am going to start painting in grayscale and add color later. What I don't know is how to approach giving color to their costumes. Comrade Hero has red/dark green tights on black gloves and boots. Graviton Girl is in red/blue tights and white gloves and boots. I ignored local colors in the rough, but I want the costume colors to be discernable while still retaining the sunset lighting. I've been observing the view outside last few evenings, and I am still confused.

In light areas, for red, I guess the light will pull the hue towards orange and saturation will go down for very bright areas. I am not sure how the hue and saturation will be affected by the light for blue and dark green. I think the white in the gloves and boots will appear more as orange, but would the highlights still be white?

I am even more clueless for areas in the shadows. I think the blue shadows in the rough works ok, but how does it interact with my costume colors? Will blue and dak green get more saturated? What does it do to red?

I am also not sure what would be the most logical process of painting the costumes after I have the values. Pretend the light is white till I have the costume colors painted in, work in the lighting first and then worry about the costume colors, or work on both at the same time? Will painting in certain layer mode make this simpler than I am making it out to be?

I am sorry to ask so many questions, but I really need to figure this out. If any of you wonderful people can help me out in any way, it will be greatly appreciated.

[Frejasphere]

Hi Wes/Heozart :)

Just enjoyed browsing through your thread and am glad to have popped in here :)
You have some great pieces, and it's clear you are on an evolving path.

I love the stained glass face, and your Bridal Corpse(?) studies! :) Keep up the life
drawing, your line work shows a lot of confidence and I like your experimental approach:thumbsup: At times it can help to stop and just look at the pose for a while, before starting a study. Someone once told me (in relation to life drawing), that time spent looking should always be longer than the time it takes to capture what you see. There are many ways and approaches, this is just one :)

As I am a complete newbie in digital painting I can't really offer suggestions on the one above - do look forward to how it progresses though! Traditionally I would be careful of singling out an area of the painting to 'deal with' at the end (like background, figure etc), instead try to treat the entire canvas as a whole, allowing it all to come together. As you are starting in greyscale, I think to a certain extent a different approach may be needed and I am sure there are many who can offer suggestions :)

Cheers and take care
a. :)

[Heozart]

Annette, thank you so much! It's been exactly a month since I started going to life drawing. I go there about three times a week on average, and I can already tell it is helping me grow as an artist. So far, I've been trying frantically to capture the whole figure within the given time. But as you suggested, I am going to start taking the time to really observe, and focus on my weak areas like hands, feet and the face.......legs, arm, torso....back...lol I guess I don't have a confident area yet. If you haven't watched Corpse Bride, I highly recommend it. I just love the character design and their expressions.

I started looking through my superhero movie collection, and I think I found a lot of answers at the end of Spiderman 3 after the final battle. It is actually a sunrise, but I only knew that because the fight took place at night. I believe the only big difference is that for sunrise, the light is more yellow than red/orange. With the prevalence of CG nowadays, I kinda doubt they actually shot the scene during an actual sunrise, but I think it will be a good guideline for my painting. I will post more WIPs as I make progress.

[alenah]

hi wes - wow - your new project you started is not an easy one at all :)
all the top-difficult aspects of the 2d illustration (perspective, anatomy, quite difficult poses, quite complex composition ...) are there to be solved out :)

well - to be honest, I like your great loose line sketches or your amazing color/chalk expressive studies a little bit more - but - I am sure you´ll complete this one to be a great art piece of yours as well :)

I am just posting a few thoughts of mine -
you started quite well, but - there is a few issues that might need to be fixed, I would say ..
well - I cannot be any helpful as far as the likeness of those figures is concerned, as I am not very familiar with those heroes, but - as far as anatomy goes - there are at least 2 things that catch my attention eachtime I look at your image:

1) the girl´s pose and anatomy are fine, very nice dynamic gesture, all the main body shapes relate to each other - and also the pose is ok - but - the Comrade Hero´s figure/anatomy is not very correct here .. his trunk is too long - and - it is somehow too much twisted in a weird way, so - the muscles flow on the chest does not look very naturally; nor does the trapezius (the huge muscle behind the neck/shoulder covering a lot of middle upper part of the back area) is almost missing on the right side of his, so there is no natural visible "muscle connection/flow" in the area between his right-hand shoulder and the back/neck area
(when the hand is raised, also the shoulder/trapezius should be raised a little bit more than normally); and, also the overal shape of the body/hand/mucles is a little bit too overdone here, ..

2) there is some not very clearly defined area behind the Comrade Hero - the viewer may be confused by the wrong perspective there (the sketches are very loose at that area, so I hope I understood/interpreted the lines well) .. the 3rd man´s shoulder/hand should be - as far as i understood the composition - visible IN FRONT of the flying piece of fabric/piece of cloth of that girl .. the girl is far more in the back ..
(sorry my English, I really cannot find right words for more specific descriptions, the dictionary is full of different English words for one Czech word, and vice versa, difficult to choose the right one :( )
so - to better show what I am talking about - I did a few very quick/rough paintovers .. the first one is just to show what is fine in your illustration (so as you can see what I mean in the other paintover images)

the white line in the first one is just a depiction of the relationship of the main parts of the girls body/and the dynamics of her pose - that is quite nice in your illustration ..
http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/po_1.jpg

this one is the same for the man´s figure in the front - in this one there is a few shapes/relations/dynamics issues that should be fixed a little ..
(I just marked very roughly only the main shapes that show the basic proportions that - in my opinion - shoud be fixed)
http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/po_3b.gif

and this one shows the confusing area I was talking about ..
http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/po_2a.gif
perhaps my limited language makes sense :)
a.
p.s. what are you using - Photoshop or Painter?

[Heozart]

Alena, I can't thank you enough for your comments! It is just the kind of feedback I needed. As you have noticed, this is the most ambitious project for me to date, and I really wanted to test my limits. I have spent about 25 hours on the sketch alone, and that is already a lot more than I have spent on any finished piece. Apparently I am pushing my laptop's limits too. The image is quite large at 5100x4200 pixels, and it takes minutes to load and save in Photoshop. So far I've only worked in Photoshop because of the perspective drawing I had to do for the background. Actually it was my first digital perspective drawing in Photoshop too, but I figured I'd have an easier time in Photoshop than in Painter.

I agree that this sketch is not the most appealing drawing I've done in and of itself, but it shouldn't show up in the final painting. Because painting an image of this size is also a first time thing for me, I wanted to have precise boundaries so I don't have to guess when painting. It is the result of working and reworking the same lines.

I am not used to drawing muscular types as I am just beginning to learn the muscles, and it shows. :blush: I did catch the torso being too long in the rough painting and shortened it, but I guess it is still too long. Maybe that twist in the torso is too unnatural, like he is trying too hard to pose for the painting. Your gesture lines flow MUCH better. I am worried it may be too similar to Graviton Girl's pose, but maybe it will be a good thing.

The third figure is actually a giant statue. If you look closely in the rough painting, you can see tiny people standing under him. :p I see that the cape overlapping Atla's right arm is confusing now, but I think it will be easy to make the distinction once value and color is introduced. As a side note, drawing a proper cape is yet another first time thing for me. In order to understand how a cape might resist the wind, I taped a sheet of kleenex to a bottle and took some pictures while blowing air with a hairdryer. It was quite a fun experiment and one of the reasons why the sketch has taken so long.

Oh, and I think you should feel good about your English, because your posts make perfect sense to me. It is not my first language either, by the way. :)

Thank you again for pointing out the errors. I will try to improve Comrade Hero's pose.

[alenah]

hey wes,
lol, your "wind" experimets are realy cool :)
good for you!
(yes, "cape" is one of the words I was loking for :) )
I am glad I could help a bit ;

just another thought - you neednt work that large from the very start at all, though you plan your image should have large dimensions in the end;
you can start half the size (or even less), define all your shapes, scene, composition first - and - only then, when you are satisfied with the initial sketch/composition, you can then resize to the size you need for the final "rendering"/paniting;
then you can rework your lines to the "clean" look, if necessary (that is if you plan achive that type of comx illustration that has the lines clearly visible)
if not, you even neednt redraw your lines after you resize your document at all, for just a guidance its low quality after resizing doesnot matter ..
working in smaller canvas can really save a lot of time/computers capacity - and your nerves :)
looking forward to seing more!
a.

p.s. as for my English - I am glad you could understand what I wanted to express - I am really hopeless sometimes :)
(the limited vocabulary is not the only problem in fact - the collocation issues/idiomatics/frazeology are even worse for a self-taught Engl. student like me :) )
thanks for your giving me confidence :)
the learning process - whatever it is - never ends in our lives :)

[Lexalotacus]

Awesome work!
You have a way with value and color that makes me jealous!!
Keep em coming!

:bowdown:

[Heozart]

Hi Lex, thanks for your compliments. I am actually very intimidated when it comes to color, but hopefully I will get a better understanding as I continue to paint.

Alena, thanks for the tip on starting out small. I will remember to do that on my next big painting.

I went through a lot of trouble and frustration, but here is the revised sketch. He looks more comfortable, but I am not sure if it is exciting to look at. I also don't like that his head is right in the center of the painting, but no matter how I reposition these figures, something seems to be problematic.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/sketch-revision2.jpg

I just remembered to flip the image horizontally to get a fresh view, and I think his pose actually looks decent. So I am going to go ahead with this sketch, but if there are any anatomical issues that must be addressed, please do point them out.

[Heozart]

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/CHGGWIP2.jpg

Here is an update. I am mostly testing the color choices for the costumes at this stage. I want a little more variation of colors for the background, but looks like it is going to be a lot tougher than I thought.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/CHGGWIP2detail.jpg

This is Comrade Hero's head at full size. It was an experiment with Alena's smudge and hair tutorials and I had a lot of fun.

I am still working in Photoshop only. I opened the file in Painter yesterday and there was a 5-10 second delay after every little move I made so it was impossible to work in Painter. :(

[alenah]

wow - wes - what a progress!!
nice!
glad you had fun with the smudging technique - you seem you´ll be able to get quite a lot of it very soon :)
and - your revised sketch looks much better now, I´would say

well - it is quite early to comment the color painting since this is only an early stage - so -
just one thought that comes to my mind -
you are doing fine, wes - I only think you should perhaps concetnrate on the global/main big shapes first - and add details later;
I am trying to say - adding fine details in the early stages may sometimes resullt in the inevitable (and time/energy consuming) revising/repainting them later;
I mean - for example - you have already painted quite a detailed hand of the girl, but - the background shapes/area is not done yet (I guess), so - when adding the background later, you might have problems keeping those fine details you have already painted, if it makes sense ..
painting from "big/rough" to "small/fine" may save a lot of your time and energy in the end - especialy when painting such a complex piece like the one of yours ...

anyway - I definitelly love the color scheme you use!
I think you neednt worry about the colors so much, you are doing fine,
and - smudging/blending colors together may sometimes solve the "color transition" problems for you .. just keep in mind - it is critical/very important to try to keep/add a good variety to your strokes/colors in the early stages, so as to have enough "color material/reserve" to work with when blending/smoothing later (remember, blending/smudging makes the resulting colors get dirty/less saturated - and the difference between them gets less visible) -
and do not worry - if necessary - there is usually a way how to "redefine" or "fix" your colors ex post, later, if you feel your painting needs to be fixed in any way in the end :)
fixing the "wrong" color is much less pain than fixing the "wrong" values/shapes in the end (for me :) ) ..

I am looking forward to seeing how you proceed with this one - keep working!

p.s. hm .. I have the opposite problem - smudging in PS (or also painting with some brushes, that have a texture or a "dual brush" feature applied to it) takes much more time/memory than blending/painting in Painter, I have never ever experienced those memory problems in Painter so far, so I do not know :(

[Heozart]

Alena, thanks for all your comments - I am so encouraged. I wanted to get the big shapes down first like you said, but I got carried away with little things again today. I think my problem is that I see big empty spaces (like the area between city hall and the buildings, and left of Atlas) and I don't know what I am going to do with them, so I end up going back to the areas I can work on.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/CHGGWIP3.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/CHGGWIP3detail1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/CHGGWIP3detail2.jpg

I know the girl's face is oversmudged now, but does she look ok proportion wise? I couldn't quite figure out what, but something about her face kept bugging me so I tried to fix it but I am still not happy. She's supposed to look kinda like Kate Beckinsale, btw. The guy is supposed to look like Sean Bean, and I failed that one too, lol. At least Atlas is looking good. :)

[Heozart]

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/CHGGWIP5.jpg

Posting where I am with the painting before Alena does a paintover the old progress. I repainted the costumes since I was just testing the colors last time and I didn't like how they were a little too glossy. I think it looks more like spandex now. The background has been changed a little too. The horizon is at an angle, and the lines are more loosely in perspective so it doesn't look like a technical drawing.

My biggest concern now is the background looking mostly orange. Maybe it will do good to keep the focus on the characters, but I have this habit of ignoring local colors. I was able to avoid that on the costumes because I spent a lot of time analyzing how the local colors in the costumes would look in a sunset lighting, but I wasn't able to find good references to use as a guideline for the background. I am also trying to figure out how shadows fall on stairs and it is giving me a headache.

[alenah]

hey wes - so - finally here it is, the paintover I promissed :)

there is a great progress in the illustration (and in your skills) so far,
but - there still is quite a lot of things that need to be fixed a little bit -
well - where to start off ..

some of the issues that might need to be fixed are very minor, so I do not comment, I leave them out as this is still the wip stage of the illustration .. but - there are a few major/more important things, that do not seem ok to my eyes when looking at the composition: it is the perspective, and the faces (proportions & features) of both the girl and the hero;

about the perspective first:
uhh - not an easy task at all to figure out what the perspective you used was ... I had a really tough time when trying to figure out :) since your perspective is a little bit off in some areas ...

I assume that you were trying to use the curved/distorted type of perspective in your last composition (not an easy task at all!) - but - the perspective you ended up with turned out a little bit too much distorted, and a little bit "unlogical";
I mean - for example - the distant buildings (seem to me they do not fit to the composition perspective very well) or - the dome/cupola (not sure of the Engl. term for that) - there is kind of "visual conflict" about the dome/cupola there, since it is viewed under slightly different angle/perspective then the rest of the area it is placed into), etc.

I am not going into the details so much - I´ll only try to show/suggest what I mean in the following paintover (pls note - the perspective planes depicted/suggested here are only very roughly done, I just put those planes there "visually", did not work exactly/measure anything - so it is NOT very precise in fact - I just very loosely placed/incorporated those planes into the image for you so as you could have an idea of what I am talking about)

fig #1 shows the perspective you use (as I figured out) - but - the cupola does not match this perspective very well; the round base of the dome/cupola should be more "tilted"/flattened, in my opinion ... and - accordingly - the whole dome/cupola should be viewed much more from side (not that much from the "top", if you can understand what I am trying to say);
now it has its own perspective applied to it (see fig #2), which is a little bit off, compared to the overall perspective used .. (see fig #3)

http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/perspective_demo%20kopie.jpg

and - about the girl/hero faces:
I did not want to completely change your concept - I only tried to refine it a bit, keeping as much as possible (the original pose, lightening, basic features) - but - as I have completely different style of painting - it was not easy for me (and - as you can see - the girl´s/hero´s paintovers are far away from being perfect)
so - pls, take it the way I did not try to paint perfect new faces (nor tried to make new "sexy idols" out of the Comrade Hero or the girl :) )
the only thing I wanted to do was to suggest the possible features/proportions you might possibly use as a very loose guide for your further work, if you wish to ...

and one more thing - I was not sure about the man´s eyes, are they supposed to be shiny/shining somehow?? I am asking, because the flat red color looks weird to me - in my opinion it should be either much darker (if not shining) or much brighter (if shining), with the reflected/bouncing light in the nearest areas, nose etc. - so I suggested both the possible variants, see the animation)

here they are:
http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/she.jpg

http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/he_dark.jpg

to better see the difference I made also simple gif animations of both
(pls note, the *gif´s indexed colorss do not have the quality of the original)

http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/she_PO.gif

http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/he_PO.gif

not sure if this "messy art" of mine may be useful for you in any way -
anyway - good luck :)
a.

[ceruleanvii]

Wow, very ambitious piece! Gonna be awesome when it's done!

I think the overall orange is cool, have you thought about maybe having the shadow areas go into more purplish - like shadows look in late afternoon/early evening (Gurney, Parrish)

http://bp2.blogger.com/_Eiwce13X738/R4m6PohFVaI/AAAAAAAABS4/UIu8toGP6Bw/s1600-h/Gideon%26Avatar.sm.jpg
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/illustrations/jackbeanstalk/images/parrishbeanstalk.jpg

might help separate your objects a bit? Characters look very cool, I love the costumes and poses. The girl's raised arm, where it meets the neck, maybe could be more subtle, the dude's upper arm too, but overall proportions and poses look good.

Can't wait to see it finished - you should submit it to the gallery when you're done for sure!

[SpiritDreamer]

Hi...Wes..:)

Been enjoying the developement of this latest piece your working on.
Couldn't resist doing a little color and lighting study of it.
I don't know if it will be of any use to you, but here it is.
If you don't want it posted in your thread, just let me know, and I will take it off...no problem....just thought you might be able to use some of it, is all...:)
I kept the lighting at a diaginal to match the strong diaginal in your composition, bright on the left side, dark on the right side. Used a cooler purple blue to offset the warm orange, seperate the elements, and add depth...also put a brighter yellow light over the tops of the distant buildings to keep the veiwers eye in the composition...and to stop the viewer from leaving the composition by/through the pointing hand/fingers of the woman.
Looking forward to seeing the progress and final outcome of this piece.
SHOULD BE GREAT..:thumbsup:
TAKE CARE
Glenn
http://artbyglenngallegos.com/images/CHGGWIP5_D2.jpg

[Heozart]

I am sorry for the long absence. I got too frustrated with working on a high resolution image on my old laptop.....so I had a desktop built and bought a 24 inch screen! I just got it yesterday, and I cannot believe how much faster it is. This painting takes minutes to load on my laptop, but only a few seconds on my new computer. :D But of course my wireless adaptor (among some other things) had to be incompatible with Vista 64, so no internet on that machine yet. At least Photoshop, Painter and Wacom don't seem to have any issues, so I am going to get back to working on this piece today.

Alena, thank you so much for the paintovers. You make it look so easy, lol. I love the golden highlights, and Comrade Hero's face looks much better proportioned. I will try not to make carbon copies of your paintovers, but I will definitely make some changes. Thanks for pointing out the perspective error too. I think the dome went out of perspective because I didn't want it to look like they were flying very low. I am moving everything in the background down a little so the figures are higher relatively.

Del, thanks for the compliments! I am lucky these characters are all covered up because I don't have skin tones all figured out like you. I tried some purplish shadows like you suggested and I think it looks better. I also tried to fix her right arm, but I think I am only making it worse. Oh well, I will keep trying.

Hi Glenn, please leave your lighting study here, I am very flattered to have you post in my thread. I visit your thread all the time so I have seen your great works, but I just never knew how to comment on your experimental approach. :) I like the idea of keeping the right side dark a lot, as well as bright yellow over the buildings. Thank you very much for your insights.

I have Colors! (http://www.collectingsmiles.com/colors/) set up on my Ninteno DS finally, and here are a couple of doodles:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/DS%20Sketches/2008-08-19.png
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/DS%20Sketches/2008-08-21.png

I must say painting on the DS is a lot of fun! The scren size is less of an issue than I thought because you can zoom in on the lower screen while still being able to look at the overall picture on the top screen. It doesn't have undo, but it does have a color picker and the hand to drag canvas around. Sorry Alena, no smudge. :p I hope to do these regularly and post. Take care all,

Wes

[NR43]

Yep this DS sure looks like a nice toy for painters :)
Wish I could afford one... or a new workstation. I have a feeling my pc might give up on me soon and unfortunately I won't be able to buy a new one...

Anyway, looking forward to see your next updates!

[Heozart]

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Comrade-Hero-Final2.jpg

I am finally finished with this piece...but does the red look too saturated? Maybe it is because my monitor is not calibrated, but I had this problem of colors looking different in Painter/Photoshop vs Windows picture viewer. Colors looked desaturated in the picture viewer, so I adjusted the image and now it looks too saturated elsewhere including desktop background, internet explore and firefox.

This was by far the most intimidating piece I've ever worked on, and I am quite pleased with how it turned out, although I wish I could have done better in a lot of areas. I would like to give a big thanks to Alena, Del and Glenn for feedback, direction and encouragement. It would have turned out very differently for the worse if not for your help.

With this piece out of way, I plan to start going back to life drawing later this week, so hopefully I will have new stuff to post soon.

Edit: Actually, it looks less saturated in Photoshop and picture viewer, and more saturated in Painter and elsewhere. Does anyone know how to resolve this problem?

[daWinky]

Hello Wes,

what a nice mix of different stuff you have here! I really enjoyed to go through the pages and I don't know what I like more, your cartoon characters or some results from your figur studies, great work:thumbsup: ! Ah, and not to forget this stained glass face, what a wonderful present!

Nice to follow the progress of your last painting, an ambitious project indeed. You can be proud of your composition, I just think your final is a bit too saturated, it's almost glowing and with the strong red and orange colors it gives the impression of a firestorm - I like the version from the previous page more, but I guess this would be easy to adjust in photoshop.
Keep posting!:)

Cheers,

-sabrina

[Heozart]

Hi Sabrina, thank you for the compliments! Regarding the final image looking too saturated, I guess it is not just my monitor. As I said in my last post, it looked less saturated in Photoshop than in Painter, so when I was doing the final adjustment in Photoshop I made it match the look in Painter. It looks as I intended in Photoshop and in Windows picture viewer, but looks a little too saturated everywhere else. I don't know why there is this difference between programs and have no clue how to fix it. At least the saturated version has grown on my now that I've looked at it so much.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/DS%20Sketches/2008-09-09.png
DS doodle from my car dealer while getting my car serviced.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/DS%20Sketches/2008-09-10.png
Another DS doodle of a shrimp from photo ref. I was not being very efficient with my brush strokes so I stopped.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Doodles/shrimp.jpg
Started over later on my computer without looking at the picture. I couldn't remember all the details so didn't try to make it exactly the same.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/2008-09-10.jpg
A bike sketch in Painter. Ref from the RC8 video on KTM web site. I like how this one looks at thumbnail size, so I made it my new avatar. :)

[NR43]

Congratz on finishing your heroes painting Wes. Sure, the colors look very saturated, and I have my monitor calibrated through hardware.
The saturated colorsdon't bother me at all.
In fact I think it looks pretty nice this way.

[SpiritDreamer]

HEY..Wes..:)

Nice job on the comic painting..:thumbsup:
You might pop that forground characters closest leg,into the front of the other leg..overlap the lower part.. calf muscle, ankle, and foot..so it looks like it's closer to the viewer,..right now, it looks as though it is going under the far leg, instead of overlapping it,...or looks like the far leg is overlapping the closer leg..A subtle reflexted highlight along the back outter edge of that closest leg should do the trick, and eleminate any dought in that area as to which leg part is in front of which leg part..:) ..Just a passing thought and small suggestion that may be useful to you.
TAKE CARE
Glenn

[Heozart]

Thanks Johan, glad you like the painting. :)

Glenn, now that you have pointed out, I see clearly what you mean about that leg. It is a finished commission so I am not sure if I can change things around now, but I guess I could play around on my own. Thank you for catching that.

I got a monthly pass for life drawing today. I had forgotten how much fun it was. Conte on brown paper.

http://img374.imageshack.us/img374/4184/200809111tm3.jpg
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/7728/200809112ww2.jpg
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/3187/200809113de6.jpg
http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/6103/200809114fk7.jpg

[alenah]

hi Wes! .. sorry I did not reply earlier (I was busy with my work for a while) ..

so - you have completed that ambitious piece of yours - wow!
I was not doubting you would complete it - I was just curious how you´ll manage all those tricky things there .. though there is still a few little things that need possibly to be fixed a bit (you´ll gonna hate me, Wes, won´t you :) ) - but - those are only minor issues ..
all in all I would say that you have done a great job!

about the saturation and the colors - well - this is quite a complicated issue - and there is no "simple/general" solution for that, each image/workflow has to be solved individually..

in your image - the color itself (the oversaturated red) is not that big problem as far as web/monitors are concerned, the monitors are able to display such reds (but if you were printing this image, you would experience problems) - but - what is a problem here - and what is much more important/fundamental issue here - is that you have lost some details (clothes, clouds etc), that were substituted with the same "flat" red (because of bad/no color management of the browsers);

I do not go into details, as I assume you know the basics -
in general - there are at least four major issues that affect the way how the image looks like in the end -
a) the colors used in the illustration (color saturation, values, dominant color ..)
b) the color management system (on/off? working space? profiles used/attached?)
c) monitors (calibration? gamma settings? ..)
d) browser (does it support color management?)
(.. besides other things ..)

one has to accept that it is simply not possible to do anything about some of those issues (the monitors settings/browsers that other people use), - so - it is never possible to find "the only perfect solution" suitable for every single viewer (as far as web is concerned) - but - you still can affect some issues a bit to fix the major color/values issues .. when trying to count with the "imperfection" of the browsers and the character of the particular image ..

in your particular case - when your image tends/inclines towards some particular color, the best way is to "treat" that color (for the web output only, not the original image) in the way, that will "distribute" the color/tonal values a little bit "better" (within the image) for the output ..

when I opened your image in Photoshop, it was quite ok - since Photoshop is color managed and was able to "fix" the display for me .. but - most browsers (or even some other simple graphic programs) aren't colour managed - so - the computer/program "does not know, how to display", so as to say ...
so - you have to "help" the "silly" browsers a bit yourself ..
in this case - I tried a simple example (not the best solution at all, just one possible way how to handle the oversaturated red) - I tried to keep your profile attached (though most browsers ignore it) - the only thing I did was that I only "redistributed" the reds a bit differently (channel mixer); I mean - I used some "red information" (that appeared as redundant in the output) for the other channels - and "pushed up" the image midtones a bit so as you could see more details ..

since I did not have the original image - I only adjusted your image "visually" (not measuring anything) - and - I am sure - the output perhaps still needs better settings;
but - I only wanted to show/suggest one of possible ways of how to fix this particular "oversaturated red issue" ..
http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/wes/wes%20-%20Comrade-Hero-Final2.jpg
I am not sure if you could understand my terrible English (everytime I start this kind of complex topic I get short of words, not sure if everything makes sense at all :))
so please - if I was not clear enaugh, feel free to ask - If I am able to - I´ll try to explain next time better :)
take care,
and keep your great work!
a.
p.s. love your life drawings :)

[Heozart]

Hi Alena, thank you so much for taking the time to write all that out to explain.

I actually know very little about color management. I had never noticed this problem when working on my laptop. (Does that mean the screen was perfectly calibrated or it was so poor I couldn't tell the difference?) From my experience and what you are saying, I guess Photoshop and Windows picture viewer are color managed and other applications are not. I will have to see if Painter has color management options.

I am still a bit confused, but it doesn't have to do with your english...more like my lack of knowledge in the subject. So in order to work around this issue, I would have to adjust the outputs, save for web, and compare the original image on Photoshop and the saved image on web browsers until they look the same?

Btw, what you posted feels much more airy than the saturated version. I think what I had originally intended was somewhere between the two.

I am inspired to go draw after looking at your new posts, so I am going to eat and do that. Take care,

[Heozart]

After I read what Glenn said about imagination being like a muscle, I decided to give my imagination some exercise. No, not lifting 300 pbs yet, more like tossing baloons. I work with references almost all the time because I have too much trouble capturing my imagination on canvas. And I am usually too concerned about making my image look exactly like the source material the best I can. So this time, I took a reference image from Corpse Bride, and just looked at it for about ten minutes, paying attention to the values and the details, without actually painting. Here is the reference image:


http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/DefaultDVDDevice_001713469.jpg

I noticed there were a lot of vertical elements, the tall church on a hill, trees, and rain drops(which I omitted). So I decided to make the orientation of my version a portrait rather than a landscape, which would also ensure that mine would look different somehow. Then I closed the reference and got to work in Painter and this came out about an hour later:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/2008-09-12.jpg

I know it is not very detailed or refined for the time I spent, but I am still pleased with the result. It was very liberating for me to change the detail as I saw fit.

Thanks Glenn for the motivation. Hopefully one day my imaginative works will be as great as yours, Alena's and many other peoples here.

[alenah]

Hey Wes,
laptops/notebooks use different "display" technology than the "ordinary" PC monitors - this is the very first thing to keep in mind; (LCD for laptops, CRT for standard PC monitors);
there is many different features/characteristicts for both of them - and - one of the most significant is this one:
the LCD monitors "do not shine" (emit light) like CRT monitors do - and - on top of it - the notebooks/laptops are very often covered with a anti-"light spreading" film/layer (in order to avoid/lower the reflections) - so - all in all - beside other things - this results in less saturated /bright /shining /contrast etc. LCD displayed image than what you can see in CRT displays .. (sorry, if I am talking about something you already know)

but - the monitor is only one part of the whole thing - so -
if you have not noticed problems with colors/dislpay of your images before -
there might have been many different reasons for that -
(now talking only about the case you used the same laptop both for creating and then "web" viewing the images):

- your display/screen characteristics might have been "limited", so you could not see much difference in differently viewed (due to different "display/color management" settings) display of your images ..
- your system/Photoshop color management settings might have been set differently (I mean the different "inner" working space - which you can find/define in PS under Menu/Edit/Color Settings - if I am not mistaken - in the "Working Spaces" section), than in your new computer; (whatever you had set there - if it had differ from each other - your laptop and PC - that sure must have resulted in different display/processing of the images) ..
- you might also have attached different/no profiles to your images before, that has very straightforward impact on how the images display in Photoshop and in other apps..
- etc..

when talking about the working space settings - for RGB images you should use (or - better said: the best /safest /most used/ recommended is) the working space, that is both supported by many other devices, and the gamut of which is pretty "safe" for further converting/processing the image) - which is the "Adobe RGB (1998)".

you mentioned also Painter - yes, you can also set your color management settings in Painter - well - I would say you shoud do that - and - when working with both, PS and Painter, it is strongly recommended to use the same settings, at least for the "inner" working space (I am not sure - I cannot open my Painter now - but I think you´ll find the CM settings under Menu/Canvas/Colormanagement .. and the "working space" settinns you should see just in the middle - it should ALSO be set the same way as for PS (whatever space you set there), however - as I already mentioned - the Adobe RGB (1989) is the best/most recommended choice in this case

you can - very oftten - see/hear also of sRGB (either as a "sRGB profile" or "sRGB working space") - but - it is not a good idea to use this one on a regular basis (now talking about the process/workflow when you create your own images; since working with photos downloaded from your camera in case it has assigned the sRGB profile to the images - is a bit different situation)

if you - perhaps in the future - want to learn something more about color management, I would reccommend Bruce Frazers´s books - and especially the one called
Color Management (link here) (http://www.colorremedies.com/realworldcolor/index.html)

there you can learn both the basics and also get some info on very advanced technologies/processes of CM - and - at least you can learn how really complicated, tricky and complex the color management actually is .. :)
(which brought a headake to many different people in the end, as far as I know :) but it definitelly is worth it )
a.

P.S I am glad you can now use your Painter again :)

[Heozart]

I just found about ADAPT 2008 Conference a few days ago, and I've been busy planning my trip to Montreal (and Toronto while I am in eastern Canada.) When I saw the name Craig Mullins on the speakers list, I knew I had to drop everything and go - he is the reason I started digital painting. I still can't believe that I will get to hear him speak a week from today!

Alena, thanks for another lesson in this confusing subject of color management. I bought a LCD monitor for my desktop because I didn't want a bulky CRT on my desk. I learned about different LCD panel types while shopping for a monitor, and it was clear that I did not want a TN panel. I ended up getting a S-PVA panel one, and I don't regret it.

From today's life drawing session. Men are much harder for me to draw for some reason...
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/9836/200809161nz1.jpg
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/803/200809162av4.jpg
http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/3927/200809163yf5.jpg

[NR43]

Wow man you get to see Craig Mullins? The man is a genius!
Sometimes I regret living in Europe... digital art is still not accepted here as an art form.
No digital art cons here (except for UK)

Beautiful life drawings! The reclining man in red and white is truly wonderful!

Edit: forgot to ask... what monitor did you buy then? (brand/typenr)

[Heozart]

Hi Johan,

I am not sure if digital art is any more embraced here in North America. If I were to apply for an art shcool for example, my portfolio would mostly contain traditional works. But I see a trend towards digital in the movie/game industry, and these digital art cons are probably for people in that field. Just looking at the Art of Kung Fu Panda book, the artwork is almost entirely digital other than some pencil and marker sketches. If you look at the Art of Finding Nemo from a few years ago, you see a variety of traditional mediums (absolutely gorgeous pastel and charcoal paintings) as well as digital works. It may be because one is by Dreamworks and the other by Pixar, but even in the Art of Wall-E, I think there is a whole lot more of digital concept art. I don't know where I am going with this, I am just a little upset because I don't have the Finding Nemo book (it is out of print :cry: ) and the new "Art of" books they are coming up with do not have these beautiful pastel paintings I fell in love with in Finding Nemo.

As for my monitor, I ended up getting a Samsung 245T. After a lot of research and headaches, I had narrowed down my list to:

Dell 2408WFP (24" S-PVA panel)
Samsung 245T (24" S-PVA)
BenQ FP241VW (24" MVA)
Lenovo L220X (22" S-PVA 1920x1200 resolution)
HP LP2275W (22" S-PVA 1680x1050)

I couldn't see any of these monitors in person because local stores only had TN monitors. Bad viewing angles on a TN panel was something I had noticed on my laptop screen, but I just thought all monitors were like that. Once I learned it was a major shortcoming of TN panels, I knew I wanted something else. A trip to Best Buy only reinforced my decision to avoid TN monitors because a lot of them had glossy coating which I hate.

From the expert reviews I read, the Dell and the Samsung performed similarly (they both use the same Samsung panel,) and the reviews were mostly positive. The BenQ looked like a nice alternative, but it did not support portrait mode. When I found out that Intuos3 worked in portrait mode, I wanted to take advantage of that feature for tall paintings, and I did when working on my big painting. (I like the portrait mode so much my screen just stays upright now.)

I was actually leaning towards the Lenovo because of the price, but then I stumbled onto a Canadian site that had the Samsung on sale for $500. It was lower than the refurbished models from another store, so I had to call them to make sure they were in fact brand new. It was still more than I wanted to spend on a monitor, but I think I got an excellent monitor for a very good price, so I am not complaining. I just need to look into how to get it calibrated. It came with a calibration software, but it doesn't work with Vista 64-bit.

HP had just released the LP2275W when I was shopping, and none of the stores even had it in stock. It was just too new and I didn't want to risk buying a monitor without reading a single review. There still doesn't seem to be any reviews, but I've seen it listed for $349 at a Canadian online store. If it gets good reviews, it may be a good choice for those wanting a 22 inch non-TN monitor.

I am sorry about the long post. I will post some pictures next time.

[NR43]

I have a Samsung 970P (19") which is old but produces nice rich colors and it's black is a lot blacker than most similar monitors. I still use my old IIyama 19" as a 2nd monitor (to put the extra stuff on, like Painter palettes and msn windows etc)

For hardware calibration, I use Pantone Huey.
It's certainly not the best, but if your not professional, it will do the trick more than well... and it beats eyeballed callibration by miles (I have tried numerous times to calibrate my CRT to get a similar output as my LCD monitor, and it's just impossible).

There are alternatives for the Huey, but they are usually a lot more expensive. (LaCie, to name a brand) It's worth considering what you do with your computer and how intensive you depend on it -financially spoken- to determine your budget for hardware calibration.

[anandpg]

Wow!! Awesome sketches, Wes!:thumbsup: My favourite is the seated old man(4th image on the last set)

[SpiritDreamer]

HEY Wes....Really like those life drawings..strong works..great energy flow..:thumbsup:
I also like the imagination exercise you did with the castle on the hill..great way of training your memory muscle..:)
Another great exercise, is to close your two outter eyes and see with your minds eye as you draw..Some would say that it is drawing while blind, but that is only the case if you have a weak and blind minds eye..:)
Your minds eye drawings will be rough and go off of the page at first..LOL, but as you practice it more, it gets better, and in the process, so does your inner vision..:)
A little story about the current contest between digital and traditional in schools ...
I hadn't been in art school for more than 30 plus years, when last year, I decided to take a life drawing class..I enrolled for the life class in the school that I graduated from over 30 years ago here in Boston Ma where I live..New England School of ART and DESIGN.
When I graduated, there were no computers in the school, or out of the school in the general society for that matter.
When I walked into the school last year for my first life drawing class in over 30 years, I had to walk past about 20 classrooms full of computers and students working out designs,paintings,drawings ect. with them.
Way in the back of the school, there were a life drawing classroom, a sculpture class room, and that was it.
It was at that moment, that it dawned on me that the odds were 20 to one that traditional was going to win in this current contest between digital and traditional..A very longshot if ever there was one,..and it also became very clear and obvious to me that digital would be the winner in this current contest.
I showed my life drawing teacher my latest Z BRUSH, AND PAINTER #9 WORKS, and then he said that I should go talk to the head of the school, who used to be one of my teachers 30 plus years ago, because they didn't have anybody who knew those digital programs teaching at present time, and that I could get a job teaching digital painting in there that very day if I wanted to.
I just smiled, and kept on drawing the model in his life drawing class, using conte crayon, WHILE WISHING that there was an undo button somewhere..LOL..:)
Anyway,..Looking forward to seeing more of your works, both traditional, and digital..:) :thumbsup:
TAKE CARE
Glenn

[NR43]

|Sorry for highjacking Wes|

Glenn, I was telling 2 fellow students in life drawing class last week about digital painting and the reaction wasn't very positive... One person laughed at me, looking at the 3rd person in our conversation with this "pff another one of these guys that thinks they make art with a computer, while it is the machine that does the work for him". When I advised her that the pc is just a medium, she left the conversation... The other guy seemed like he would be open for it, but he just had no idea one could draw/paint/sculpt with a pc.

Just an example to show how far behind we are here in Belgium :shrug:
I'm planning to eventually tell my teacher about digital painting at some point (he is a traditional painter) but right now I just don't feel like another laugh as a reaction... perhaps in a couple of years time...

[Heozart]

Hey Johan, I will look into getting Panton Huey. How hard is it to calibrate? Can anyone do it?

Hi Anand, thanks again for another confidence booster. :)

Hi Glenn, minds eye drawings sound very challenging. Do you have some examples in your sketchbook thread?
I don't doubt that digital is an accepted medium and probably even preferred for design, but from what you saw, do you think digital is gaining/going to gain more weight in fine art education too? I never went to an art school (although I am still considering) so I don't know for sure, but from my understanding the first year in art school was devoted to fundamentals where you basically work in traditional mediums.

Johan, I think there is a general lack of knowledge about digital art, even among artists, like when Glenn showed his teacher his digital works. Your classmates probably have their own ideas about what digital art is, and perhaps they will think differently if they saw what some of people on these forums can do both digitally and traditionally. When I brought my laptop to life drawing a couple of times, other people were really curious because most of them had never seen a computer being used as a drawing/painting medium, and they were impressed by what you could do.

I tried out grey Faber-Castell PITT artist pens at life drawing to prepare myself for the sketches I plan to do while visiting Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto. I kinda got the hang of shading with different greys after the second 30 minute pose (first one was a total failure,) and I like how the last one turned out, although I messed up somewhat when I tried to add some color with color pencils.
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/1440/200809181jv9.jpg
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/4771/200809182yn5.jpg
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/1035/200809183xo1.jpg
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/7057/200809184dq4.jpg

[Heozart]

Sorry for posting again so soon, but I was in the mood for something fun, and did a pirate outfit study. Ref from a costume website. One hour in photoshop.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Clothing/2008-09-18.jpg

[NR43]

Man I love the pen gestures.
I bought the same pens a few months ago to improve my linework but I am kinda failing big time.
So here's a technical question: Do you hold these pens (The Faber Castell Artist Pitt Pens) underneath your palm to sketch?
Would love to actually see you doing these...

[Heozart]

Johan, I hold them like when I am writing. Actually, it is exactly like when I am trying to get a nice line on my tablet, varying pressure to control thickness. I go prertty slow most of the time, too.

Another pirate before going to bed. This one took much longer. I didn't want to just copy this time, so I came up with my own pose and tried to use the same costume from the reference picture. It was very hard, but hopefully doing these will train my imagination and observation at the same time.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Clothing/2008-09-18-2.jpg

[SpiritDreamer]

HEY Wes...:) ...I like those ink drawings...almost look like SUMI BRUSH strokes.
About the drawings done with your eyes closed...No I don't have any of those posted anywhere...I did those many years ago while in a drawing class...It was taught by my drawing teacher as an exercise to improve memory, enhance imagination, and sharpen the vision of the inner eye.
It's kind of like if you turn out the lights and are in total darkness..What do you see with, and how much can you see.
That exercise just makes you more aware of how your imaginiation and inner vision work, and allows you to hone those senses that most people never use, but are senses that have a great importance if you are an artist, and are doing more than just copying something that you see when you have your eyes open.
It is very important to be able to
CLOSE YOUR EYES AND SEE...:)
That's why I put that saying up by my avatar...Put there,so I wouldn't ever lose sight of it.
About the teaching of fundamentals,...They can be taught using any medium, and that includes digital..A TOOL IS A TOOL, IS A TOOL:)
Looking forward to seeing more ...:)
Glenn

[Heozart]

Hi Glenn, when I took drawing lessons a couple of years ago, my teacher made me do these blind contour drawings where I was only allowed to look at what I am drawing and not the paper I am drawing on. I guess Minds Eye drawing is the next step. Here's my attempt to draw a pirate portrait. I think my minds eye seriously needs some glasses.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Minds%20Eye/2008-09-19.jpg

I thought I'd give OFDW a try. I wanted to make it quick, spend about an hour, but ended up taking almost three hours. I could have continued as it is still pretty rough, but just didn't feel like it. I will start from scratch another time and try to do a better job quicker.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Master%20Copy/2008-09-19.jpg

[ceruleanvii]

Some great new stuff here! I especially love your life drawings - great to see you experimenting with styles/techniques.

Love that last Photoshop OFDW - very sweet! Ah, now digital vs. traditional... interesting debate. Frankly, I'm totally sold on digital at this point. I love life drawing with pencil and charcoal, but the more art I do, the more I realize I'm just better with color, big splotches of it - than delineating things with line. My line quality sucks, actually :) which is why I love the stuff you (and Johan) do with pen - very nice control. But for me personally, learning to paint with Photoshop has been the best thing I've ever done for myself.

I think it's just a matter of time before digital becomes more and more accepted in traditional art. In fields like graphic design, it's totally gone digital, anyone remember those miserable Letraset sheets? Now who misses those?

Color calibration... this drives me nuts. Had a really eye-opening incident at work the other day, I was doing some pretty intensive interactive character lighting (3D) for a big deal project - on what was unbeknownst to me to be a completely uncalibrated LCD monitor. When it got into composite and we saw what it would look like on TV, it was horrifying. All the rich beautiful colors I'd worked so hard to achieve were all washed out. Had to do it over agai on a properly calibrated monitor. I ended up using a completely different lighting model to get the look I needed, that's how far off that LCD monitor was.

As far as digital art, which is going to stay on a computer - who's to say? LCD monitors are gorgeous, but very contrasty and saturated. And then going to print, that's a whole 'nother story. I had a fine art print made of one of my pieces and some of what I loved about the digital came through, in particular, the luminosity - but yes, some of it did wash out and get mushy.

Like I said, it drives me nuts.



Great work, keep on going! :)

[selphoo]

Hey Heozart!

Just stoping to say that last piece from OFDW makes an impression on me- wonderfull color work man! Lady-pirate is quite nice ;D I hope that is not used pure black color on it ;)
Can you tell me tha url adress of that costume site? Please :)

Keep it pushing! Cheers!

D.

[Heozart]

Hi Del,
Funny that you mention you like my stuff because of the lines, because I love your paintings because of how well you paint the skin. :) It is one of the things I struggle with the most when I try to paint. I feel like I am starting to be able to see a little better, but I can never get it just right, and usually make it too red or too yellow.
I have never tried to print any of my digital works. I guess I should print some time to see how far off it really is.

Hi Daniel,
Thanks for dropping by. I found that female outfit from http://www.mydivascloset.com/noname52.html. http://www.costumesinc.com/t223/Pirates-Costumes-themes.html has tons of pirate costumes, and that's where I found the guy's outfit. Oops, I did use pure black. Now that I look closely at the reference, I see some greens and yellows in the darks. Not much of an excuse, but I started that study in greyscale and only added color after blocking in basic values. I will pay more attention next time. :)

I am packing and doing some last minute planning for my trip, so no update today. I am bringing my laptop, but after I saw how little room a carry-on bag has inside, I decided against brining my tablet. But I will be posting the stuff I draw in my sketchbook and DS doodles. Trying to fit a week's worth of clothing, toiletry, a 17" laptop and other stuff into luggage measuring 20"x14"x9" is like cramming a dozen poeple into a compact car....it isn't easy but I think I can manage.

[alenah]

Hi Wes - you´ve been so busy since I have been here last time (your thread starts to be a pretty "big" one :) )
I like your updates, so various works here :)
keep posting! a.

[Heozart]

Hi Alena,

Thanks for the comment. I've been drawing seriously for only 2-3 years (but hadn't been consistent in my efforts till I started my sketchbook here, so thanks everyone!) so I need to try different approaches to find what is "me". It probably is a lifelong journey, but hopefully I am getting closer to finding my art language. I envy when I see artists with very distinctive style. When I look at my drawings, they look like they could have been drawn by anybody.

So I got to see Craig Mullins today, and he signed my sketchbook! :D I got so excited I was almost shaking when I shook his hand at the end. As far as the session is concerned, it wasn't like a pivotal moment in my life I hoped it would be, but some of the things he said surprised me and got me really thinking. He said speedpainting bores him now, and also he doesn't use the texture-overlay trick anymore because it is so overused to hide bad drawing. He emphasized constantly changing your process (assuming you can draw and understand color/contrast), and I realizd that those things that he became famous for were just phases he went through in his attempt to become a better artist. Imitating other artists techniques has its use, but you really have to go beyond that, and not get stuck in one place. That was my big lesson for today.

I've been doing a lot of sightseeing in Montreal, and I think I am really more excited about that than the conference now. I have taken over 350 pictures so far, but it seems like the sd card slot on my laptop can't read 2gb cards. I was looking forward to posting my sketches from the trip so far, but it will have to wait till I get back later next week. I will have a mega update then. Later all,

Wes

[NR43]

he doesn't use the texture-overlay trick anymore because it is so overused to hide bad drawing

I think a lot of people started doing this to save time... The bad thing is indeed they spend less time drawing so their skills kinda fade...

I will have a mega update then
looking forward to that!

[kasana]

Amazing Thread Heozart !
Really great studies...love most of the KFP stuff.

[Heozart]

Hi Johan, I think Craig Mullins was talking about some kids on internet who learn these tricks for the sake of using tricks. He also talked about the importance of working to finish your pieces instead of only doing quick studies. (I think he did...my memory is not very reliable.) I can see why - I feel like I am getting better at quickly scribbling something to suggest something is there, but I struggle more if I try to refine and polish very fine details.

Hi Kasana, thank you for dropping by!

I am not sure if this is a mega update I wanted it to be, but I do have a lot of sketches to post, so here I go. Starting with some miscellaneous stuff:

A sculpture of a lady riding a giant fish at the Vancouver airport (Faber-Castell grey brush pens and $1 box of crayons):
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Lady-Giant-Fish.jpg

View from my window seat in the airplane before the take-off (pencils):
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/airplane-view.jpg

Random pillar study in Old Montreal (pencils):
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Pillar-Study.jpg

Contemporary art museum in Montreal (brush pens and crayons):
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/perspective-study.jpg

Bar sketch 1 (brush pens and crayons):
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Bar-sketch-1.jpg

Bar sketch 2 (ballpoint pen):
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Bar-sketch-2.jpg

Jazz bar sketch (ballpoint pen):
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Bar-sketch-3.jpg

Insectorium in Montreal:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Insectorium.jpg

Lotus pond sketch from the Botanical Garden in Montreal:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Lotus-Pond.jpg

Metro station sketches:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Metro-Sketches.jpg

[Heozart]

Biodome in Montreal:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Biodome1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Biodome2.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Biodome3.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Biodome4.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Biodome5.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Biodome6.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Biodome7.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Biodome8.jpg

[Heozart]

Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/ROM1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/ROM2.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/ROM3.jpg

Toronto Zoo:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Toronto-Zoo1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Toronto-Zoo2.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Toronto-Zoo3.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Toronto-Zoo4.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Toronto-Zoo5.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Canada%202008/Toronto-Zoo-6.jpg

[ceruleanvii]

Nice batch of drawings, great job with the dino bones!

Also love the animal sketches, esp. the piggies :)

[SpiritDreamer]

HEY Wes....WOW..You soaked up alot on that journy..:thumbsup:

You could use any number of those sketches to create with, and create in any direction that you chose to create with, using them.

Good illustrators need to be fast,and learn speed,... just as good painters need to learn slow and methodical, while at the same time creating the illussion that what is created was done fast and with speed...:)

Thanks for sharing those GREAT sketches...I really enjoyed seeing them.Looking forward to seeing lots more..of your works.:thumbsup:
TAKE CARE
Glenn

[sycen]

Looks like a very nice trip. :)
Hey... you visit the zoo too. :)

Btw, the dino bones looks awesome.

[Aviva]

That's some awesome sketching Wes! Great work capturing the live animals - they never stand still long enough for me. And nice dino bones! Hey, I saw that sculpture of the lady with the giant fish last month. Vancouver airport is the best airport I've seen, with lotsa cool artwork. Actually, I was quite impressed by Vancouver in general, it's a lovely city and the first overseas city I've visited. Anyway, I look forward to seeing more drawings :)

[kasana]

nice study.
some of the sketches looks flat...volume will make them more beautiful.

[alenah]

hey wes - looovely new sketches! :)
btw - I can sense pretty clearly your own style in your drawings already - its in your strokes, I would say - you have a specific type of strokes, pretty interesting style - and when comparing your first posts and your recent drawings - its simply there :)
you do not have to worry about not having your own style - keep and develop the one you already have, its fine :)
a.

[narenkkundra]

hi heozart,

i like your strok, your line is powerfoll, your study i like it.

keep it up.

[selphoo]

hi heozart!

a lot of new works in here:) IMO the best of all are the dino's with bone studies..

when it comes to people drawing- u should watch out more for the proportions, even with really fast sketches..

good practice for me is fast sketching with markers and charcoal- u mustn't draw the face or outfit detail...only a pose or directions (wich have proportions :) )

i hope that u can understand what i'm saying :D

keep it working

cheers!

[Heozart]

Hi all,

I was totally demotivated for the last few months. Kinda ironic that it happened right after a great trip. Guess I was expecting too much from myself. I didn't want to keep missing out awesome art from you guys, so I am back.

I feel very rusty, but did this DS doodle today so I could post. About an hour from reference:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/DS%20Sketches/colors_slot13.png

I have bought two books, Facial Expressions by Mark Simon, and Sketching: Drawing Techniques for Product Designers by Koos Eissen and Roselien Steur. Sketching looks awesome, and I hope to learn a lot from it.

I am visiting South Korea where I am from originally. I installed a trial version of Painter X on my mom's old laptop, so I should be able to get by. I hope to post again with updates soon,

Wes

[alenah]

hey wes,
already have told you in my thread -
nice to see you back - and drawing/painting -
keep posting :)
a.

[Heozart]

Thanks Alena, it is nice to be back. :)

I decided to get myself used to the brush categories in Painter, and today I played around with digital watercolor brushes. I don't do traditional watercolor paintings, so I am probably doing many things wrong, but it was still fun.

From imagination:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Doodles/2009-02-12_001b.jpg

Used this picture (http://blogs.edmunds.com/roadtests/assets_c/2009/02/IMG_7151-thumb-555x368.jpg) from Edmunds.com as reference for this one.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Doodles/2009-02-12_002b.jpg

[NR43]

Really great to see you active again Wes!

I like the Audi piece.
The rear end wheel seems out of perspective though.

Keep experimenting with brushes in Painter, it's fun and very educative :)
Welcome back!!

[Heozart]

Hi Johan, thanks for pointing that out. I got sloppy when painting the wheels because I couldn't figure out how get the wheel patterns to look right.

So I decided to participate in the Imaginative Figure Workshop. :cool: My concept is a bored anglerfish/frogfish.

Studies after references from Google and YouTube:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/Anglerfish1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/Anglerfish2.jpg

This is the basic idea:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/Anglerfish3.jpg
Frogfish "walk" on the ocean floor with their fins, so I am going to use them as arms to add gesture. Now to add more expression and likeness to myself...

[Heozart]

I learned how to make custom papers in Painter today, thanks to Alena and this demo (http://216.219.190.250/demos/textures_demo_1.html) by Jin Brown. I kept running into a problem of not being able to capture my selection, though. At first I thought it was because of a size limit (when I posted on Alena's thread,) but later I had the same problem with a very simple texture, so I have no clue now. :shrug:

I tried out one of my custom papers with this painting from reference:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Digital%20Paintings/2009-02-14b.jpg
I only used a square hard pastel brush. I think it looks less artificial than a lot of the preset papers, so I am quite happy.

[Heozart]

I found some old books on the shelves about Korean traditional watercolor artists. I tried to copy some, and it was a lot harder than it looked.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Art/Owl2.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Eastern%20Art/Owl4.jpg

The lighting in the second one (I only copied a section of it) was amazing, the way the artist let the paper color light the scene. My version doesn't do it justice, but hopefully I will get better at digital watercolor.

[NR43]

yeah
this reminds me of a portrait in dry pastel on blue paper recently. The artist used the blue paper as shadows in the face... it was really beautiful

The 2nd study in your last post is also really beautiful Wes!
Really enjoying your latest updates
Keep going!

[Intervain]

I really like that portrait with pink lanterns! Nice use of colours

[SpiritDreamer]

HEY Wes...I think your on to something really nice with those last two owl paintings.:) You might try experimenting with different watercolor brushes..to get a nice varity of effects and brushwork into the pieces.
Maybe have some areas where the colors and strokes bleed/blend//run and expand into the painting surface..makes a great soft atmospheric effect, and then contrast that effect with crisper edged brushstrokes in other parts of the piece, to make those parts stand out and come forward in the painting..Just a passing thought..:)
Anyway looking forward to seeing where your watercolor explorations and experiments lead you to....There are some great master works of ink on silk paintings done thousands of years ago in China..of monkeys in the mountains in the trees and on rocks in the snow.
If you can find reference of these ancient paintings, you will also find great inspiration and admiration of the watercolor technique and it's possibilities...Those old masters from china created some really beautiful magic in their works, when it came to studies from nature..:)
TAKE CARE Wes..:)
Glenn

[Heozart]

Thanks Johan, making use of the paper color is something I want to work on. And thank you again for motivating me over PMs. I have actually lost some sleep last few days because I was too excited to work on stuff. :D

Magdalena, thank you. :)

Glenn, thanks for the suggestions. I bought a watercolor book yesterday, and I think I understand what you mean (although what I am about to post doesn't show). I was blown away by the paintings in the book where the main area of interest was clearly defined and some parts blended into the background.

I spent a couple of hours last night trying to mimic the strokes, trying out different brushes with different settings. I got nowhere and only got frustrated till I found some custom brushes from this thread (http://painterfactory.com/forums/t/553.aspx) at PainterFactory.com. I only got to play around with them for a bit last night, but put them to work today in this study.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Watercolor/2009-02-18-Tomatoes.jpg

I will write down what I've learned so far from my digital watercolor explorations so I don't forget, and in case if it is of any use to others.

Dry your layer often, basically whenever you like the strokes you see on the screen and don't want them to get diffused. (Didn't know about it when I did the owls.)
Don't change your brush before you dry the layer. This is actually more of a complaint, because when I changed the brush on a wet layer, it changed all the previous wet strokes to that of the newly selected brush.
But once it is dry, it becomes hard to blend, and you can't use wet erasers. (But you can use the brushes in Blender category and regular eraser.
You have to be very deliberate about the effects you want to achieve, since there is no physical water. (I like Simple Water brush with varying opacity and fringe. Grainy blenders, when used in moderation, is nice for fringed edges with slight diffusion.)

[Heozart]

Another study from the book:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Watercolor/2009-02-18-Brush.jpg

I was going to do another one, but I couldn't find the right color. I want to get familiar with color names, so I've been using the same colors they used in the book by double-clicking on the color palette to see the name. For this onion study I was going to do, one of the colors she used was opera, which isn't one of the colors on the default palette. It is supposed to be a very bright pink, but I can't find the RGB #'s anywhere. Guess I will just have to eyeball it when I work on it tomorrow. :hmm:

[Heozart]

More digital watercolor today. I think I am hooked!

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Watercolor/2009-02-19-Onion2.jpg
Onion study from the book. This one looks too digital I think. :shrug:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/GhostWidowandWretch2.jpg
I did this piece for the Feburary fanart battle on the City of Heroes forums. The theme was to infantize a signature hero or villain from the game, and I picked Ghost Widow (http://www.cityofheroes.com/about_the_game/signature_villains/ghost_widow.html) and Wretch (http://cityofheroes.wikia.com/wiki/Wretch). It was inspired by one of the paintings in my watercolor book, but I think this is different enough to be considered my work and not a study/copy of an exisiting work. I am glad I was able to put what I've learned to test. Crit/comments welcome and appreciated. :)

[bhaskar]

Beautiful Paintings and Water Colours Specially the glass one! Just cant believe they are digital. and thanks for the link for Painter Brushes you ve sent.

[batte812]

Hi Wes, great paintings! I like the results you achieved with the watercolors. I should try it myself one of these days. I'll keep in mind the tips you gave. Keep going!

[Heozart]

Bhaskar and Bart, thank you for the feedback. I am having a lot of fun with these for sure. I am trying to think of any other tips, but it is 2:30 am after working on these new pieces, and my brain is asleep.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Watercolor/2009-02-20-Wrinkles2.jpg
This one was from memory, trying to remember the wrinkles I saw on someone's jeans in the bus today.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Watercolor/2009-02-21-Metalstudy2.jpg
After how poorly I rendered metal in the Ghost Widow piece, it was obvious I needed a lesson. This is from my watercolor book. It looked simple enough, but it wasn't easy at all! Actually turned out to be the toughest challenge yet, and I didn't do a very good job compared to the original.

[KarthikAL]

Beautiful Paintings:cool:

[Heozart]

Karthik, thanks!

Practicing metal again:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Watercolor/2009-02-21-OldKnight2.jpg

Here's the reference image, which is a pencil drawing by KChen from Conceptart.org.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Master%20Copy/28.jpg

Edit: I posted his drawing instead of linking to his thread, because it is no longer there.

[KarthikAL]

nice painting:cool:

[Heozart]

Thanks Karthik! :)

I am working on the background story for the bunny workshop. Basically, the RAbbIT Corporation has taken over the world after WW3 by mobilizing their robotic "battle bunnies." Here is the logo I came up with for the RAbbIT Corporation:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/RAbbIT/RAbbITlogo.gif

[vikramvr]

Nice painting.Love the colours and the strokes you have used in the last one

[NR43]

Cool idea for the bunny workshop Wes
Looking forward to see it developing

[Heozart]

Vikram, thank you. :) About the strokes, I have something to add to what I've learned from the digital watercolor process, but I will have to organize my thoughts first. (I plan to learn how to record from Painter to make a little demo later next month.)

Johan, I am glad you like the idea. I haven't written down the story yet because I have to finalize some details. Instead, I started doing robot studies from images off of google. I don't feel very confident about designing my own bunny robot, but hopefully doing these studies will help.

I tried painting in GIMP for the first time for these as I don't have access to photoshop now, and it felt pretty similar. I will just have to learn the hot keys and where everything is, lol. It may sound silly, but for this type of simple paintings with just a hard round and a soft round brushes, I don't know which brushes to use if I were to do it in Painter. Does anyone know?

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/RAbbIT/RobotStudies2.jpg

[Heozart]

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/RAbbIT/bbDesignsmall.jpg

I worked on the design of my bunny robot today. I think I will name them Double b's (from the logo on them). I still need to refine it and work on the hands and the feet, but I am pretty happy with the general concept. While looking at rabbit skeletons, I noticed a big curve on their spine, more pronounced tham other animals. So I decided to somehow make it a design element, and it resulted in the crouch mode, which enables Double b's to maneuver through tight spaces, and also travel at a high speed.

I have decided to make RABBIT a personal project for which the bunny workshop will be the first of many paintings, because I saw a lot of potential in the story for exploring various themes and styles, and practicing effective storytelling and composition. I am still working on the story, but it is now known that RABBIT stands for Robotic Alliance for Building a Better Industrial Tomorrow (credit goes to a friend from City of Heroes.)

[Heozart]

I have yet to finalize my robot design, but I've been working on the sort of look I want for the background.

Studies from photo references:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/RAbbIT/backgroundstudies.jpg

From imagination/memory(the third one fell apart as soon as I started placing figures :cry: ) Now that I compare these, it looks like the imaginary ones are missing middle values.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/RAbbIT/backgroundstudies2small.jpg

This time in Painter. Again from imagination:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/RAbbIT/Backgroundstudy.jpg

DS painting from reference. I could have refined it a bit more, but it was starting to feel more like playing with pixels than painting.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/DS%20Sketches/2009-02-27.png

[SpiritDreamer]

Hi Wes :)

You were asking me about Z Brush, so is is a GREAT link that might interest you.

http://www.pixologic.com/zclassroom/homeroom/

The tutorial by Cesar Dacol Jr....Industry Insider is GREAT,..As are all the others.

ENJOY..:)
Glenn

[Heozart]

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for the link! I would love to try Zbrush one day if I can find a good deal.

WIP from a new Painter book I bought yesterday:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Master%20Copy/2009-03-04-WIP.jpg
This guy has an interesting way of painting, mostly done with a variant of New Simple Water and another brush for lighter colors, because you can only go darker with the other brush. I am just following the steps in the book, and amazed by the results you can get from a very simple method. I am not used to sketching precisely with a lot of detail, so the sketch took forever, though. I will post a bigger version when it is finished. The book is called Alien's Painter X by the way, but it is in Korean.

[Intervain]

I really enjoy your painter studies - no patience for the program here ;). Really digging the colours on the Chen study in particular!

[NR43]

I like those environment studies!
Damn I really ought to do some too *scratches hair again*

Keep going Wes, great stuff to be seen here :)

[Heozart]

Magdalena, thank you! I just didn't get Painter till I went through John Derry's Painter tutorials (http://homepage.mac.com/pixlart/painter.htm). Now I love it as you can see. :)

Johan, thanks! Enviro's are very hard for me, especially in color. I am hoping to do more of these too.

DS doodles from this week, all from imagination:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/DS%20Sketches/2009-03-02.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/DS%20Sketches/2009-03-03.jpg

The trial period is over on Painter X, so I am trying out Corel Sketch Pad to get me through next couple of weeks till I get home.

Head 008 from the head workshop:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Head%20Workshop/008-2009-03-07.jpg

Fencing studies from photo refs:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Sports/2009-03-08.jpg

A study from Sketching: Drawing Techniques for Product Designers:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Products/2009-03-07.jpg

My impression of Sketch Pad:

I LOVE the tilt sensitivity in pencil and chalk brushes. It feels very natural.
Marker brush doesn't build up superfast when you overlap like in Painter X, but still faster than real markers I think.
Transparent palettes are nice, but can slow down a low-end PC (512mb ram and 64mb video memory on this laptop.) But you can easily hide all palettes with the tab key.
No custom brushes, no custom papers, and no customizable hot keys.
Size, opacity, and grain are the only brush controls you can adjust.
Pressure sensitivity doesn't work very well on some brushes, even if you play around with wacom tablet properties.
Very visible quality loss when you export as a jpg file even at full size at the highest quality setting. Luckily you can export as a PSD, and I was able to get much better jpgs using GIMP.
I like it for simple sketching, but I think it is too simple for its own good, especially considering the $120 price tag.

[NR43]

Hey Wes,

nice updates again!
I'm so slacking these days :argh:

If Sketchpad and Painter are too expensive, have you considered ArtRage? It's really cheap and although I've not used it myself yet, I've not heard anything negative about it

http://www.ambientdesign.com/

[Heozart]

Hey Johan, I already have Painter X at home on my desktop, but I've been away for last couple of months. I've heard good things about ArtRage, too, but never tried it. They have a free version (full version is only $25), so maybe I will try it one of these days.

[Heozart]

A couple more heads from today.

082 in GIMP. It turned out to be more of a smudge exercise than anything else. Does it look over-smudged?
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Head%20Workshop/082-2009-03-09.jpg

047 in Sketch Pad. I didn't bother blending this one other than using a white chalk brush for light areas. I will probably redo this one because I failed to capture the emotion and likeness.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Head%20Workshop/047-2009-03-09.jpg

[vikramvr]

Nice portraits, the first one doesn't look over smudged to me, and the second chalk portrait...I haven't had a look at the original, so the expression looks right to me.

[sycen]

The 047 looks great to me.

[VinayKr]

Hi heozart i liked how 047 came out...the shadows and the highlights and the grainy colors...........that looks awesome

[Heozart]

Vikram, Sycen and Vinay, thanks for the feedback guys. :) 047 looks ok on its own, but when I look at the original sculpture, I think he looks a lot more sad.

I should do more heads, and I am going to, but I started doing studies of other people's characters from City of Heroes.

Lil Miss Goth Girl:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/LilMissGothGirl.jpg
This was done in Sketch Pad.

Cybernautica:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Cybernautica.jpg
I started this on the DS and finished it in GIMP. I didn't know just playing with values could be so much fun. I guess I kinda got in the mood when I started doing the heads.

Also did this on the DS last night:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/DS%20Sketches/colors_slot23.png

[Heozart]

After Bernini's Angel with the crown of thorns. I wanted to see how far I could go with it in an hour, but this took around 80 minutes.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Master%20Copy/2009-03-13.jpg

Techno Viking from City of Heroes and a seagull from Finding Nemo. I need to work on water obviously.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/TechnoViking.jpg

[Heozart]

Another CoH(City of Heroes) character from a few days ago:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Overdog.jpg

I am back home, so I can finally use Painter again. Finished this copy I started a couple of weeks ago:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Master%20Copy/2009-03-19-small.jpg

[sycen]

Cool armor and very nice rendering. :)

[anandpg]

Hey Wes! Nice work on the armored dude! :thumbsup:

[Heozart]

Sycen, thanks! :)

Hi Anand, thank you too! :D

Here's what I did for the March fanart battle on the City of Heroes forums. People get eliminated each month till there is only one person left in December. I am not holding my breath, but hopefully I will advance a few more months. This month's theme was to zombify a character.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/March-2009-final.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/March-2009-detail2.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/March-2009-detail1.jpg

Mostly done in Painter and overlayed textures in Photoshop. Used my little mannequin to get the pose in perspective, and also my hand as reference.

[Intervain]

Good stuff Wes - I really like the gold armour! Turned out great!

[Heozart]

Thanks Magdalena! :)

Thanks Johan for the Alchemy link. I love it! I know it is intended for wild conceptualization, but I wanted to better understand how it works. So after I played around with it for a while, I decided to see if I could creat something that resembles the source material. I just got the extended edition of Gladiator (so much inspiration and many studies to do! :D) and used the picture on the cover as reference. Around 10 minutes.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Alchemy/Gladiator-small.jpg

[NR43]

Cool Alchemy sketch Wes.
Pretty amazing how fast it is, don't you agree?
There's a thousand different forms and "images" triggered in my head when using it...
bit like a drug really :scream:

[Heozart]

Hey Johan, I totally agree! I especially like the displace effect. I feel like a little child watching clouds in the sky, except it is 100 times faster!

I started a couple of paintings in Alchemy today. I love the excitement of not knowing what you will end up with.

This is someone's character from City of Heroes:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Alchemy/Vivace2.jpg
Exported to Painter:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Vivace-Color-small.jpg

With this one, I started seeing someone in a dress, and I named it Lady With A Gun:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Alchemy/Lady-with-a-Gun-small.jpg
Painter:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Alchemy/Lady-with-a-Gun-color-small.jpg
Color Balance in Photoshop:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Alchemy/Lady-with-a-Gun-color2-smal.jpg

[Heozart]

My monitor died last week, and it will probably take a few weeks to get it fixed. :cry: Instead of drawing on my ancient laptop, I decided to work only with traditional mediums till I have it fixed, since I have plenty of art supplies but rarely use them.

I bought some markers in December, and these are my first marker sketches. Mixer studies from 'Sketching: Drawing Techniques for Product Designers':
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Products/2009-03-29.jpg
The first one turned out really crappy, but I kinda started getting the hang of it after. I think part of the problem with the first one was that the initial sketch was too big. There was a lot of area to cover with markers and I was very sloppy.

Some vehicles from references:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Products/2009-04-02.jpg
Working with markers is making me think a lot about value, because of the way colored markers interact with grey markers. It seems that color markers work best with grey markers with values that are close to their own value.

I started playing around with acrylic too, but I will post when I have done more. All I have so far is a very tiny interior study.

I think I am going to a life drawing session on Saturday. :D I haven't done that in a long time.

[NR43]

Hey wow!
You should use these markers more often :)
Love how you depict the metallic surfaces in these vehicles! Aside from the perspective issues (perhaps make a quick perspective guide in pencil first?)

Great stuff with this medium Wes!
I've used some warm grey markers before and it's not easy, that's for sure!
Looking forward to see more!

[batte812]

Hi Wes, great work with those markers. I think these sketches would look even better if you accentuate the linework after you're done wirh the markers. Have you seen the vidoes of Scott Robertson? They are a great help on drawing cars and other objects) in perspective.

[vikramvr]

Those are done with markers??Wonderful stuff...Get your monitor fixed soon :)

[anandpg]

Hey Wes!! Great job with the markers! :thumbsup:

[sycen]

cool thing with the markers :thumbsup:

[Heozart]

Johan, I did start with very light guidelines in fineliner, but they were probably not very accurate. When curved shapes come into play, it is very hard for me to see where they fit in relation to the guidelines.

Bart, no, I haven't seen Scott Robertson videos, but I've seen your wonderful sketches, so I'd better check them out. After I did those sketches, I bought colored fineliners to accentuate linework, but they don't seem to show well over the markers.

Vikram, those were fineliners + markers + color pencils.

Anand, thanks!

Sycen, thanks!

My monitor is fixed, but I haven't done a lot of digital work. I've tried markers in life drawing, but they turned out crappy so I won't bother to post.

A couple of outdoor sketches from Tuesday:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Sketchbook/2009-04-14a.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Sketchbook/2009-04-14b.jpg

The theme for CoH April fanart battle is "VS", and I decided to do a stained glass piece of Statesman VS Lord Recluse, the leader of a group of superheroes and the archvillain. Before starting, I thought about the issue of duality, good vs evil, light and dark, and the conversation between the Joker and Batman in the Dark Knight about how they complete each other. Good and Evil cannot seem to tolerate the existence of each other, but would they be what they are without the existence of the other?

Of course people have thought about it already for ages, and there is the yin yang symbol. So I started with a hexagon (guess I just like hexagons, the candleholder I made a couple of years ago had hexagonal sides too) and devided it into angular yin yang shapes. Because Statesman had red and blue in his costume, I decided to use those colors to represent opposing values, as well as with the use of transparent and opaque glass.

Initial sketch in Painter:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/April.jpg

Finalized pattern:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/Pattern.jpg

Progress after 12 hours of cutting:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/2009-04-18-01.jpg

Another shot:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/2009-04-18-02.jpg

I am pretty much done with cutting red pieces. They kinda look the same now, but the transparent ones will be much brighter with the sun behind them.

[Heozart]

More progress:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/2009-04-21-02.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/2009-04-21-03.jpg

Hoping to have it finished tomorrow.

[NR43]

Great to see your stained glass piece Wes.
If you ever come to Belgium/Holland you will see some amazing masterpieces in this medium. It is an art form that has a long history here and some "ateliers" in "De lage landen" as the region of these countries are called, are considered to be the best in the world.

Here's a link to some images in google after a search on "glasramen", which is how these are called in dutch.
http://images.google.be/images?hl=nl&q=glasramen&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi

Most of them are inspired by religion, but if it comes to technique, you can find some excellent examples there. Hope it is inspiring of some sort :)

Keep going!

[Heozart]

Hey Johan, thanks for the info. Some of the images are truly amazing. I love stained glass because of its dependence on and interaction with light. I find that it tests my patience more than any other medium, but when you complete a piece, it is that much more rewarding.

I stayed up all night foiling the pieces while watching (more like listening) 13 episodes of Prison Break. There's a few pieces that I need to grind more, but it is getting finished today for sure. I used 3 shades of blue for the hero side background, but it looks like they may be too close to each other in value.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/2009-04-22-01.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/2009-04-22-02.jpg

[anandpg]

WOW!! Stained glaaaaassss!!!:eek: Think its gonna be really cool!:thumbsup:

[Heozart]

Hey Anand, hope it is as cool as you expected. :)

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/2009-04-22-03.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/2009-04-22-04.jpg

It is kinda cloudy today, so I will try to take more interesting pictures when it is sunny.

[NR43]

AWESOME!

Great work Wes!
Congratulations!

[Heozart]

Thanks Johan! It took more effort than I remembered, but at least I will have the joy of looking at it for years to come. :D

Took some pictures with the sun directly behind the piece.

Power punch!
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/2009-04-23-01-small.jpg

I've got my eyes on you!
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Stained%20Glass/2009-04-23-03.jpg

[batte812]

Hi Wes, great result with that glas window! It looks wonderful when the sun shines through.

[Heozart]

Thanks Bart. :D

I started doing cloud studies because, well, I can't paint clouds.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Landscape/Cloud-Studies1.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Landscape/Cloud-Studies2-small.jpg

I used photographs from deviantart.com as reference. I tried to copy the reference as closely as I can on the left, and tried to be a little more loose and use a bit of imagination while trying to apply what I've learned on the right. The first one is embarrassing, but I feel I am improving with each new one, although the ones on the right look like a step backward. I am going to do a few more of these, and my goal for this month is to be able to paint clouds in any shape I want (i.e. a human figure) and make it look convincing.

[KarthikAL]

Heozart Stained glass work is awesome:thumbsup:, and nice clouds.

[anandpg]

Hey Wes!! Oh, yes.. it turned out way cooler than I imagined!:applause: Congratulations!
Great clouds too! :thumbsup:

[Heozart]

Karthik, thank you! :)
Anand, thanks, glad you like it. :D

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Salagadoolasmall.jpg
Someone's CoH character named Salagadoola. Inspired by the library fight scene from Ultraviolet.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Landscape/Cloud-Studies3small.jpg
Another cloud study from reference. I struggled a lot with this one for some reason, and it didn't turn out very well. Tried to do something similar from memory below.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Landscape/Cloud-Study-no-ref-small.jpg
No reference used for this one. Started off in Alchemy to get some random shapes.

[Heozart]

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Landscape/Cloud-Studies4small.jpg
From reference. I think this is my favorite of all the studies I've done.

All the cloud studies were in preparation for this:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/May-2009-WIP.jpg
It is a WIP of my May entry for the CoH fan art battle. The theme was to recreate a classic piece using CoH characters. Pretty obvious which one I am going for. :) I worked on clouds almost exclusively for last couple of weeks, and I kinda surprised myself with the results, because I couldn't paint clouds before. I didn't even have to use references for this WIP. I guess practice does make perfect.

[Heozart]

Here's the finished painting:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/May-2009-small.jpg

[NR43]

Hey Wes, great cloud studies buddy!
Nice use of your gained knowledge in that final painting too!

[Heozart]

Thanks Johan! I am actually getting it printed on a canvas as well as a mug since Deviantart is having a sale. :D

Portraits from photo references. Also trying out a new custom paper at the same time:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Portraits/2009-05-29small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Portraits/2009-05-30small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Portraits/2009-05-30-2small.jpg

[NR43]

What the...?
Man you are making some great progress lately!
Love the boldness in your strokes

[batte812]

Hi Wes, indeed: great progress in these portraits! Keep going!

[KarthikAL]

Heozart great portraits :thumbsup: i really like the second portraits, keep them coming:)

[Heozart]

Johan and Bart, thanks for noticing a progress. :) One thing I have been doing differently is starting with value only. When I am satisfied, I add two or more overlay layers for coloring. Fill/block in with base tones in the first one, and work on the shifts in hue and saturation in the other layer. It seems to be working well, so I will keep experimenting with this method for now.

Karthik, the second one was my favorite of the three too. :)

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Portraits/2009-05-31-1small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Portraits/2009-05-31-2small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Portraits/War-Bride-small.jpg

I am serioulsy tempted to look into getting one of those books that hair stylists have. I bet you could learn a lot about painting hair from those. :D

One thing that's been on mind - color actually has 3 properties: value, hue and saturation. It is easy to separate value, but is there some exercise I can do to isolate saturation from hue and work on it to gain a better understanding?

[NR43]

Well you know what they say... a hairstyle is one of the features that makes a person recognizable. You can be sure that character concept artists browse fashion books at regular times...

[Heozart]

Thanks Johan, I guess I need to try to be more interested in fashion.

Underworld poster study:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/Underworld-small.jpg

A teaser I made for a hypothetical movie for the CoH June fan art battle:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/Positron-small.jpg

After Aeon Flux DVD cover:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/Aeon-Flux-small.jpg

Corpse Bride study:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/2009-06-06-small.jpg

[Aviva]

I have cloud envy - your clouds look awesome! And wow at the portraits! I don't know if this helps, but there are a ridiculous amount of online hair style guides out there (never know what to do with my curly hair, so one day I asked google ;)).

[Heozart]

Aviva, thanks for the info on online hair style guides. :) As for the clouds, I couldn't do clouds at all before last month. I painted nothing but clouds for two weeks, and it really made the difference.

I love Corpse Bride! Here's two more from the movie:

There's an eye in me soup.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/2009-06-07small.jpg

Hopscotch!
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/2009-06-08small.jpg

[razz]

Great stuff, man! Haven't seen Corpse Bride yet (all the singing might not work for me), but I enjoyed Coraline a lot, a feast for the eyes!
You show the form very well, nice work on the values. Kind of shows how color is less important, values must be correct. Keep them coming and make sure you learn something with each one :)

[alenah]

.. great progress, Wes!
I wanted to say something more intelligent than "wow - wow - wow",
but - oh yes, wow! :)
a.

[sycen]

really great progress. Bravo!

[Heozart]

Hi Razz, I usually don't care for musicals, but I actually love the music in Corpse Bride. Thanks for telling me about Coraline! I didn't know anything about it, so I had to look it up. I will have to watch it when the DVD comes out. What you said about value vs color really got me thinking last few days. I will elaborate in a sec.

Alena, oh wow, you said "wow" looking at my stuff.......wow! :D

Sycen, thanks!

Ok, so on to value vs color, I know Razz didn't mean it like this, but I had already been feeling like I was getting away with poor color because of solid values, and what Razz said stirred up something in me in a good way. I pretty much work on value first now, and I don't feel like I am learning much about color by glazing on top of finished values. Maybe I am doing it wrong, but there is a lot of guesswork involved for me in the coloring stage, and I kinda feel clueless.

So after much thinking and messing around, a solution I came up with is a way to work with values while incorporating color at the same time. Value-conscious color painting for dummies, if you will. I made a custom color set for Painter that looks like this:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/colorvalueswatch.jpg

I made a guide (http://heozart.deviantart.com/art/Color-Value-Swatch-Guide-126333824) explaining how it is organized, and made it available for download (http://heozart.deviantart.com/art/Color-Value-Swatch-126332407) in case anyone else wants to try it and tell me how useful/useless it is. I have Painter X, and i have no idea if it works on other versions.

The main feature of this color set is that you will be working with 5 values (including white and black) regardless of the color you pick (other than the RGB and CMYK space-fillers). The three gray values are the same Lightness values you get in Photoshop when you posterize a grayscale image.

Keep in mind that the V in Painter is not an absolute measure of value. This is apparent from the fact that for each and every hue, V is set to 50% at its most saturated and brightest point (the right point of the color triangle). Painter got saturation wrong as well, for that matter. Along the upper right edge of the triangle, the saturation stays at 100% almost all the way. Only when you get to pure white it suddenly drops from 100% to 0%. In reality, the saturation gradually decreases from 100% at the right point to 0% at white. What stays constant at 100% along this edge(and any other lines parallel to it) is brightness, not saturation.

I am mentioning these things, because when you color pick them in Painter the numbers you see for S and V will be off. This is because Painter uses a strange method of measuring S and V, not because I picked the wrong colors. I determined the colors in photoshop, recorded the RGB values for each and picked them again in Painter using the same RGB values in Painter.

Also note that you will not get a grayscale image by desaturating. If you paint at full opacity with these colors and desaturate, the values will be all over the places. However, if you switch to grayscale mode in Photoshop (no such mode in Painter that I know of) the values will be uniform across the colors picked from the same L zone.

Ok, enough talk. Everything of the little I know about different aspects of color, I learned from this site:
http://www.huevaluechroma.com/index.php

Here is my first experiment using the color value swatch:


http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Still%20Life/2009-06-17.jpg

[NR43]

Hey Wes,

Interesting findings concerning the Painter color triangle and it's HSV behaviour.
Do you know you can get the correct color swatch by doubleclicking the foreground color indicator (the small square)? Then you get the square color selection dialog, similar to the one in Photoshop. I just wish it had sliders next to each parameter, now there is only a slider for the value.

If you don't like how Painter handles it's colors because the numbers are off, I would suggest to try to become less dependant of these numbers, and determine the value, hue and saturation you need for your next stroke visually. It's trial and error either way but I think it will be harder to predict how a certain hue will look when giving it a saturation of 156 and a value of 98 for example, than when you just look at your painting and move your stylus in the triangle until you find something that looks right.

[Heozart]

Hey Johan,

I don't depend on the numbers to pick my colors in painter, since they are not dependable to begin with. :D It is just that if you want to find a color with specific attributes, you can't precisely. Say you want to find a fully saturated yellow at 50% value. Painter says V = 50% at the triangular tip, regardless of hue. This point is where the max chroma occurs, and as you can see here (http://www.huevaluechroma.com/082.php), the actual shape of triangle varies by hue. For yellow, this point has lightness value of 98. That is pretty darn close to white, yet painter says V = 50%! Fully saturated yellow with 50% value actually looks olive green. The big problem is that the degree to which the attribute of value gets skewed varies greatly by hue and saturation. Only when working working with some hues close to red need you not guess the actual value of your colors so much, because max chroma for red is at L=54, which is close to 50.

There is a fundamental flaw in how Painter calculates V (and S to a lesser degree). The color selection dialog merely presents the same information in a different way, and does not solve the problem. The value slider is skewed the same way the color triangle is. It is actually even more confusing, since V is now "Lum" and uses a scale of 0-240 instead of 0-100%.

You are right, the best way of finding the color you want in painter is moving around inside the triangle until it looks right, or picking a color from your painting. My color set is an attempt to eliminate, or at least minimize, the guesswork involved until I get a better understanding of the relationship between color and value.

[Lexalotacus]

I have to say it again - Your style is really awesome... I especially like the painting of the character with the eye soup! Great work!
:applause:

[Heozart]

Lex, thanks so much! :D

I am sorry to post again without a picture, but I remembered why I seem a little obsessed with these numbers that seemingly no other Painter users seem to care about. There is an exercise I used to do in Photoshop for fun.

Open a photograph with good values and colors. Bring up the color dialog, and start slowly sliding around areas of interest with the eye dropper and pay attention to the way how different aspects of color such has hue, saturation, brightness, and lightness change as you move. The color square shows different things depending on which attribute you have selected, too.

Once you have done enough of this to get a general understanding of the pattern, try to analyze and guess the colors before you go in with the eyedropper. "It looks more red than orange, so the hue is probably somewhere around 10-15. (Photoshop uses 0-360, Painter 0-240) It looks fairly saturated, I think 60-65%. It looks mostly in the light, so 90% brightness." Ironically, I think lightness was the attribute I had the most trouble guessing. You will probably be way off at first, but this becomes fun as your ability to to estimate improves, and very exciting when you actually nail it down almost perfectly! When you check a color with the eyedropper, do not just pick a single pixel, but rather slide around the surrounding area.

Now once you can guess pretty reliably, start analyzing colors from life. It will be hard to verify your numbers, but at this stage, you should feel confident that you won't be too far off, and it will be a useful way of killing time when you are away from your computer.

Unfortunately, I stopped doing it before I reached that level, because I started spending most of my time in Painter. As I keep saying, the numbers are either distorted or nonexistent (like brightness) in Painter, so this exercise can't be done with Painter.

I think this exercise is one good reason to have precise and accurate measurements available to you. I still remember one of the discoveries I made from doing it: Conventional belief is that the most saturated area is in the light side just before the core shadow. While I found this to be true in many cases, I kept finding areas in which saturation pushes up even higher in the dark side. One explanation I can think of is that a lot of people do not make the distinction between saturation and brightness. Brightness always goes down as you get closer to black, while saturation can still go up.

I think I really should start doing this exercise again. Who knows, maybe I will get good enough to be able to pick a color from the color triangle in Painter and know the correct numbers in my head.

Edit: Funny that I said "precise and accurate measurements". Precision and accuracy are synonyms, but there is a clear distinction. Precision is reliability where as accuracy is correctness. You can be precise without being accurate, but you can't be accurate without being precise. Painter is precisely inaccurate, since it reliably gives you the wrong numbers, because it fails to take into consideration aspects of color like brightness and correct values. Perhaps it is because of Painter's precision that people overlook its inaccuracy.

There is a subtle but clear distinction between grayscale and desaturation, as well as between chroma, brightness and saturation. Painter basically ignores these differences, which is why it can be precise, yet never accurate. I think I just made Painter crash by saying that, because it does not know to make the distinction between precision and accuracy. Sorry, I just had to get this off my chest. :D

[NR43]

You are right, Painter's color management is all wrong. It's been said by others who did the same digging like you. But...
Perhaps it is because of Painter's precision that people overlook its inaccuracy.

Nope, not in my case anyway... I don't have PS only because it's so bloody expensive (835€ OMG!) :argh:

If I could, I would... you can be sure of that.
Besides, all the reasons brought up by Painter fanatics (a more traditional feel, etc) don't weigh up against the speed, the reliability, the brush engine with all it's amazing aspects, the completeness of the package (it's a lot more than just a painting program), better transformation tools, better color management, better multicore support in the latest versions (I'll get my multicore system this summer), etc etc. The list is endless!
But 835€? Ouch man, that hurts. That's more than my new workstation will cost (without monitors). I bought Painter IX.5 for the price of the upgrade (I think it was around 150€) a few years ago. And for that money, I've had loads of fun with it. The fact that it has a lot of issues is something I accept, because my wallet says so :)

How about you, Wes?
Do you have PS? Why bother with Painter if you have PS?
Just curious ;)

[Heozart]

Hey Johan,

I have CS2, but I just seem to have more fun with Painter. I love it, even with all the problems with it. It is kinda strange I guess, since I don't have a background in traditional painting. My favorite features are papers, brushes, costum palettes, and the ease with which you can change the brush size. I tried to paint in Photoshop last month for the first time in a while, and I just couldn't. I will have to learn how to make brush presets first. Changing the brush size was so annoying, too. I do use photoshop all the time when saving JPGs, though.

I thought all this time you used Painter because it was your prefered painting software over Photoshop, lol. Photoshop is way overpriced, indeed. Maybe you can find an earlier version at a more reasonable price? Congrats in advance on your new workstation! :D

I made a second guide for using my color set here (http://heozart.deviantart.com/art/Color-Value-Swatch-Guide-2-126449915). Here's the result of my second experiment with it. Reference from the Gladiator DVD booklet.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Tutorials/gladiator-study3small.jpg

[NR43]

Heh yeah I do love Painter, because it allows me to Paint digitally :D
Just not sure if I would be as fanatic as I currently am if I had PS...

I should start creating these color swatches as well.
It's nice to be able to use a color palette when you know you've created a painting you liked before. That way, if you have a few, I think it becomes easier to quickly choose a palette when thinking of a certain mood to achieve.

If you could work out the face of that warrior a bit more, it could easily stand as a speedpainting. Especially the mood and the composition, I like!

[Heozart]

Hi Johan,

I agree with you on his face. It seems a bit washed out compared to his armor.

Since I started using a color set, I have noticed two positive behaviors. First is using optical mixing by using different colors on canvas instead of just picking the color you want. Playing with paper properties seems to work nicely for this, such as inverting the paper grain. Second is controlling saturation, using less saturation in the background for aerial perspective. I knew about it before, but was inconsistent in applying when I paint. With 4 different saturation levels in my color set, it is much more intuitive now, because if I pick a color that is too saturated, it really pops out.

I remade my color set, btw. It seems that the reason Photoshop was using grays at unequal intervals with posterize was because my gray profile was set incorrectly. So the lightness for my colors are now set at 25, 50, and 75 again. Color management is such a complicated subject, and I just don't get it. :argh:

I did a portrait for my Mom for her birthday. She likes hats, and she likes flowers, so she gets a hat of roses. I used a 20+ year old photo as reference, so she looks a bit younger. But I don't think she has a problem with that. :)

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Portraits/2009-06-21-small.jpg

[NR43]

Hey wow beautiful job on that portrait Wes!
Your mum will be thrilled I'm sure!
Really nice!

[Heozart]

Thanks Johan. My mom liked it. :)

Two studies from today. My original plan was to work on them on small sizes without zooming in so I don't get caught up with details. It just made me do the details with tiny brushes and now my eyes hurt, lol. I will try to set a time limit and stick to it next time. Both from photo references:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Landscape/2009-06-23-1.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/2009-06-23-2.jpg

[Heozart]

Some 30 minute studies...ok I lied, more like 31 or 32 minute studies. :D

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/2009-06-24-01.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/2009-06-24-02.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/2009-06-24-03.jpg

[stridiggio]

Really nice works, I like the color scheme in the last one, keep it in!

[Heozart]

Thank you David. :)

I've been lazy for a few days, but I am finally back on track. Here's a character concept I am going to use for the Secret Agent challenge:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Time-Killer-smaller.jpg

[maozao]

very stylish, i really like the concept. i'll search for your entry to keep an eye on it

[mister3d]

Brilliant concept...speechless :eek:

[Heozart]

Gabriel, thanks! I have a link to my entry in my sig, but it hasn't been updated since that concept.

Alexander, thank you very much. :)

I need to work on the vehicle for Time Killer, but I have worked on some other stuff.
My entry for July CoH fan art battle:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Conversion-of-Scirocco-small-1.jpg
The theme was "Transformation", either a hero turning into a villain or vice versa.

This is the final piece to the Gray Huntress story I was working on a while ago:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Gray-Huntress-5-small.jpg

The Art of Cars cover study:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/2009-07-09-small.jpg

[Heozart]

Happy New Year!

My new years resolution is to have fun drawing/painting.

Figure skating studies to kick off the new year:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Figure/figure-skating-studies.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Figure/figure-skating-studies2.jpg

[batte812]

Hi Wes, great update! The skaters look really dynamic. Happy New Year!

[Heozart]

Hey Bart, it is good to see you! :) How are you doing?


http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-01-02.jpg

There are so many things I want to work on: portraits, landscapes, architecture, vehicles, speedpaintings, polished works with lots of details, and the list goes on. Most times I end up not getting anything done because I don't know where to start.

So I decided that I will create a new file and just fill the image with whatever I feel like working on that day. Kinda like when you fill a page in your sketchbook because there's lots of white space and you don't want to waste paper.

This is what I did today. Hopefully it will turn into a daily sketch sort of thing, or at least close to that.

[Heozart]

From last couple of days:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-01-04-small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-01-05-small.jpg

[Heozart]

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-01-07-small.jpg

Started doing some lighting studies. I had done more in photoshop, but it crashed before I remembered to save. So I started over in painter.

[Heozart]

I think the bottom skater has pretty much the look I will use for my project.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-01-08-small.jpg

Smoke study:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-01-09-small.jpg

Watchmen study:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/Watchmen-small.jpg

[NR43]

great to see you working this hard Wes...
I must do that too!

[Aviva]

*squees* it's Wall-E and Eve-ah!! ;) The smoke study is awesome, and all your figure studies are too. The style of the bottom figure skater will make for a great project.

I know what you mean with the having so many things you want to do that you end up not getting anything done. I always struggle with where to start, or what to continue. Looks like you're getting plenty done at the moment though. :)

[Heozart]

Johan, I am kinda embarrassed to say this, but I've been working on stuff at least a couple of hours everyday for the last two weeks or so, and that's a first for me. It can still take me a while to get started, but it is gradually becoming a habit. I've been happy to find myself more inclined to reach out for my tablet pen over the tv remote lately. I know you have inspired me time and time again in the past, so I will do my best to keep working and playing hard if that's what it will take to motivate you. :)

Aviva, thanks! :) I ought to do more Wall-E studies, but again, there are so many other things I need to be working on. I will try to sneak one in when I do movie studies again.

I got started on my figure skating project. It's titled 'Dance of the Nightshade'. I split it to post here, but it is going to be one continuous image. I think I am about 1/2-2/3 way through, so it is going to be a very tall painting. This is a rough version, and I am going to wait till it is finished before upsizing and getting into the details.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Dance-of-the-Nightshade-WIP1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Dance-of-the-Nightshade-WIP2.jpg

The sequences that follow will be a long spin, after which she will turn into a smoke and disappear. I stopped tonight because I wasn't sure how I was going to pull off the spin, but I guess I will just have to try tomorrow. The last scene will be the same landscape as the opening, except it will be in the middle of the night with all the nightshades bloomed, and she won't be there.

I want this to be my work so far, so any critique and suggestions are welcome and appreciated. :)

[NR43]

Wow
I really like how you make every scene flow into the next one.
Maybe in the last transition, the 3 dancers are a bit too horizontally?
Not sure though. It looks really nice already.

[Aviva]

I second Johan's "Wow". This looks epic. When I read your description of the end sequences I visualised a spin that snaked towards us, with the closest figure turning into smoke. Can't wait to see the full thing!

[Heozart]

Thanks Johan. I wanted to do a graphic novel sort of thing, but I decided from the beginning that I would do without borders. I knew I was going for a strong lighting so I thought I would divide things with light and dark. Thanks for pointing out that jump. I moved up and rotated the middle one and brought down the third a little. If you want to see what inspired me for this, by the way, go to http://jamsan.com/ver2/index.htm, click on gallery, project, and the Nike icons. Some pretty amazing art there.

Hey Tessa, that's exactly how I ended up doing the spin! :D What I wasn't sure about was how I was going to turn her into smoke and also the transition from there to the ending. She was still going to be fully human at the end of the spin, but what you said gave me the direction I needed. I only have silhouettes now, but she will be half figure/half smoke at the end of the spin, and fully smoke rising from the flowers in the last scene. It should have better contrast with some city lights and glow-in-the-dark flowers. :)

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Dance-of-the-Nightshade-WIP3.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Dance-of-the-Nightshade-WIP4.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Dance-of-the-Nightshade-WIP5.jpg

[Aviva]

Yay! Nice spin! I really like the shapes of the overlapping figures. The smoke bit sounds tricky. Maybe the smoke can start at her trailing limbs? I'm sure you'll figure it out. :)

[Heozart]

Thanks Tessa.

Here is the finished version. It could be polished more, but I kinda got tired of working on it. It doesn't look too much like smoke at the end, but I guess it doesn't have to. I am just happy that the piece as a whole turned out to be something close to what I had envisioned. Special thanks to Tessa and Johan for the feedback!

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Dance-of-the-Nightshade-1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Dance-of-the-Nightshade-2.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Dance-of-the-Nightshade-3.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Dance-of-the-Nightshade-4.jpg

[Cisc0]

Heozart vey nice colours! I really like the idea of the dancer turning into a little "cloud" of smoke. Also like the several studies you did before the main paint

[Aviva]

Wow, I love the colours! And it looks like she turned into a spirit in the end. :)

[Heozart]

Yay, this place is starting to look more alive! Had to fetch my thread from page 2. :D

Cisc0 and Aviva, thanks! :)

Experiment with patterns:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/Victorian-Knightress-small.jpg

I meant to do more with patterns, but it got pushed back, as studying Elvgren's style became my goal for the month, although I got distracted in a good way and started reading Loomis books.

Elvgren Studies:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-01-27-small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-02-09small.jpg

[dscavenger]

very nice sense of movement..lovely works..

[AJ]

Wow, those Gil Elvgren studies are amazing...

[batte812]

Hi Heozart, great updates: the work with the patterns is very interesting. The Elvgren studies look good, especially the colored ones. Keep going!

[Heozart]

Thanks guys. :)

Some more Elvgren studies:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-02-16small.jpg

I am aiming for an Elvgren style pin up piece for my February City of Heroes fanart. Here are some tonal sketches from imagination. I usually can do very little from imagination, and I kinda surprised myself a little, even though these aren't much. I guess having read some Loomis and doing tonal studies really helped. I also went to the Lost Lagoon at Stanley Park to observe the lake environment the other day.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/2010-Feb-WIP1small.jpg

I went with the third plan, and here's the WIP:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/2010-Feb-WIP2.jpg

The lake creature in the background is named Sally in the game. I thought it would be funny to have the character fumble with the camera while the chance for the shot of her life slips away. I am not sure whether she is even aware of Sally's presence.

[Heozart]

Here's the finished painting. It's lacking refinement in some areas, but I stopped when I wasn't having fun anymore. I have so much to learn about color and edge control.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Vivace-small.jpg

[Heozart]

Hey guys,

I've been working harder than ever on my art, but all my effort went into the Robert Chang workshop (which is amazing btw) so I didn't have anything to post here until now.

This is a store display study from yesterday which I started at the mall on my Nintendo DS then refined at home in Painter from memory and imagination. Now that I have a pair of Skechers Shape-ups, I want to explore the city and do more sketches from life. :)

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-04-19-small.jpg

[NR43]

Hey Wes, long time indeed, but so great to hear you're having a ball at Rob's WS.
You know that is really a great exercise, start with sketches from life and continue painting at the studio. It's really good to train the visual memory. A lot of the old masters used to work this way too...

[vikramvr]

Love the last few paintings that you have posted, and also the black and white studies. Great colours in the dancer turning into a cloud painting.

[Heozart]

Hi Vikram, thanks so much! :)

Hey Johan, it is definitely great to see you. Are you going to be able to take Robert's class when it is offered again? I really hope so. Pretty much every week has been an eyeopener for me one way or another.

One way it's challenged me is using creative and expressive brushwork to render different types of surfaces. I used to be very intimidated by things like foliage, water, fur, etc., but I am starting to realize that I don't need to be.

Here is a lion study I did a couple of days ago from the cover of the book The Soul of the Savanna:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/lions-small.jpg

[razz]

Amazing studies, Heozart! There really is nothing that should intimidate you about those things, you've shown it quite well with this last study. And a nice change after a bunch of girl paintings :D Very well done. I also really like the black and white ones done after Elvgren. How about some real paints? :)

[aggie93]

Cool work. I loved your pin up study. That was cool. But the lion... WOW. It looks so soft!

[Aviva]

Hi Wes, awesome textures in the lion study! What brushes did you use for it? Textured brushes intimidate me, but they sure look useful. It's great to hear you're getting a lot out of the workshop. I can't wait to see what else you've learnt! :)

[dscavenger]

wow..the last one is simply awesome...:beer:

[DriftingEmber]

That brushwork section was pretty challenging. Beautiful fur on those lions! Hope to see more work soon.

[Heozart]

Hi guys,

Tessa, I made a set of foliage brushes during Robert Chang workshop, and found one of them worked well on the lion. I don't know how to share Painter brushes, but I can attach the Photoshop version if you want to try them.

I've been more productive lately, so I will try to update my sketchbook often. First, messing around with a drawing tool called Harmony (http://mrdoob.com/projects/harmony/) from references. I found Harmony to run best on Google Chrome.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/2010-06-29-01-small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/2010-07-05-small.jpg

Some heads from references:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-07-07-02-small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Daily%20Sketch/2010-07-08.jpg

My July City of Heroes fanart:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/Sister-Psyches-Secret-animated.gif
Sister Psyche is really old but looks young supposedly because she doesn't age while occupying someone else's body. I think it is because she injects this secret serum every night.

I started studying anatomy, but don't really have anything worth showing yet.

I figured learning 3D might help visualizing the forms, so I got Blender a couple of days ago. I've been going through the video tutorials and assignments here: http://www.gryllus.net/Blender/3D.html

I was hoping Blender would be like a poor man's Zbrush with the sculpt mode, but so far I haven't been able to get it to work like I want it to. But after watching the third set of videos at that site, I learned that you can quickly make organic shapes from a simple form like a cube by pulling and stretching some planes. Here's my humble first bust:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Blender/Goofy-Object.jpg

After I played around in the sculpt mode:
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Blender/Goofy.jpg

Unfortunately I accidently closed Blender (and it doesn't ask you to save) so I couldn't capture different views.

[Heozart]

Ok, I'm addicted to Blender. I wish I had started sooner.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Blender/Teddy-Bear-small.jpg

Made the teddy bear following this tutorial.

http://vimeo.com/4622616

I can't wait to learn to rig and animate characters.

[NR43]

Oh man I remember the last version I used blender for modeling was 2.37. I had been learning to model with 3dsmax before that and I wanted to continue with blender because it was open source (3dsmax licences are insanely expensive). I was having a blast creating models but I also wanted to make amazing 3D scenes and I even started to dream that one day I wanted to make a 3D shortfilm. That is actually how I got into 2D...
Now, 6 or 7 years later I wouldn't remember how to use Blender3D, but one day I will again, that's for sure.

Since you're getting on with it so quickly, I assume it is still as intuitive as it used to be?

[Heozart]

Here's an update to prevent my thread from being locked. I haven't really made much progress with 3d since my last post, but the big news is I will be going to a 3d animation school called Think Tank Training Centre starting next month. I still love 2d, but my plan is to set my foot in the movie/game industry with 3d.

Some recent stuff:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Portraits/2010-11-16.jpg
Leyendecker study

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Portraits/2011-02-09-01-small.jpg
Trying out a free painting program called MyPaint

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/2011-03-10.jpg
Studies from books Alien Race and Art of District 9.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Landscape/2011-03-09-small.jpg
Study from a photo I took in Korea in the winter.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/April-small.jpg
April fanart for City of Heroes.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Landscape/2011-05-02-small.jpg
Reference from a Canucks hockey game.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Film%20Studies/2011-05-03-Bad-Lieutenant-small.jpg
Study from the movie Bad Lieutenant.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/2011-05-04-Pygmy-Seahorse-1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/2011-05-04-Pygmy-Seahorse-2.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Animals/2011-05-04-Pygmy-Seahorse-3.jpg
Pygmy seahorse studies from google search. I love these little things! I plan to do more studies of pygmy seahorses, then try to come up with my own species.

[Heozart]

Wrecked Porsche studies from Mega Breakdown on National Geographic channel. I guess crumpled metal is like folds in drapery, but I am having a lot of trouble.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/2011-05-06-01-small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/2011-05-07-01-small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/2011-05-07-02-small.jpg

[NR43]

Great to see you posting again Wes.

Hope to do the same in a couple of weeks o.O

[Heozart]

Hey Johan! How are you doing? Having fun painting?

Stuff from the past week:

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Portraits/2011-05-11.jpg
I have a hard time capturing likeness or the essence of a person so I felt like I needed to practice with the same head a bit. These were from Balls of Fury. A couple at the bottom were from memory/imagination and it sucked.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/May-small-1.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/May-small-2.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/May-small-3.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/City%20of%20Heroes/May-small-4.jpg

This is my May fanart for CoH. The theme was "anonymous" so I thought I'd try something totally different from what I normally do. I started using selection tools in the recent weeks, and this was a good practice to go all out with those. I also got more comfortable with gradients and masks.

Anyone going to Siggraph this year? I didn't know it was going to be in Vancouver until today. My school is going to be there, so I get to go for free. :)

[NR43]

I'm great, thx.
Hope you are too :D
Can't paint much apart from the 2 evenings at the academy since november 26th... too busy with family stuff.
But 2 more weeks and I will be full time at home for a while (I'm hoping 3 months).
I should be able to paint then :)

Have fun at Siggraph!

[Heozart]

Hey Johan, how's your break going?

I can't believe it's already been almost a month since school started. I spend most of the time learning 3d, but I also have life drawing and classical animation classes which I enjoy. From last few weeks:

http://img171.imageshack.us/img171/3237/tttcld001.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/171/tttcld001.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/9390/tttcld002.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/232/tttcld002.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

http://img683.imageshack.us/img683/9226/tttcld003.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/683/tttcld003.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

http://img846.imageshack.us/img846/8565/tttcld004.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/846/tttcld004.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/3473/tttcld005.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/190/tttcld005.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/7192/tttcld006.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/687/tttcld006.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

[Heozart]

http://img26.imageshack.us/img26/5625/tttcld007.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/26/tttcld007.jpg/)

Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

http://img21.imageshack.us/img21/561/tttcld008.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/21/tttcld008.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/4907/tttcld009.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/233/tttcld009.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/4382/tttcld010.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/268/tttcld010.jpg/)
Uploaded with ImageShack.us (http://imageshack.us)

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/Wes-Car-1-small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/Wes-Car-2-small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/Wes-Car-3-small.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Vehicles/Wes-Car-4-small.jpg

Some 10-minute caricatures of my classmates and life drawing. Mercedes 300 SL I modeled. Ref for the 2nd image: http://www.netcarshow.com/mercedes-benz/1954-300_sl_gullwing/800x600/wallpaper_04.htm

[NR43]

Painting daily, Wes!
But I found a new job and I'm starting next tuesday, so I'm bound to have to drop the painting time, but I will try to keep painting daily. It would be a waste to lose my rithm now :D
(I'm posting mostly just on my blog these days)

That Mercedes is AWESOME! This one and the 1959 190 SL Roadster are my all time favs
I really dig that Mercedes decided to go back to that front grill design for there latest models.

Nice figure work too!

[razz]

Cool stuff, man! The mercedes is asking for some mafia dude near it. I like the wrecked porsche studies also but the blank BGs aren't helping those.

[Lunatique]

Looking good there Wes. If you keep going the way you have, you're going to be kicking ass and taking names not far into the future.

I have my prediction of a specific choice you'll end up making down the line regarding your career and focus, and I guess we'll have to wait and see if I'm accurate. :)

[Heozart]

Hey Johan, I hope your new job is going well. I saw your blog, and you are making a good progress! I really liked the duracel train. :) Keep painting!

Thanks Razz. Yeah I should practice coming up with simple backgrounds.

Hey Robert! What a nice surprise to find you here hehe. Now I am really curious what your prediction might be, but I guess I will have to wait a couple of years, which won't be very long if time keeps flying by at this rate.

I thought I wanted to be a character modeler, but we started sculpting with Mudbox at school, and it's been more frustrating than fun so far. I enjoy poly modeling more for now, but maybe I will learn to love sculpting once we start doing it more next semester.

What's been far more intriguing to me is ICE in Softimage. I am still pretty much a beginner, but I would love to be able to do more with it. ICE is not part of the curriculum though, so I have to learn it on my own when I have free time.

There is only three weeks left in the first semester, and I need to come up with an idea for my final project by early next week. The scene I have in mind is a hair dresser with a crazy hairdryer almost blowing the hair off of his customer. The characters are going to have those big 80s hair, and one side of the wall will be covered with sketches of people from the 80s.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/David-Bowie.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Twisted-Sister.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/rough.jpg

I've been doing rough sketches to flesh out the idea, and this is the best one so far. Still doesn't look very interesting, and I am having a lot of trouble coming with a design for the hairdryer. I want the image to be comical and silly, so maybe i should work on stylizing the characters as well. I am not even sure if the instructor will approve the idea, but at least I am having fun drawing stuff for a change.

Alchemy sketches that I started with the intention of making a hairdryer: :D

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Alchemy/kitty-small.jpg
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Alchemy/guitar-dude-small.jpg

[Pacucho]

Hey Wes, great stuff here. I looked through most of your stuff and can see some awesome improvement. Keep up the good work and keep posting. Keeps me motivated to get better.

[Heozart]

Hi Pacucho, thanks for the kind words and taking the time to look at my stuff! :)

Almost done with my semester final project. I wish I had more time to add and refine little details, but I need to wrap it up and will be spending most of the time rendering out passes and playing around in comp.

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Think%20Tank/render-test-5-small.jpg

[Lunatique]

I really like the expressive sketches you did for this--both the more abstract ones and the more representational ones.

The 3D is good, but not as artistic/expressive when compared to the 2D you did. Imagine if you had painted this as an expressive 2D painting--it would've been much more exciting and expressive. (This is me being objective, BTW. I think 3D excels at certain things, but there are many instances where 2D kicks 3D's ass in terms of artistic expressiveness.)

[Heozart]

Thanks for the comment, Robert! I thought about doing a 2d paintover on top of the 3d, but between visiting Korea for the break and work piling up in the new semester I never got around to it.

We worked on low res guns in the modeling class for the last three weeks, and I picked the Teleporter from the Art of District 9 book. It's still missing little details like a screen, control buttons, and alien graphics, but I think I am moving on to other stuff.

11,806 triangles. Modeled in Softimage, textured in Photoshop, and screenshots from Marmoset game engine.
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Think%20Tank/screenshot3.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Think%20Tank/screenshot2.jpg

http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Think%20Tank/screenshot1.jpg

Wall-E pumpkin I carved for halloween: :D
http://i102.photobucket.com/albums/m119/Heozart/Think%20Tank/Wall-E-Pumpkin-Carving-Small.jpg

I need to make a decision which area (animation, environment modeling, character modeling, lighting, VFX, etc) I want to specialize for my demo reel very soon. I really hate to pick one thing, and I've been getting depressed just thinking about it. I guess I might have to go with environments because I've been doing well with poly modeling. My original choice when I started school was characters, but I am having a very hard time getting used to sculpting in Zbrush.

[Frejasphere]

Hey it's been a while since I visited your thread :)

I can't comment on 3D (technically) but the face of the lady in the hairdresser chair
had me in stitches, so I'd love to see you take this further :thumbsup: Also really like your sketches (heads) and the cars too - especially looking over the steering wheel in the Merc (even though the steering wheel is on the left side ;))

Hope you're well
cheers
a. :)