Morning etude
These kind of etudes are totally spontaneous work. You don’t pre-plan it, making tons of sketches and carefully observing reality around. You just grab the stylus launch some paint app (in my case CS3 – I’m migrating slowly from PS7.0) and start painting. I like these sessions because it’s relaxing yet exciting at the same time. And they are fast, a few hours usually is enough.
Beware of the nudity (NSFW) before you proceed!
Well, nothing fancy, just a sleeping girl:
Two or three hours paint session mostly from imagination. This way you’re more like suggesting things and let the viewer’s imagination “paint” the rest. To produce a tight illustration you need to shoot reference photos. I don’t have such luxury so I check my refs library trying to find something similar.
The irony is that you never can find an exact pose and lighting. So you just study the refs then fire up your imagination again and go back to painting.
Hey this post came really in tune with my experience this week.
I was doing a line drawing of a girl laying at the beach, dozing of. No reference, when I already had spend enough time on it I flipped the image to see if my brains have had a balanced view on it, quite a shock to see how much needed to be fixed. I tried to fix it for some time but it went wrong. I decided to abandon it.
Your post tells me exactly how I should have started the work. I better not ignore reference, because I will regret it later on.
Anyway thanks! Luckely your sleeping girl has become totally sweet! I sort of feel very honored to see her like this.
@DidiKong
You can use reference as a sort of jumping pad to jump off. I constantly flip the image to check the balance. There are times you thought about discarding the painting (the face on this one was giving me trouble and few times I thought it’s useless to continue). You should check and understand what bothers you. Sometimes there are tiny bits you need to fix and restore the positive flow. It this example it was a face. I paint it until I feel, wow that’s the girl I like!
Nice,
I might tweak it a little more this evening.
Welcome that positive flow.
Thanks!
@Leo
Nice,
I might tweak it a little more this evening.
Welcome that positive flow.
Thanks!
Hey Leonid! I was browsing around the Blizzard fanart gallery for inspirational images to add to my collection, and I found your gems of art!
Your composition, thoughtful lighting and use of color resonates with my own sense of beauty (or various other emotions). Needless to say, my only regret is that I didn’t find this blog earlier. Thank you for being open with your artwork!
- Robert
Yo Leo!
I’m messing up your flow here but that link collector, is the shit!, I love that thing, I’ve been using that for like 2years never knew your the one that put that together, My God, you never cease to amaze me!
@DidiKong
You’re welcome!
@Delney
Hehe, it’s not a problem. It’s a place to talk after all and I’m glad to see you guys.
Yeah link collector was a project I thought for a while. I’ve had a compilation of links on my old website and it was really demanding. The only problem is that it’s hard to maintain consistency since people are moving all the time.
@rulai
Hi Robert!
Thanks for your nice words and welcome aboard. Hope you enjoy your stay here.