LeoArtz

I should name it as ‘How to paint an attractive asian female in less than 4 hours’ but it sounds lame. So here we go… making of Natsu.

Digital painting is always fun because you don’t know how things would turn out. If you’ve some experience, chances you are already developed you own painting pipeline or working style. So first of all, I’m addressing this material to the artists looking for the fresh input and some creative thoughts.

Each painting starting with an idea or feeling. I worked on the barbarian image (that Diablo III guy) and stumbled onto the drawing from deviantart (usually I turn my network connection off while working). It was half-nude girl painted by French artist ~darax.

I liked the idea and decided to sketch quickly my approach. The results were quite surprising even for myself so I skip the barbarian aside and switched to the sketch. The next 2 or 3 hours were a total blast with me painting like mad.

The final result, as you see above is quite unusual for me. I often tend to polish things up to the very last bit and even higher but this painting is somewhere between finished illustration and etude.

The title says ‘Natsu’ which means summer in Japanese (the kanji is 夏). I think it suits the image quite well.

My primary tools were Photoshop 7.0 and Wacom Intuos 2 tablet. I started sketching on small canvas (even for commercial work I start from low-res files) in Photoshop 7.0 because it’s super fast comparing to CS3. First, I fill the canvas with solid color and sketched in a new layer using hard edge brush with varied opacity/size.

Some people prefer to work from accurate sketch while I usually think in big shapes, switching as quickly as possible to light and dark masses. In reality we don’t see lines – we see shapes, so from the very beginning you mimic the reality. Just shrink your eyes and you’ll see big masses of lights and darks around you. The monochrome palette helps you to concentrate on shapes and values first, without overloading your mind with color information.

Painting is a lot like playing music. There is a certain rhythm in your movements, so you have to prepare your brushes and memorize your software shortcuts, thus you won’t be distracted by minor tasks like changing opacity or switching tools. You can also plug in your iPod and listen to the music you like or the music that fits best to the current mood.

If you’re unsure about any detail(s) while painting, then create a new layer and try out your ideas. Digital workflow allows you to experiment in a non-destructive way. If something goes wrong or doesn’t work, just hit the undo or hide/clean the layer. And make sure to save your work in separate files. I add numbers to the filename so I can find the latest version easily. It also helps you to prepare making of’s features if you would be asked or desired to do it.

The most important thing in painting females is… who said breasts?! It’s the face actually! Great body features are, with no doubt, a big bonus to the character but they aren’t enough. We see faces everyday and we communicate a lot even indirectly by eye movement or facial expressions. We’re reading a lot of information by looking at each other faces.

I work on and refine the face until it emanates some interest on subconscious level. It’s hard to explain but I paint until I feel some sympathy and emotional, even romantic attachment to the female character.

I applied some local colors to the face, chest and background. I combine both hard edge brush and soft age airbrush as well as layers with gradient fills.

Since her face is the main point of interest, I focus on her eyes, nose and lips until it feels good. I don’t paint them to the finest detail – I suggest it instead. A lot of artists paint every single wrinkle yet the character looks artificial or stiff anyway. Same thing counts for the hair. I don’t paint every single hair, I just work with masses or hair. I put some little highlights here and there so her hairstyle looks alive.

I switched to CS3 and using texture brushes (Mathias Verhasselt, concept artist from Blizzard, shared a great set on conceptart.org website) quickly sketched out the environment. Again, I keep it loose since it would be out of focus anyway. I use a range of colors from warm tones to cold tones to create visual interest.

To highlight some areas I create a new layer, set it to overlay mode and apply some radial gradients. I try various colors and strengths until I’ve got the desired result. I looked for the dreamy, soft glow appearance so I put some light spots on her body and sofa. The background was knocked down with dark colors using the same method.

Her legs were giving me some trouble because they don’t look right. I spend quite some time until I figure it out. When you paint from reference you won’t be solving puzzles like that, you just refer to what you see. In situations like these I scan my reference library until I found something similar.

I’ve got huge collection of reference photos but most of them are the same in terms of poses and lighting. Fashion mags tend to use the same things over and over again. I tend to draw ‘unreferenced-able’ poses (can’t find anything that looks like I need) so I have to rely on imagination or look at mirror. Painting from imagination only is hard because there are many real-life nuances that help to sell the image to the viewer. By using references even indirectly you establish visual triggers so the image would look real in someone’s’ mind. In the same time with painting you often create a mood, not an exact copy of the reality.

Using pen tool I created a selection for her bikini and shaded it with some colors. Once again I don’t paint every fold or thread, I just capture the basic shapes. Think of impressionists while you paint.

At this point I realized that left and top parts of the picture are too dark. With such strong light there would be reflections from the sofa and environment would act as a secondary (indirect) lightsource. So I apply a few gradient layers using screen and lighten modes until I got that warm soft light around the girl.

The final image tells some story. Maybe she’s just take a shower, jumped on the sofa and watching TV (perhaps some Naruto episode?). Anyway there is something out of the frame that attracts her attention. She doesn’t look at you at all.

Well in conclusion, I hope you’ve enjoyed this little journey and I would be happy if it sparks some creativity or inspiration in your mind. Till the next artwork!

ps. If you have any further questions or suggestions, you can contact me at leo@leoartz.com