Hey everyone, I’m new here, actually this is my first Digital painting in the forum.
This is gonna be a Digital painting of the lovely actress (Alexis Bledel), I love her blue clear eyes, so I’m gonna try to catch that.
this are just quick studies, I like the one on the right, so it’s the one that gonna make it 
Thanks 6foot5.
So this is the first step of this painting, just laid the main tones, but there’s a lot of work to come |
haven’t do much with the eyes yet, and the line work is still showing.
I’m looking for a realistic look, so it’s gonna be a lot of layers
C&C are most welcomed.
Good progress!
Don’t be afraid of using really big brushes starting out and then scaling them down as you start working on fine details.
One good way to tackle projects like this is to just focus on painting the planes of the face starting out.
Thanx ZombieMariachis, yeah, I love this technique I kinda started with it, but now I’m more in the details phase.
So I worked more on the eyes, eyelashes, nose and lips.
I noticed that the shadows were a little bit off, and worked more on the chin.
Hope you like it, C&C are most welcomed.
So I moved on to the neck, added some details and shadows to the face, the line art is gone now.
The neck was a quickie, some brush strokes, and some highlights and freckles.
worked also on the ear, I forgot about it , hope you like it.
C&C are most welcomed.
What I always encourage people to do when doing something like working from photo references, is to try to inject more artistic sensibility into their effort instead of just technically copying the reference.
Think about how some of the greatest portrait painters in history used artistic interpretation and presentation such as expressive brushwork, artistic usage of values, tonal composition, edge qualities, colors, selective detail, simplification, idealization, etc.
Analyze painters like John Singer Sargent, Anders Zorn, Pino, Richard Schmid, Jeremy Lipking, Susan Lyon, Daniel Gerhartz, Morgan Weistling, Gil Elvgren, etc. You don’t ever see them obsessing with tiny details like each eyelash or freckle, yet their portraits are far more expressive than the paintings by artists who do obsess with the micro-detail instead of the overall artistic sensibility.
It’s easy to just render a lot of micro-detail and eventually snuff out all the expressiveness and spontaneity from a painting, but it’s far harder to artistically interpret a subject so that it truly lives and breathes as a “painting” instead of a technical exercise.
Thanx Lunatique for your comment.
yeah sure, and me myself is a big fan of the Impressionism school, like Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir and Paul Cezanne, but like I mentioned before, I was looking for a realistic look, plus I’m working on my digital painting techniques.
and all of the biggest names in the history of art had started with old school realism and academic studies and painting from life and nature, I actually find it strange that some new artists start drawing with Impressionism or even abstraction-ism !!
I believe I still need some work, and time, before I can call my self an fully-functional-ready-to-go-artist , but hopefully I will get there eventually.
Thanx again Lunatique for the reply, it’s great to find that there’s artists that are ready to help others, I really appreciate it
So I’m working on the hair now (she’s not bald anymore :)), the project is almost done, just some touches here and there, and of course the hair still needs work, hope you like it, C&C are most welcomed.
Really good. I really like how you rendered the skin and got rid of the plastic look.
I would suggest playing around with the background though. You went with the same color as the skin. It might be worth it to try a complementary color or some gradient to add depth in it.
But really nice job. congrats.
Thanx FarisB, glad you like it.
yeah, I know what you mean, I’m still playing with the Background, I might use a grungy texture with a darker color, or maybe a gradient one like you said.
thanks again, glad you like the skin.
So this is the finale image, put it in the gallery, hope it get accepted 
, hope you like it, thanks for all the feedback, have fun.
As a technical exercise, this is pretty good. As a portrait, it doesn’t really work for a few reasons.
The “unfinished brushwork” look at the bottom feels arbitrary and inconsistent with the rest of the image. If you’re going to incorporate that look into your artwork, then integrate it into the overall style organically instead of as an afterthought. This is why I said to look at works by guys like Richard Schmid, Pino, Jeremy Lipking, etc. They are really good at incorporating that partially finished look into a painting and make it look natural and artistically appealing.
The lighting is very flat, looking like the dreaded “on-camera flash photography” look associated with paparazzi photographers and unskilled photographers who just blast the flash at the subject without any artistic lighting. There’s no modeling of form, no tonal composition, and even as a technical exercise, you’re just practicing rendering micro-details like skin texture and hair strands, but you don’t get to practice your ability to convey form and value accurately.
The hair looks stringy and has no sense of mass. The values are off too, making the hair appear flat and limp. I’m not sure why you deviated from the original photo if this was a technical exercise. Generally speaking, you don’t want to just render hair with a ton of thin strands of similar values–it’s too much visual noise that doesn’t contribute to much; micro-detail is meaningless without the more support of the more important context of the overall management of values, shapes, forms, composition, etc.
For the future, I suggest you don’t use flat-looking on-camera flash photography as your reference; pick more artistic lighting that models the person’s form and features effectively.
You obviously have the technical rendering skills, so I don’t think it’s necessary for you to do these types of exercises any more. Start developing your artistic sensibility and paint works that are your own creative expression.
As for the Showcase Gallery, we don’t accept images that are simply copies of copyrighted photos of celebrities–it’s a legal issue. We also find images that are simply copies of photos without much creative input kind of iffy–they don’t usually accept images like that either.
Hmm. Since I still haven’t conquered my weaknesses I usually keep the following feelings to myself but I think this is a good chance to express my views.
Regarding learning from great painters, I feel like that advice is good but incomplete.
For example a lot of people advice studying John Singer Sargent. Well since so many people studied it why isn’t there a proper analysis on what Sargent work is in more specific terms? I did not find any specifics on how to actually do it.
All you find is, he used expressive strokes, he moved a lot while painting, he used a lot of color on the brush, when he painted he painted quickly… nice, very nice. But not very useful. And this is one of the most talked about painters ever. Yet no one can tell you, “listen man, Sargent did 1 and 2 and 3, look here at this and I will show you step by step. This is how you would it, this is how he did it, see the difference?” It is astounding that no one can explain it that way.
Ok so someone tells me Faris don’t be lazy. forget other peoples opinions, download the paintings and study them yourself. First of all I don’t have a reference for the same scene he painted. No photos. So I cannot compare. The only option I have is to draw an outline, use his painting as a photo and try to paint it in my style, then see how differently he did it until I get a feel for it.
Now one thing that shows in their work is a sense of realism. Abbreviated realism, and man that is advanced. How can anyone learn how to paint abbreviated realism when they are still learning how to achieve realism in the first place?
Learning from great painters is an advanced lesson. Actually especially the ones that know what to put in and what to leave are even harder.
So in this case if I were were Pierre, I would also just try to reproduce the photo, in its micro details. Because only after I’m confident I can create any micro details, would I have the understanding, eye sight and knowledge of execution to know what to drop since I’m not worried about my technical limitations any more.
First I must succeed to copy, because that means I can analyse and execute accurately. Then I can see what can be dropped or changed or exaggerated to create a “style”. It’s like the comfort of having a save point that I can fall back on instead of falling all the way to the bottom.
I think doing all of it in one go is too ambitious.
Regarding this piece Pierre, I think Lunatique is right and this is more of a technical exercise. You need to focus on the hair, that is the main weakness. It sort of fell apart or was rushed through or the difficulty got to you.
I did an exercise the other day regarding skin rendering. I did it in monochrome, I ditched what is available on the net as “skin brushes” and created my own settings and it seems to have worked but only in black and white till now. So you are actually ahead of me. Hair is still a monster in the closet for me as well.
Since my eye is better than my hand at the moment though this is what I would attempt to learn to do if I was in the same stage as you:
The background looks good by the way.
Thanks Lunatique for the reply.
yeah, it’s a technical painting, not really a character design like I mentioned before, I was looking for a realistic and natural look, specially for the skin, I hope I did that well, I do some photography, and I get what you’re saying, yeah, the flash light in photography is the worst scenario you can get , when I do mine (photography) I always use side lights as well, and I consider the shadows as a great friend, and they has as big impact to the composition as the light, in some cases even more, but this wasn’t really a character design like I mentioned before, or something that I’m putting all my knowledge into it, like you said it’s more of a technical drawing.
Thanks again for the reply, and taking the time to analyze the work, this forum really is a great place to learn
thank you very much for the reply FarisB.
yeah exactly, like I said before, you can not go straight to abstract, it’s absurd, you have to do the steps first, I’m more confident now with my technique, and yeah, the hair needs more work, you’re right, I can see that now, so now I’m moving on to more of studying and starting to play more with the colors, and just experience, yeah, they tell you to look at that one’s works or the other one’s, but I believe that you might absorb a little from here or there, but eventually you will have to try and just experience, with a good knowledge and a solid background of course.
Thanx again Faris, really appreciate your reply.
The reason why you don’t see people writing long essays in forums explaining how to analyze and learn from master painters is because it will be too in-depth, like a full-blown class. That is why people teach this kind of knowledge formally, because it requires dedication and passion to learn and understand and apply to your own work. It’s kind of like how in a music forum, if people say, “You should study the work of Debussy and Ravel and Mahler and pay attention to their harmonic progression and melodic contours, and how they build up tension with dissonance and then resolve it in a satisfying manner,” and you say, “Well, why don’t you guys actually write detailed, in-depth instructions on how to do that?” They’ll just tell you, “That’s why you go and take music lessons on composition and orchestration and actually train as a composer–that’s the only way to learn. If we tried to explain it, it would turn into a book-length essay.”
Everything you have mentioned, are contained in the workshop I teach right here at CGSociety (linked in my signature). I teach students from the very beginner level all the way up to professional art director level, in the same workshop.
In order to understand what you called “abbreviated realism,” you must learn about the inner workings of the critical foundations of visual art such as composition, values, lighting, colors, anatomy, figure, etc. Only when you understand the principles behind these components that makes up visual art, would you know how to artistically manipulate them effectively.
And I do advocate that students learn the very basic technical skill of copying what they see accurately and develop their eye-to-hand coordination and ability to observe and analyze what they see. That is the most basic training for all visual artists–it’s the first level challenge. It really doesn’t take a whole lot to meet that challenge–it’s mostly just patience and paying attention. Even non-artists can be trained copy a still image accurately, since it’s more of a technical skill that doesn’t require a whole lot of creative input.
But as soon as the student is able to copy accurately, they’re ready to move on to much bigger challenges, and that’s when they need to buckle down and train in the critical foundations of visual art. That’s when they are taught how to break down an image into limited values, how to manage those values effectively for the overall tonal composition, how to depict the turning of forms properly, how to control the variety of edges for selective detail and eye-leading, why artists use the colors in specific ways, how to deploy effective and expressive brushwork that aren’t arbitrary but serves distinct purposes in the image, and so on.
How can someone copy effectively without learning about the critical foundations of visual art? Value, edge, anatomy, figure, observation, lighting, texture, layering, perspective? and if it is a painting, without learning color theory, brushes, also depending on if it is traditional or digital, a lot more can be listed.
I think the only people who would be that limited are people whose goal is only to copy and then stop. But most people when learning how to copy are trying to learn a whole whole lot about the critical foundations of visual art as well in the process.
Regarding the musical example, just because that is the normal and most common answer does not make it the way it has to be.
If the question is: How do I reach from zero to Sargent, the answer would be: Take classes, see videos, draw like crazy, read books from everywhere since you have a lot to cover.
But I think if the person asking can understand the concepts and vocabulary a more specific answer, like an approach recommendation, a list of observations and some specific examples since the person answering did a study of their own previously would suffice to a serious student.
That same answer can be reused as well if the question was re-asked. That kind of attitude is not the responsibility of one person of course to always do, but would be great as a group attitude.
I have checked the workshop and you have a sincere workshop with a lot of value added and I think that is very evident and if I can attend I will, it seems to answer questions which I have labored a lot to find solutions for and some which I still haven’t. And of course you are right that creativity is a big challenge with its own categories to study.
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