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!
Man, sometimes character design could be cumbersome. You knew almost exactly how your character should look and feel but you still can’t get a picture of it. I’m talking about Iris Noa, one of the leading characters from Rainbow Dreams project. I’ve came up with her idea somewhere in 2007 and spent hella a lot on rendering her variations. The recent one (facial closeup) was an enormous rendering process with me painting every pore in her skin and every hair until it looks good in my eyes.
I’ve posted in online to see the reaction and the results were so-so. Some 3D guys liked the texture but the whole character doesn’t fired up the emotions I need. For the character designer it means that (s)he wasn’t successful in translation of characteristics or design is really weak. It feels, well, not suck but more like you have to find a key that unlocks a flow. Each character concentrates and represents some energy so you feel sympathy or anger or crush or something else to him/her. If you don’t bother at all it means that there is no flow between you and character.
Even if you’ve years and years of experience under your belt you can’t avoid obstacles. Some younger artists may look at your work and think, dude this guy is awesome! but you don’t feel so. You constantly see new challenges and trying to deal with them. It’s not a big deal anymore to draw some superhero chick you’ve been dreaming 10 years ago (it’s all about chest and legs guys!), but your mind is working on puzzles like how to express this and that character trait and so on. This is where most of tutorilas fail because they focused on external side (how to draw) and not internal (what to draw). So you’ve to rely on your own, personal experience and try to express that character you’re looking for.
Oh my, I’ve to go back to my desk and start again!
Last month I’ve lost my workhorse – Wacom Intuos 2 tablet I’ve been using for 4 or 5 years. I’ve got it from a good old friend of mine and it was quite used back then. Wacom doing great tablets, even my first Intuos A6 I bought 10 years ago is still alive! It’s so small just like a postcard and I can’t imagine how to draw with it but it’s still works. Althought they lasted for that long I’ve discovered some problems with Intuos 2 Grip Pen which sometimes is getting out of sync and produce wavy lines while you draw straight ones.
There are solutions like replacing the Grip Pen or buying a new tablet however you can just adjust the screw located under the double-click pen button.
I bet a lot of artists thought on questions like “How much should I charge for my art?” or “How to get the job I want?” or “What can I do if I want freelance to find me?” and stuff like that. There are tons of books written on the subject as well as piles of text posted on various online resources. The only problem is you don’t have much time to process every book and forum messages to find these bits of wisdom.
So it’s great to see Jason Manley, ConceptArt.Org and MassiveBlack founder, kicking off a new training course covering that topic. The event is going live this weekend and you don’t need to travel anywhere because it’s online at Live Education forums on ConceptArt.Org.
You’ll be asked for tuition fee ($95) to get an access to the course and live broadcast. From what I’ve heard you’ll also be able to access these materials within next 30 days. For more information, please, refer to Jason’s post on CA forums.
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.
Actually there are many ways how you can sketch digitally and I’m still discovering new methods and tools.
For the sketching the ideal tool is your good old wooden or brand new mechanical pencils. They are fast, flexible, light and so on. Oh and you have a very precise control over your tools behavior. That’s the most important thing actually! Digital tools are fun but sometimes unpedictable or hard to control. The only problem with analog pencils is when you scan them into computer and your lines looks messy. Sometimes it’s not a problem if you need only guidelines for the painting (you’ll cover them with paint after all) but for the comic or manga style you need sharp and crisp lines.
I have absolutely no idea if anyone is ever reading this… so chances are it’s totally useless to post anything here but I’ll keep experimenting for a while until completely abandon that blog.
I’ve many paintings in my work in progress folder and here is a recent one. Princess Ameli from King’s Bounty videogame. Before you proceed keep in mind that it’s a w.i.p. and beware of the nudity (NSFW).
Vincent Dutrait
french illustrator known for his prolific work in the role playing industry, created many illustrations, artbooks and comics for both European and Asian clients
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