Digital painting arc: Part 2 - The journey begins
Hi! So im back!
Ill admit ive been a bit demotivated lately, but the idea of sharing my progress with all of you does give the kick i need to practice this!
Anyways, i lied a bit to all of you, i actually started to practice a bit before starting the blog. Not much, just like 3 modules of the course im following, which in case you're interested in following along its This one which ive found very easy to follow and beginner friendly (also, a lot of the exercises im gonna share with all of you are from the course, so send em some love)
Anyways, changing style is a very daunting task, but especially here, I have basically no painting bases at all! So it’s a bit like starting from scratch. I mean, I do already have some solid bases—I have decent observation skills, decent linework and form—but God knows I don’t know anything about color or value! So it’s gonna be one hell of a ride starting over. I’ve also taken the initiative to take this even further and make my other bases even more solid, so expect some anatomy practices and sketchbook posts soon :D
So, painting—as I mentioned, I have no bases—so I’ve been kinda just following along with the course. I haven’t really taken the plunge to get really creative with it, but I’ve got some stuff to show all of you, don’t you worry!
So starting off i made this eye as a primer
And I’ll be honest, I’m kinda proud of it. I generally never try anything realistic—honestly, for a good while I was painfully ignorant about realism—so getting such a decent result for the first painting of the course did give me a confidence boost. Plus, it was fun to paint the eye.
I’d say my biggest observation is just how many colors skin has. You can see the color palette there—so many different shades of oranges and browns and even blues (which makes sense in retrospect; our arteries are blue, after all).
Also, the internal structure of the eye is something I never really thought about. Like, yeah, I mean, it makes sense that the pupil is an actual hole, but it’s not like I’ve ever really… you know… thought about it consciously, or about the little streaks being muscles!
Now after that i did this happy little tree
Which I admit I did not like as much as the eye—too freakishly green for my taste. Plus, I think I didn’t do too well on the lineart. So much for good line fundamentals.
But again, the use of so many colors makes me realize just how limited a palette I’ve been using. It’s kinda weird thinking about how many colors—or how many different values of one color—are in everyday life!
Now, about line… yeah, I kinda messed it up back there with the tree. But not to fret, because I also did some just… abhorrent line practice. I’ll let you take a look… at your own risk.
Now… to my credit, the whole point of this was to understand contour, which did mean I basically did the first two drawings with one continuous line and while only looking at the reference, so I had no idea how the drawings were looking till they were done.
Essentially, from what I understand anyway, contour lines are basically lineart—they’re the outlines of the things you’re looking at. So the outline of the face, the contour of the eyes, nose, etc.
So the idea of making these without actually looking at the drawing is to push yourself to truly understand the contour of your subject. If you can’t take your eyes away from the reference image, you have to actually understand the contour of their face.
Now, the other image is a trace of a landscape. The whole point is to understand what is a contour and what is a detail. So, for example, it’s meant to be some sort of mountainous coastline. The coastline and the rocky ridges are forms of contour—they help us understand the shape—but the ripples on the water aren’t really necessary to understand what’s going on (plus, there are too many to manually sketch out).
Now i also made another small shape (and i guess technically contour) practice
Mostly, the idea here was to go from inorganic geometric shapes and then make them more organic, which is a basic idea I already apply a lot of the time. Every organic shape can be simplified into a geometric shape, but of course we aren’t fully geometric—we’ve gotta adapt that to the more organic curves of nature!
To end this off with… well, I’d say a bang, but it’s more of a sad whimper. I felt so bad about making such an ugly drawing for the contour practice that I tried painting the girl. It turned out… well, look, it’s the first time I’ve painted without a tutorial, but I’ll let you be the judge!
But anyways, id like to say i did more... but i had a busy day! And ill have some more busy days ahead of me, but ill try my best to keep you all posted! Ill also post my sketchbook anatomy practices, so you can all be part of my artistic journey!
See you soon!
- M Chan