Started the graphite bones of my next painting. Need to finish off her body/face, and then onto the painting. also: a view of my messy desk.
Hey everyone! I just wanted to share something I’ve been cooking up lately. I’ve made a second tumblr account for all my little urban sketching adventures. I wanted a separation between my fantasy work and my real life sketches. So, without further ado.. I present to you my alternative account: i draw outside. From here on out, I’ll be posting any sketches of that sort over there, so this will be the last time you’ll hear of it on this blog. I also opened up an etsy shop where I’ll be selling high quality prints of these sketches. So please, if you’re interested, check out that store as well!
White mamba. done digitally. doodle.
![This tutorial is complete step by step guide to the process behind my latest painting, Hindsight. Please click “read more” below to access the entire tutorial!
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Hello everyone!
So I decided awhile ago that I wanted to do a tutorial for my next painting. Hopefully this will be a helpful guide to someone; or at the very least, just a fun read for someone interested in how I do a painting. I will try to be as detailed as possible, but hit me up if you have any questions. Please send me your questions via the “ask” link at the very top of this blog. I’ll be happy to answer any question that you may have. So, without further ado, let’s jump straight into it.
Rough thumbnails.
Here’s some thumbnails I drew in photoshop. I drew a few more on some post it notes I had lying around (which unfortunately I tossed out) so these three are the ones I had left to show. At this point, I don’t really worry about details. I only worry about shape and composition. What makes the most interesting pose?
I encourage you to draw as many as possible. Back in college, one of my teachers showed me a drawing trick: draw a bunch of different sized squares and rectangles (and I mean tiny, I’m talking no more than 1-2 inches in length) and just play with simple shapes and values.
Before I was an illustration major back in college, I was in the graphic design program for a couple of years. We learned that in designing a logo, the logo must be distinguishable even at it’s smallest size. Think of the Mcdonalds logo. You can recognize that M at any size. I like to carry that same thought into illustration too; the stronger your shape/composition is in thumbnail, the stronger your overall piece will be.
The image I’m doing is for a personal story of mine. Not to give much away, but in my story an astronaut in space becomes possessed and returns to earth. Ravens and crows play a big role in my story. I liked the imagery of an astronaut with wings and I wanted weave both images together.
I originally imagined him upside down, but something about the third doodle struck me, so I decided to roll with that.
I took my favorite thumbnail and gave it some color. I wanted this painting to be pretty desaturated. I wanted to focus more on the contrast of the white space suit with the black wings/black smoke.
Normally I go back to refine the sketch further, but this time I skipped over that step.
Reference time. Because of time constraints, I jumped into shooting right away.
The model is me. I took pictures of myself. Be creative with your reference. If hiring a model isn’t feasible, get a friend to help you. No friends available? Use yourself! Be creative with your outfits too. I snagged my brother’s old over sized snowboarding jacket and my old snow gloves to resemble the astronaut’s suit. I set up some basic lighting, and used some white foamcore boards to reflect some light back onto me. I set up my camera to snap 10 shots in a row. What I do is move ever so slightly between each click of the camera to get slightly different poses. And I run back and forth to the tripod to set off the timer again. Yes, it’s a little annoying, but it’s not too terrible. I think in the end I took roughly about 200 images. Don’t feel like running back and forth with the camera? No problem. Take a high quality video, and move slowly. Go into a video editing program and snag individual frames that you think work with your painting. Keep in mind, though, that taking a photograph is much more ideal. I sometimes use that video method to get ideas for poses so I can go back and shoot more in that pose.
The six images up here are the ones I liked the best. I narrowed it down to about 15 images, and narrowed even further to these final six. Yes, I took 200 images to get six that I liked. The more pictures you take, the more choices you have. And with that we can create…
This! This little baby is the combination of some parts of the images above. I took a look at my six images before and realized; hey, I like the torso on this one, but not the position of the arm. And hey, I like the hand on this, but not the leg. No problem. By merging pictures together using photoshop, you can create your ultimate reference. I made the reference fit my doodle just as I had imagined it. The torso from one, the arm from another, and the other arm from a third. It’s important to note that it’s rather crucial that you keep posing in relatively the same spot/lighting, or you’ll run into an array of problems.
A note on references:
Find anything that can work well with the painting. I highly suggest sites like flickr to find images. While google is good, the problem is… well, everyone goes to google. I’ve seen paintings done by others where I recognize their reference off the bat. Think about it; if everyone had to do a painting on wolves, imagine if multiple artists showed up with the same wolf in their painting. A little embarrassing. If you’re using google, try to avoid the first results you get. I suggest altering your search to large sizes, recent results, anything that will skew the most popular results. If you do want to use a “popular” image, use it in a way that won’t be recognizable at the very least.
Remember, photographers have copyrights to their photographs. Someone went out and spent time to take that photo. Photography is their art and maybe even their business. If you can, try to get references yourself. I know It’s not always possible. Using other people’s photographs will be inevitable sometimes, especially with subjects like animals. Again, I suggest getting multiple references of the same object to distort it just enough that it’s different. Perhaps the poses of a few, the color of another, and the lighting of a third. Change it enough to make it your own.
Another thing to note; get high quality photos! Don’t paint off low resolution images!
On top of references, gather some art that inspire you, images from artists you admire. Keep them on the side as you work, look back to observe their technique, their level of caliber and try to match it. Challenge yourself!
I’ve got a sketch that I’m happy with now. I used my Frankenstein reference and outlined over it for my base. From there, I drew the legs/helmet out based from some references I found.
While sketching, use little tricks like flipping the image horizontally. Nothing tells you how horrible you draw like flipping horizontally. Our eyes can get so adjusted to a certain position that after awhile things look normal and we miss crucial mistakes. Do this often to spot errors and fix anatomical issues. A friend once told me, what your image looks like when it’s flipped horizontally is how everyone who sees your work for the first time sees it. Is that true? I don’t know, maybe, maybe not! Some good advice to go by though.
Don’t rush your sketches! This is the stage with all the potential. It’s like building a house, you need a good foundation or you’ll have problems later on. I spent quite a while researching references and finalizing my sketch. Do yourself a favor and take more time in this stage to work out kinks before it becomes one big mess later. Sometimes we get so excited to start painting, we forget that the sketch is the most important part of the painting.Nothing is more frustrating (and a huge time waster) than repainting an arm over and over because your sketch was off.
Okay so I’ve got the sketch I’m happy with, now what? Well now it’s time to print it out so I can transfer it.
For this painting, I am using Arches 300lb hot press watercolor paper. It’s a little pricey, but well worth the price. The paper itself is quite durable and barely warps with washes. You can buy this at places like Dick Blick, Utrecht, or art stores such as these.
I learned a way of transferring sketches that I actually enjoy a whole lot more than using graphite transfer paper. I don’t like transfer paper because a. I can’t see where I’m drawing on the paper itself, and b. I rest my hand way too much and create smudges. So what to do? I picked up this little trick from Walter O’Neal so total credit goes to this guy. He goes into a lot of detail on this method in his tutorial, so check it out.
So what is this method exactly? Basically what I do is take my drawing on tracing paper, place it graphite side down onto the final paper, and rub it, duplicating the image on the final. By doing this method, I’m able to aim where I can put my sketch with absolutely precision.
To do this, you must first flip your image horizontally in photoshop. Why? Because when you trace your image, it will need to go graphite side down, thus getting reversed in the process. Remember to do this or your picture will be backwards!
So I flipped my image horizontally, made it the size I wanted; in this case, 21” x 29”. An easy way to print out your images? Let adobe acrobat handle it. Export your image as the correct size in pdf and open it in acrobat. Go to print and select the option under page scaling, there should be an drop down menu, select “tile all pages” It’ll do all the work for you. Select cut marks and labels and print it out. I cut off all the extra edges with my paper cutter and taped all the sections together. On top of my tiled pages, I tiled some tracing paper over it.
Now that I’ve got my traced sketch done, I move onto the arches watercolor paper. I used a ruler/triangle to draw out the border of my painting. This, along with the artist tape I’ll apply later will give it a nice white border.
Next, I flip my tracing paper over (graphite side down) and set it on the spot I want on my final paper. I prefer this method of transferring because it eliminates the guessing game with regular transfer paper. For added measure, I clamped on some bulldog clips to secure the tracing in place.
Time to burnish.
This is a burnisher tool. I put some masking tape around it just so it doesn’t dig into my finger as I draw. The whole thing is plastic, with the exception of the point; At the end of it is a metal nib with a metal ball at the end. The opposite end has a white end that you can twist. Twisting it increases or decreases the tension of the spring inside, allowing you to regulate the pressure of the metal ball as you rub it over paper. I keep it fairly loose. From what I gather, this tool was used in the past for dry transfer products, specifically lettering. I purchased mine at Binders art supplies online.
As I stated before, the point of this tool is to rub down the graphite. Rubbing very lightly, I go over the lines one by one. The lines appear slightly darker once they’re gone over, but it may be hard to tell. Warning! Don’t press too hard. It’s not necessary to press down so much. You’ll be left with indentations in the paper, and you don’t want that.
Cool, eh? I finish up the rest, and the drawing is transferred! I remove the tracing paper as it’s no longer necessary and start on refining my sketch.
Drawing complete!
I think I’ll explain how I’ll be tackling this piece. For this painting I’ll be using watered down acrylics, similar to watercolor. The idea is to have a pencil drawing first. Next I’ll put in some very light grey washes to define the shape. This will be the grisaille under painting. Grisaille is a french term for a painting executed in monochrome. On top of the grisaille, I will glaze my colors over with my glazing medium.
An under painting allows me to control the values in my painting relatively easy. By thinly glazing over color, the under painting will come through the paint, keeping my values just the way I want them. I use a mixture of pencils and paint for the under painting because I like the subtle texture of the pencil on paper to show through.
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I went outside an sprayed the drawing with a workable fixative (note: workable, not final) This seals the graphite. Alternatively you could “fix” the graphite with a thin layer of acrylic. I also taped all the borders with artists tape. If you have tape that rips your paper, here’s a tip: Before applying the tape straight to the paper, rest the tape on some fabric first (perhaps your shirt or your pants) This will remove some of that extra tack that may rip your paper later.
I made rings of tape and taped my drawing onto a sheet of corrugated plastic. I was concerned about my wet paper, I didn’t want that resting on cardboard directly. I heard gatorboard is a great board to work on. The key is having something rigid and water resistant. It’s pricey though. If on a budget, try what I use, you can buy some at dick blick art supply. To reinforce the plastic, I put a big piece of cardboard behind it. The cardboard is a tad bigger than the paper; I use the cardboard to pin my references as I paint. Lastly, everything’s clipped together with my bulldog clips.
Let’s get to it. Frisket time. I want to paint the background while leaving the astronaut as white as the paper. I didn’t apply any masking fluid to the wings because they’ll be dark anyway. I applied the frisket with a cheap brush. If you work fast, you can salvage your brush. That stuff will cake fast if you’re slow.
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Here are the paints I’ll be using for this piece. (not all pictured)
Amsterdam Olive Green Deep
Amsterdam Titanium White
Amsterdam Carmine
Golden N7 Neutral Gray
Liquitex Heavy Body Parchment
Liquitex Heavy Body Cadium Yellow Medium
Liquitex Heavy Body Bronze Yellow
Liquitex Heavy Body Alizarin Crimson Hue
Liquitex Heavy Body Mars Black
Liquitex Heavy Body Burnt Umber
Windsor Newton Yellow Ochre
Golden Acrylic Glazing Liquid (Satin)
Golden Retarder
I took some of my Golden N7 Neutral Gray and watered it down quite a bit in a cup. I’ll be using that big blick mega brush for this wash. My background is a simple grey abyss.
I’d like to note what brushes I use. My absolute favorite are loew cornell golden taklon brushes. These brushes are beasts; they are dirt cheap and indestructible. They have been used and abused and they still retain a straight tip. While I do love them, I leave them solely for the beginning stages of a painting. They’re not good for detailing at all. What I do use for detailing are white taklon Utrecht brushes. They’re very nice for details & keep their point well. Unfortunately, from my experience they have a tendency to rust around the ferrule and chip, so I store them upside down to dry. Overall, synthetic brushes are my go to, they have a nice spring~
First wash down.
To create a vignette, I added some darker tones at each corner and took a wet brush to brush around the dark paint to let it expand out into a nice gradiant. I also used a dry brush to brush out any inconsistencies. I also added more frisket around the wings (below) to avoid getting dark paint on my background. I’ll be doing the wings next.
Starting to sculpt out the feathers in the wings.
The frisket really lets you keep your elements crisp. For the wings, I glazed over some dark brown tones with my liquid glazing medium.
The frisket can be rubbed off with your thumb. A little trick: as you’re peeling the frisket off, keep it rolling like a snowball. Eventually, you’ll have a marble sized ball of frisket that you can use to rub off the rest of the frisket without hurting your thumb.
And the astronaut has begun! Again, the process is using very light washes of acrylic gradually. I keep a test paper next to me before putting any stroke down on my painting.
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Patience.
It’s starting to shape up. I glazed in some very subtle yellows in addition to the greys.
Don’t be afraid to put frisket over painted areas. It’s a great way to mask off areas and a great way to create subtle gradients with accuracy.
Working on shadows and creating a distinct light source.
Time for the face. I applied a flesh tone I mixed.
Face is done for this point. I’d like to fill in the helmet next before continuing with the face.
Frisket applied, an olive green glazed on top.
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Frisket removed, minor reflections added, cracks added as well.
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Good enough.
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Peeling off the tape is probably one of my favorite parts. /weirdo
Okay, this baby is ready to be photographed. The smoke I’m imagining is best done digitally at this point. I will also finish anymore details with my cintiq. Photoshop is a great tool for adjusting shadows and lights, so those elements will be edited as well!
Now for my photoshoot! I shot my painting with my brother’s Canon EOS 5D Mark II. More information on photographing can be found at this helpful muddy colors entry. The set up I have is very small budget, but it does the job well.
So here’s the photograph. I edited it ever so slightly in Adobe Lightroom to make it greyer than it was. I wanted more control over the white highlights that I’ll be painting in later.
I ended up flipping the painting horizontally. I liked it better that way.
So now we’ve got our painting in photoshop, ready to be edited! What now?
Quick masks. Quick masks are basically like using masking fluid but in photoshop. The red areas represent the areas that won’t be affected, and the normal colored areas represent what will be edited. This is a wonderful tool for retaining crisp edges and avoiding that muddiness photoshop tends to do. Here, I created masks for each wing, the astronaut’s body, and the astronaut’s helmet. I saved each selection by adding them to my channels, allowing me to select them whenever I want.
So what’s the result from these masks? Well, this! Using masks, I edited areas with curves, levels, and brightness/contrast. In addition to these options, I also painted within the confines of each mask.
The first brush is a brush I made myself. It’s my traditional brush. In the past, I’ve sat back, looked at my work, and realized that photoshop brushes have a tendency to get muddy looking. Annoying. They also have a lack of texture, so they come off quite stiff and digital looking. As someone who wants a traditional feeling to a painting, adding digital brushes on top of a tradtional painting will look quite off. So how to remedy this? I created this brush with a texture similar to paper. When painting onto the painting, it will look like the stoke was painted by hand.
The second brush was used for the ink/smoke effect. If I remember correctly, I believe this brush was part of Blur’s Good brush pack. You can find this pack on the internet.
I also added a slight yellowish hue over the whole painting to give it a little boost in color. Little details like lights on the helmet and such were added as well.
Basically, I enjoy doing an acrylic “base” and doing all the details/color fixing with my cintiq. It lets me fine tune my painting just to the way I want it. Unlike most artists, I was actually a digital painter before a traditional painter. I love photoshop’s capabilities, but I love that traditional look as well. It’s the best of both worlds in my humble opinion.
And here’s the finish! I hope this tutorial helped someone out. Again, if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/17281cc81c2475ca76838a613bd13395/tumblr_ml0lvqsIaG1qa3pe3o1_r1_1280.png)
This tutorial is complete step by step guide to the process behind my latest painting, Hindsight. Please click “read more” below to access the entire tutorial!
Cover illustration for a personal story I’ve created. A complete tutorial for the process on this painting will be coming soon!
Got my work published in Portfolio No. 33. and 2012 Cartooning Portfolio Magazine.
Concept for a “spider queen.” Specifically Lolth, from d&d, as a challenge to redesign her. I’ve been looking at my work as a whole and a. I feel inconsistent, and b. I think my portfolio in general has way too much saturation for my liking. All of my favorite artists/artwork use a desaturated color palette, and I realize that I just always do the opposite when I make anything. My favorite paintings I’ve done turn out to be the ones that utilize the least amount of saturation. I also noticed if I delve too much into color that it throws off the contrast horribly. So! Something a little new.
Now that the Spectrum 20 deadline’s creeping around the corner, I can finally show what I’ve submitted. Done in acrylics, finished digitally.
So this will be my submission to the call of entries for Spectrum 20. I was going for something along the lines of an undead army battlefront. Should be fun to paint. What you are looking at right now is a rough study done on tone paper to get my values down. The finished product will be done in acrylics and finished up digitally. Looking forward to painting this, finally!!
Just created a twitter. Or rather, just deleted all of my old tweets on an already existing account. Will be using it mainly for my art promotion along with some personal things that interest me. Follow me if you ever so desire.
I have been contemplating my “style” and the direction of my art this summer. I don’t feel like my personal voice has been showing itself in my artwork. By doing alot of experimenting and exploring with different media, it’s starting to show itself a little. I tried my hand at ink for this. I find myself enjoying traditional media more than digital these days, at least for a base. It’s helping me loosen up more, as I feel alot of my work is stiff.
Amazing what my telephoto lens can get, what a great purchase!
Practicing my acrylics.
Cape Buffalo. 9” x 12”. Done in acrylic & finished digitally.
