My Road To Mastery

#161

For the DSF ‘Rocketman’. PS, about 50 minutes.

#162

Another DSF. Theme “King”, limit 20 minutes. I wish I’d composed it so you could see his whole crown. Then I could have had the people spreading out above and beyond him instead of just the sides of what is ASSUMED to be a crown. haha, oh well. Lesson learned.

#163

DSF, “The Shade”, one hour:

Still trying to decipher some of Mullins’ technique after all these years, haha.

#164

hey staticpen, I really like your thread there so much going on. Your sketches are lovely. I like the one best where you added watercolors afterwards even with the bleading of the pen.

Your last DSF Entry is nice as well. I see you using stuff you’ve learned in one of your mastercopys. I’m maybe wrong but thats what I see in that image.

It’s really nice to see you takeing big steps forward. It allways reminds my that effort pays off.

#165

TedNindo - Many thanks. :slight_smile: Yeah, I used some faux finish brushes there in that last DSF entry, which I discovered as useful during the Sargent copy.
I hope I’m taking steps. I can see some improvement, but I still feel I have so much more to learn. Every painting is a bunch of mistakes to learn from, heheheh.

I’ve really been trying to pick out the logic and technique of Craig Mullins lately. Not just his amazing topical brush skills, but his mastery of value, gesture and composition. For instance…

Image 1) Click here . The values and colors are basically perfect. From this distance it looks like a master painting full of detail.

Image 2) This is the actual size of the image. See how everything is suggested and actually not rendered much at all? It’s a testament to how much value matters compared to detail when talking about the overall quality of an image.

So that’s what I’ve been trying to understand lately. I browsed about 500 of his images over the last two nights, and just now I’ve finished my first copy. To see the original, look here.
Because I’m doing this to try and decipher some of his technique, I’ll post what I unravel as it comes to me.

Left image: In many of Mullins’ paintings he has an incredible amount of texture going on underneath the various layers of paint. One common method a friend and I have noticed (in some of his paintings that are a little less polished it’s easy to spot) is that he uses a branch/tree brush and scatters it around the background.
Right image: This is just me rolling down some lines, because I find it much easier to work within boundaries than to block down shapes and then erase to find form. After that I just started throwing down paint with a hard round at various opacities.

After that, I learned that you don’t need too many special brushes to create good texture. A handy and quick trick is just to go into your brush options, tick the texture box and choose a texture and style (multiply, darken, etc). When you’re done, just uncheck the box and go back to whatever you were doing. Don’t go looking for specific texture brushes - bring the texture to the brush you’re already using!

So here it is. PS, about 45 minutes.

#166

(for those of you getting directed to this page from your subscription, you might have missed my last update at the end of the previous page. it was an entry with a Craig Mullins copy and a couple process images on one of his texture techniques, but if you’ve seen it, then no worries. :D)

Again, just working on my values… I’m seeing more and more that being bold is what gets the job done. Too often I’m afraid the contrast will be too great and I end up putting gradients everywhere.
Something else I noticed while studying Mullins last night was that the further into the background something is the less saturation/contrast there is. So I tried applying that logically here by losing the front bill of the hat into the background, as well as certain areas of her face. A handy method for doing that is not to worry about blending colors all the time, but simply lay down your color on a new layer and then use the sponge brush on desaturate with a flow of 10% or so. Then you can gradually take away the saturation. When you’re set, merge down and you’re good to go. As for contrast, I made an adjustment layer and brought the contrast way down. Then I just applied it with low flow in the areas I wanted to drop contrast in. I didn’t know what adjustment layers were for a long time, and they’re SUPER helpful, so if any of you don’t know what they are/how to use them, just say so and I’ll throw up a quick tutorial.

Cheers!

[img]http://fc05.deviantart.com/fs35/f/2008/237/4/7/Value_Sketch_by_static_pen.jpg[/img]
#167

Your latest work is very impressive!
Damn I need to work harder :banghead:

#168

NR43 - haha, thanks man. definitely keep at it! your latest post was very impressive in its own right. :slight_smile:

These are exciting times. I made a big breakthrough in value theory tonight. I wanted to see if there was a science behind Craig Mullins’ ability to select near perfect values every time, so I opened several of his paintings in photoshop. I found something very interesting.

You know the color selection window? There are a ton of numbers on the side. I don’t know what most of them mean, but I started sliding the eyedrop tool around highs/mids/lows in the paintings to see if there were any constants regardless of hue. Things I could write down and apply systematically in the future. There were. I’ve drawn it out below:

The S number here stands for Saturation as far as I know. Sliding the color picker left to right moves the number from 0-100.
The B number here stands for Brightness. Sliding the color picker bottom to top moves the number from 0-100.

After examining several of Mullins’ paintings in photoshop I discovered that in basically every painting there were three main values, and each value was in a specific range of Brightness. Saturation constants were more elusive, but more on that later.
What I found was that the majority of Mullins’ highlights, regardless of color, were between 80 and 100 in Brightness.
The majority of Mullins’ midtones were between 30 and 50 in Brightness.
The majority of Mullins’ lows were between 10 and 25 in Brightness.

This is not to say that Mullins never uses values with 60-70 Brightness, but the numbers speak for themselves here. After checking all parts of several paintings, the vast majority of them reflected the above scale.

As I mentioned earlier, Saturation patterns were harder to detect. They really depended on subjective things like what color palette he was using and, well, what color he wanted. Some of the paintings had narrow palettes with S numbers from 10-50, while other more vibrant pieces ranged the full 0-100.
Very generally, as mentioned before, the S number depended on one or more of many things. Here are the uses I saw most often:
The further into the background something was, the lower the Saturation.
The darker the value, the higher the Saturation (usually 50-100).
The higher the value, the lower the Saturation (usually 0-50).

With these things in mind I sketched out something quick with the intent of making it pop with value, not contour, detail or color. I did not use a grayscale adjustment layer here either, so no easy value checks were allowed in order to really put the theory to the test…
My method was to choose a value based on Brightness and paint a midtone. Then I painted other midtones in the sketch with different colors, but pretty much the same Brightness number. All that was left was to repeat this with highs and lows and make little adjustments where needed.
Here is what came out, and I have to say, simple and rough as it is, I really think I’ve discovered something very interesting.

#169

Well you actually discovered the key to successful illustration :slight_smile:

Similar things as your findings are written in most books I have and in every video tutorial I find. The hard part is to try and distinguish Value, Saturation and Hue from each other as we pick colors. This is why a lot of great artists have advised me to make a grayscale version first. It breaks down the choices to picking only Value at first. When adding color (on a separate layer in color mode) one can then choose hues in combination with different saturation, without changing the value.
I think practice is the key be able to pick all 3 features at once successfully… in time it will be possible if we work hard.

A suggestion: It would be interesting to see the effect of changing saturation for the same hue/value in highlighted areas and shadowed areas.

Keep posting your findings… I’m learning as I read and it’s nice to be able to refresh my memory about things I already knew.

#170

NR43 - Yes, I know about the three value scheme and all of that. It’s in almost every book/tutorial, as you said. What I was pointing to here was the number theory, which is photoshop specific. Instead of having to guess where to stick your color picker in the box for your three values, just type in a number. And in this case, I found a group of numbers that are proven to consistently give you solid value compositions. :slight_smile:

A quick wash of watercolor over some life drawings. I know how to apply wc slowly and carefully, but this time I was experimenting with quick washes that were really wet. Usually I use almost no water at all. But yeah, you can see in some of these poses how much I overdid the water, heheheh. I think I found the right balance of paint/water in some of the simple leg drawings on the left. An even wash with a slight darkening at the edges where the paint settled.

#171

For the DSF “Lazy Morning”.

About 40 minutes, PS.

#172

Hey Statcpen,

really interessting read. After your first post about studing mullins, I went to his page and travelled through some of his pictures myself. Which was very interessting. I am amazed how rough he works on most of his pics. What I tried to find out is how he lays down textures and where. And I have to say that this is very difficult to say it seems as if its different every time. Your studys about hue/saturation/value is very interessting as well. I never thought about breaking those into nummbers. I recently orderd a video from gnomon about that exact topic. It’s called “practical light and color” it is very interessting to whatch and about exact the topic you are thinking about. I can highly recommend it.

On your last picture I have a critic. I really like it but I think the guy on the picture shoudn’t be there. There’s nothing interessting about him, he doesn’t even throw a shadow onto the girl if I am right. Just my thoughts about it, because I really like the rest of the image very much.

#173

I wouldn’t want to rely too much on the numbers though, because if you ever get to use other software (eg Painter), you could be screwed. I’d say train the eye instead so you got a source you can always rely on

After all, art is more about perception than calculation (imho)

Just my 2cents

#174

TedNindo - Hey man, thanks very much. :slight_smile: Yeah, Mullins is legit. His brushwork is very impressionistic most of the time, very rough and lively. I’ve done some research over the time I’ve known of him as an artist, and it’s well documented that he only uses the brushes that are already available when you buy PS. Another instance of ‘not the tool, but the application’. But yeah, every once in a hundred images or so you’ll spot a lazy image and find an insight into his technique. As you mentioned texture, I know he uses the single blade of grass brush on 100% angle jitter to go underneath his opaque paint layers. He also tends to take a photo of whatever and stretch it until it’s unrecognizable and use it as texture, which actually seems to blend in more than rock texture if you ask me. And then of course, apparently his favorite, ticking the texture box on a wedge brush set to ‘Direction’.
I just noticed that you didn’t actually ask a question, but I’ve already written all that. hahaha. @__@ Sorry. But thanks for the heads up on the video and the critique. The man actually is casting a shadow on the bed, but if it’s not obvious, then I obviously didn’t execute my idea as well as is possible. :wink: Sorry to ramble!

NR43 - For sure, drawing and painting are so much about replicating what you see, not what you know. :slight_smile: To try and be clear, I’m using these numbers to give my eyes constant examples of what I should be looking for as far as value and color, so that each time I step away from PS I’ll have more experience knowing what those ‘right’ colors and values look like, and I’ll be better able to pick them out on my own. It’s kind of like drawing figures from reference to improve instead of going through trial and error with your imagination. If you constantly expose yourself to the correct choices, you’ll be more capable of making those choices when you’re working from your head.
Thanks for taking the time to discuss this with me. :slight_smile:

I noticed another helpful thing when studying a Mullins sketch. For every point you saturate your color, you get darker in value at the same time. You can see this demonstrated on the Mullins sketch below:

There are two clear values indicated by arrows on the figure here, but they have the same Brightness number. If you look at the color picker box compared to when it’s converted to grayscale, you can see that for every point in the direction of saturation, your value drops 1/2 a point. Not too major of a find, but just something to keep in mind when deciding on the saturation of the colors in your paintings. Plus, I’d never looked at a black and white color box before. :stuck_out_tongue:

As far as images go, I’ve been fooling around on the DSF forum a little bit lately. Here’s some of that…

‘Look Up’, about 30 minutes:

‘Fire’, 25 minutes:

And this one I actually posted under my Wure-Squad alias. For ‘Fire’ as well, 7 minutes:

#175

For sure, drawing and painting are so much about replicating what you see, not what you know. :slight_smile: To try and be clear, I’m using these numbers to give my eyes constant examples of what I should be looking for as far as value and color, so that each time I step away from PS I’ll have more experience knowing what those ‘right’ colors and values look like, and I’ll be better able to pick them out on my own. It’s kind of like drawing figures from reference to improve instead of going through trial and error with your imagination. If you constantly expose yourself to the correct choices, you’ll be more capable of making those choices when you’re working from your head.

Ok now you are making sense. (Perhaps I’m a bit slow lol)
Keep posting your findings on color please

What’s with the WURE-squad thing??

#176

Hey Jason!

Lots of nice sketches, really nice to see you pushing forward and doing it fast! About my Frazetta study, well, it’s sitting on the easel for three months now, untouched. I became digital. My excuse? It’s easier to plug in my tablet than get all the paint, brushes, palette knives, palette out :slight_smile: But as I don’t use loads of tricks that are only possible in digital, all I learned should transfer to traditional, I hope, haha.
Good to see you’re learning about color. Good luck with that. I’ll just rely on the saturation slider, because I always go quite desaturated. Mhm, this I couldn’t do in traditional medium…

#177

NR43 - Yeah dude. Sorry it took me so long to make it clear. :stuck_out_tongue: The wure-squad is a group sketch thing I’m a part of. We run around different boards and forums under different names and just draw a bunch of stuff together. That’s about it. Haha.

Razz - Thanks man. Yeah, I totally know what you mean about leaving oil paintings alone because they’re so laborious. It’s like… if you don’t finish in one sitting, the chances of going back are really small, haha. It just takes so much time to get everything out, paint and then clean everything after you’re done. Digital is so much more convenient. @__@

For “Beer”, PS, about 45 minutes… Trying to get better at painting without drawing lines first. It’s so tough for me.

#178

I’ve hit a road block of sorts in my art. Unless I’m copying from life or someone else’s work, I can’t seem to paint anything. I spend hours painting, erasing and repainting the same things. Trail and error. The following images have several very clear issues/problems with them, but I’m posting them anyway. Maybe someone who is in a slump will read this and be assured that they’re not the only one who feels like nothing goes right when they paint, or that every time they start with an idea in their head, something else ends up on paper.

This one started out as a line drawing. Then I spent over an hour painting, erasing, repainting, erasing, etcetera ad nauseam. The shadow placement is just a guess.

This one started out as something totally different, but after 25 minutes it still looked like a crayon drawing by a 10 year old, so I erased everything and started over. After erasing, the repainting you see here took 25 minutes.
(note: if you’ve seen this on DSF, I’m not stealing art - I posted this with my wure-squad alias “zeropercent”)

Again, there are several issues readily apparent to me in those images, so I’m not so much posting them for critiques. I’m just putting them up because they are in fact part of ‘my road to mastery’, which was the whole point of this thread when I started it. Gotta post the strikes AND gutters.

One thing I will say is that most of my time spent on those images was trial and error. Guessing where shadows went, guessing methods for making a certain texture… I’m contemplating just copying from life or masters/pros for a while. Getting more good habits and information into my head/hands. The more you know, the less you have to guess when sketching. Cause over the past couple days I’ve been painting my backyard from reference and I’m quite pleased with how it’s progressing. I think it’s just the making things up for quick sketches that has me beaten right now.

#179

So, I started my quest tonight. Learning from images instead of guessing by imagination… This is from a photo I took last summer. All I did was throw down shapes with a big round brush and then put in some color with a smaller hard round. Something I’ve found that looks pretty cool is to block in with a plain hard round darker than you should, and then paint the correct value over it with a textured brush so that some of the darker color comes through and adds some interest. You might also try this with complementary colors underneath the glaze layer. Oil painters do that sort of thing a lot. Oh, and I also learned the beauty of the airbrush, hahaha. It works wonders for lighting. I never really used it that much in my other paintings.

PS, a couple hours.

#180

Your thread is in my top fav list these days… I’m learning heaps from you!
Damn I haven’t had the chance to turn on my pc for the last 3 days and I’m missing it!!

Something I’ve found that looks pretty cool is to block in with a plain hard round darker than you should, and then paint the correct value over it with a textured brush so that some of the darker color comes through and adds some interest. You might also try this with complementary colors underneath the glaze layer.

I must remember this