Digital Painting Hindsight

Above: a composite image of 4 out of 10 'in-progress shots" of the image I am currently trying to paint digitally.

Ok, I need to take a minute for a little progress report before I forget what I have gone through. I have been working on doing a digital painting of the ‘mermaid’ drawing (gonna title it “the trouble with mermaids”) that was my final project for the Comics Experience anatomy class. It has gone through 10 revisions and there has definitely been “TROUBLE.” I am finally at a point where it seems like I’m making some progress – just getting started on the coloring!

I am trying a technique of doing the values in black white and grey over the line art and painting in color on a layer (or layers) over first. It sounds so simple.

What took 9 revisions?

Well, I also decided to try using layer masks to separate the image into parts – and I think that is where things got overly complicated. Probably because I was looking at a variety of tutorials and it occurred to me today that I might be trying to do too many different and unrelated things at the same time.

Tutorials:

Imaginefx#90 Sam Didier “picture a pair of fighting heroes”

Imaginefx #82 Iconic wonder woman – where I got the idea about layer masks.

Serge Birault painting hair tutorial on muddycolors http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-to-digitally-paint-hair.html

…and random others.

Here are some things that I have discovered the hard way:

1. If the plan is to do a value study and paint over it using a layer set to ‘overlay’ you do not want to have a lot of white or black in the under-painting. In fact, start from a dark grey (70%) and work into it adding lights and darks (50 to 85%). Stay away from the default black and white – overlay colors will not show up over them. This is most painfully confusing when painting a color over white and having nothing happen… the white stays, the color disappers.

2. Layer masks and flats are essentially 2 very different ways to do almost the same thing - easily select specific areas.

Layer masks have the advantage of being able to be applied to a group of layers all at once (in a folder – see the bottom of the layers palette for the little folder icon). Also layer masks are a bit easier to edit by painting on them wit black and white. They are also a lot more complicated in terms of keeping things organized – at least for me, so far. Hopefully as I get more used to them that will be less of a problem.

3. right clicking/ctrl+clicking on a layer mask will allow for some really useful options:

-add mask to selection- (aka create a selection from mask),

-subtract mask from selection, and

-intersect mask and selection –or something like that, adds masked area to a selection.

Useful stuff to remember. 

I have been sketching like a madman since October. Drawing something every day - mostly figure or anatomy. It is starting to make a difference that I can feel.

Chicago

Visiting the windy city for thanksgiving. Had one of the best Turkey Day dinners ever last night at the Fairmont hotel downtown. Stina and I took an evening stroll and we were very thankful.

Today, we are going to try and get around before the temperature drops too low. I have plans to hit Graham cracker comics and a nearby record store.

Another year is winding down - I am taking my first online anatomy class offered through Comics Experience and so far learning a TON of stuff.

Most of my sketches for the class have been kind of ugly - concentrating on figuring things out more than making pretty pictures. The two above were really inspired by the work of the other students - I had to try and step up my game a bit because folks were turning out some really impressive sketches. It is good to be motivated to draw on a regular (almost daily) basis, and to be figuring out some anatomical stuff that has eluded me for years!

Flatting

Well a new Comics Experience class has begun. this time I'm learning COLORING. More specifically, this week I've been learning to flat. The image is a very small chunk of my first attempt at a page.

This coloring business is strange new territory for me. I have been obsessed with line for so long the colors have largely been an afterthought in terms of drawing. With paintings they color issues mostly come as the result of experimentation. Other than generally working from dark to light there isn't much of a system to it when I paint. I'm excited to see if that changes after this class.

One thing I've noticed already is that there is a certain level of mental involvement with coloring (flatting so far) that is very comfortable. I'm looking at the line work and analyzing it for complete shapes, and tracing outlines... it keep you mentally busy but the stress level is a lot lower that when starting from an empty page.

I do realize that I know next to nothing about what color popular superhero costumes are supposed to be. Still, it has been nice to be able to finish a page of flats in just a couple of hours - Hopefully I'll get faster - or do simpler pages - at some point, but so far so good.

Back at it.

Well its official, work greatly retards with my ability to create. Aint no doubt about it.
Thank God for vacations!
I was cranking things out pretty good during the summer. Then Fall arrived and school took over.
I am now just at the end of winter vacation (Happy New Year by the way) and I have a couple of paintings going:

"King of Bling"

Its a little weird right... Yea well, it is 90-something % done so I am happy about that.

I've also just started working on this one:
"Plastic"

This pic was taken a couple of days ago and i am a little further along now - more dark purple and red in the background areas, still a way to go.

I am trying to get into the habit of completion, not dinking around with little details so much... at least trying not to; just being a little bolder and quicker and ending things decisively. That is the goal anyway.

I still have a couple of long overdue projects that need finished pencils and I will get to them, but it has been too long since I slung any paint around.

The beginning of my comics experience coloring class is drawing near and I am looking forward to it. It will be a challenge I know. TIME MANAGEMENT is the issue at hand. Classes are getting started next week where I work but I am determined. And I think my coloring sensibilities could really use some tightening up. Cheers to learning more in 2012!!!

Time for getting back in good habits!