Tablet Portrait Test

[Ghost]

I got a new graphics tablet recently and wanted to get back into the flow, so I thought I'd go and try a portrait in a more realistic style. It's not photorealistic; that really isn't my style, but still an improvement over my usual pixel art. I used a reference photo (no tracing, though), and after two hours I had a nice sketch and started to colour it out. (It's still WIP- face and hair are not shaded and refined yet).

I suck at shading and palette setup, though. And I really have no idea how people keep their layers in order and set up lighting and all. Heck, I am not even sure if you keep the sketch lines visible.

Tablet owners, portrait painters, long-time fellow artists, shower me with tips and C&C!

[Fred7162]

Looks great.

[WHAM]

Hells! Awesome! Too! Stunned! For! Anything! But! One! Word! Sentences!

[tamatic]

I like the first best. The 3th seems to try to hard... making the eghes bleed till you see Jesus. But yeah, think that last one is overdone. Makes me think you are joking somehow.
Cool stuff though, keep em comming!

[Anian]

First of all, I think you jumped a couple of steps between the 1st and 2nd picture. 
Second thing is that the hair on the left (her right) kind of has too much volume, kind of fights gravity and stretches too much on the left.

[Ghost]

First of all, I think you jumped a couple of steps between the 1st and 2nd picture. 

True- but believe me, you don't want to see me failing to draw a circle a dozen times

Second thing is that the hair on the left (her right) kind of has too much volume, kind of fights gravity and stretches too much on the left.

Ah, right. Yes. It looks better in the reference; I think there was movement there,  but I see what you mean. Shouldn't be too hard to fix though.

[OG]

First of all, I think you jumped a couple of steps between the 1st and 2nd picture. 
Second thing is that the hair on the left (her right) kind of has too much volume, kind of fights gravity and stretches too much on the left.

Trust you to always look on the bright side o' life, Anian.

Looks feckin awesome Ghost.

[Anian]

Trust you to always look on the bright side o' life, Anian.

This is actually one of the rare occasions I really wasn't being negative. Constructive criticism makes people better. The drawing is really good so far, certainly better than what I can draw, why not make it even better?

[Squinky]

You seem to be off to a good start. Looks really nice. I think every digital artist has a different way of handling layers. I handle mine pretty much like you did.

[Ghost]

C&C is always appreciated; I often don't see the woods for all the trees when I am working on a picture...

Completed, too. I see a couple of flaws- the hair is still pretty fuzzy and I'm not fully happy with the face's shading... then again, it's been a while since I drew on a tablet. Thoughts?



Kept the sketch lines, but reduced their opacity to 65%. Mostly brushwork in this one, with a bit of smudge tool for the hair. Shading is a mix of picking colours and applying them with a soft brush, and burn/dodge tool (which I usually try to avoid; feels like cheating). Twelve layers used, to keep hair, face and pullover separated- but all shading is done on one layer.

[tamatic]

The line drawing was pretty clean and strong. I think the patchy shading is the most distracting part of the whole.
Don't try to add so much definition by shading, just use it more subtly in support of the lines.
I think It might be helpful to start playing in black/white/grey, that can help getting more feeling for plotting/balancing density values.

[NickyNyce]

That's one pretty girl. Nice picture.

[Ghost]

I think It might be helpful to start playing in black/white/grey, that can help getting more feeling for plotting/balancing density values.

That sounds like a good tip- thank you!

[cat]

I like the lineart and the choice of colors, the eyes are great too, but the shading of the hair looks flat. If you desaturate the picture you can see that there are no volumes defined for it. Try to think of the shapes and the lightsource and shade accordingly.

[Andail]

Hm, the last version reminds me of certain modern comic books where they scan the line art and colour it digitally.
Your "pencil sketch" is by far the strongest piece here (it's actually very good), while the coloured picture is at best a very early step in a long process. There are way too many highlights scattered over the portrait, and rather generic ones too - it's like every protruding shape has got its own shiny little highlight, and it's distracting.

Here's a quick paint-over:
[imgzoom]http://www.esseb.com/andail/graphics/portraitover.png[/imgzoom]
I lowered the saturation and tried to settle with one colour to focus on. I always start with very low-saturated colours, and then I paint with lights, so to speak. Remember, it's only coloured if it's lit up, and it should only be lit up if it's in focus; otherwise tone it down.

Instead of highlighting various parts, settle for a direction and see if you can sculpt the shapes out of it.

[Ghost]

Here's a quick paint-over

I see I have a long way in front of me. That's really great, Andail, and a good source for learning and improving. Thanks a lot!

[EchosofNezhyt]

I'm still not so great at this but I am learning and have got alot better over the past few bits.

Instead of highlighting various parts, settle for a direction and see if you can sculpt the shapes out of it.

That ^

Honestly I can't really add much that Andail hasnt said or shown in his draw over...   Great sketch btw!

[Daniel Thomas]

I made a PSD while coloring your lineart, I think it contains a good base to get things started when coloring a painting with layers, especially when you are less experienced with painting and light as it allows a way to keep everything organized and you can apply it one by one in a logical way. Even if you paint from a reference I think it would be very educational to use layers this way as you can really see how it should be on the photo and you understand how to apply it yourself when painting. Instead of trying and just copy the colors bit by bit. And when you are done you can start looking into how you can improve it as a piece of art and not a copy, maybe enhance some bounce light to pop some forms out more? What about adding a little rim light to really define the silhouette and make it more interesting?


I think the most important thing is to read up in light and color, when one get the idea of light the rest becomes much easier as you can motivate your choices and have the answers to the problems.
And you can apply your own style: colorful, dark, simplified, detailed etc. Doesn't really matter as it's just an interpretation of how light and color actually work. You will also start making artistic choices where you know that it's not how it would be in real life but you are looking for a certain effect.

(great drawing by the way!)


http://www.danielthomas.se/upload/pics/Paintover.psd

[PlantMonster]

This is a tip someone told me which really helped.

If you pick a lighter version of a colour sometimes it doesn't look that good, but if you change the hue a bit (sort of like how the highlight of an orange can be more yellow it looks a bit bit better)


Nice picture!

[Ghost]

I made a PSD while coloring your lineart...

That's one amazing paintover- thank you for taking the time to do that! The PSD file's interesting; I see how ambient and occlusion work and I feel really stupid now for just relying on dodge/burn...
One question; what exactly is the "adding some punch" layer? I see the effect, but is it based on some concept, or just a gut-feeling addition?