Corel Painter

Hah, look at that! Two posts in a day? Must be the three coffees I had already.

This is a silly rant, so there's no need to take it to seriously. I have an issue with painter. I think is a dishonest piece of software. Yes, dishonest. I have nothing at all against Corel company, but this is how it goes for me:

Digital painting is an already accepted medium in the art world/industry. So for me, using photoshop as a tool to create a digital piece is absolutely normal and, "honest", if you want. My tool is digital, and the look will be kind of digital. It might resemble something else by the way its applied, but is still digital. 

What's my beef with Painter. It "tries" to look as if an art piece was made by oil, acrylics, watercolor or other traditional media. It might be silly of me, but I don't like it. Not the artwork itself, I might love it deeply, but the idea of using a software to imitate something that you can make by hand, getting dirty and all. 

In fewer words: photoshop is a digital tool that allows you to create digital stuff, while painter is a digital tool that imitates traditional stuff digitally. The only thing that bothers me is that connection between the artwork and its origin (plus, the hot keys, menus and other little things are in completely different places, and the overwhelming GAZILLION amount of specific brushes). 

Well, at least that's how I felt when I had to face it for the first time for my digital painting class. The only moment I tried using it before, I started mixing techniques, pressing buttons, changing settings and failed miserably at any attempt of a decent drawing/painting. To tell you the truth, I FEARED painter. But it was a requirement now, and I did a bit of real oil painting the past semester so, I was a bit more confident now. I won't say it was pleasant, 'cause it wasn't. It was painful, actually. But after a while, playing around with painter things started getting nicer and nicer... Not that I have finished anything yet, but well, let's say that I don't hate it that much now. 

Here, my Painter thingies:

My very first try with digital inks and digital acrylics I think (see how the word "digital" kinda soils the word "acrylics"? Bad Painter!)

A quick second painting.

An unfinished in-class portrait painting. 

And this one is based on a picture, but since it was a bit boring I decided to add a chicken leg. Chicken legs make things better. Period. Tried to keep it loose.

I do want to better this last one though.

By the way, one of the few things that I learned with this software: Don't mix techniques. You wouldn't do it in real life, and you don't wanna do it in here. Trust me, using charcoals on top of oils will only mess things up.

Have a good one.

Cheers!

Creature Design

Some animals/creatures I did last semester. 

And the final one, that pleases me the most =)

Hope you like them!
Salúd!!

Woka

Just walking the tiger

Hey guys!

Here's the process of a piece I did called "Just walking the tiger", from the brainstorm to the final thing. 

Brainstorming

I didn't really know what to do, so I started brainstorming with random words at first. The train of thought started with just words, then it shifted to sticking stuff together and when I got clearer idea of what I'd like to paint I just stopped and started a new possible idea. I thought of three possible things, and in the end I went with the first one.

Thumbs
After I chose what I wanted I just started doodling different points of view.

I really wanted a chinatown-esque feeling and an exaggerated perspective, so I decided to go with this one. Yep, pretty crappy doodles, but it was just to get the picture.

Layout

Here's a bigger version of that thumb. At first I wanted a realistic tiger and robot, but then I thought "mmmh, anybody who arrives at the idea of drawing a low view of a robot walking a tiger in chinatown will be able to draw/paint this", so to personalize it a bit more I decided to design and push a bit more the characters of the scene. 

Design
So I started drawing and pushing and stylizing tigers from real tiger pics.

Same thing with robots, using some car references and 1920's clothing reference.

Painting process
I knew the background would be painful, so I had to really think it through and try to anticipate all the problems and solve them before hand. I enjoy characters the most, so I left them as the dessert. You can see a little pic of "The Goon" that I found after arriving to the concept down there, which I used as color and perspective reference.

This is the first pic with rough colors, based on the previous layout. Yeah, is kinda bad... The tiger is quite there design-wise, but the robot sucks. I realized that I only spent time designing its face and I didn't think of the body at all... but I had to attend the BG first to get it out of the way.

First I painted the building closer to the viewer and left the fire escapes for later, that's why they're so rough. The upper right light source defined the way I painted the tiles and decoration, and of course, the fire escape cast shadows later. I did a bit of cosmetic surgery to the robot, and it got better, but still far from complete.

There's a lot of painting done here from the previous pic. I already got the shape of the robot, a more saturated wardrobe to make it more focal, but I still had to deal with the buildings at the back. I usually have a "things to fix and remember" layer on top of the layer window, just to have in mind everything. It's also useful for writing new ideas or observations. The smaller the list gets, the closer you are to finish your illustration :)

You can see a lot of improvement here. Clearer folds in the clothes, more designed elements, better cast shadows on the main figures, the logo in the sign and some atmospheric perspective in the background. There're still a couple of details I had to attend. Made a bit cooler BG to push it back, the breath of the tiger, steam from the hot robot head, blurred the FG, some cast shadows and clothes hanging at the staircases, toned down robots walking in the background to make it a bit crowded and some cables.

Final Illustration

So here it is! The final thing. I think I spent over 35 hours in this one. I'm quite pleased with the result. I still want to fix some minor things, but the overall process is here, from the very terrible first sketch to the final painting. 

Thanks for reading!

Saludos

Visual Elements of story megapost!

I guess that I'm trying to make up the lack of posts with this one, so I'll upload most of my work for my Visual elements of story class =)

We had to re-create a classic, and I decided to give a little punk spin to Alice in Wonderland. The reason? Well, this'll be a bit of a confession here but:

- I read the book and GOD is she annoying

- I watched the movie and GOD is she annoying

- The imagery is incredible... but GOD is she annoying

So I thought "what would be the complete opposite?" And well... this is the result! 

I'll post here the research and result of four characters, props and some environments. Here we go!

CHARACTERS

Alice

Since she is the main character, I decided to develop her the most. From the initial thumbnail line-up I selected two possible final Alices, and then exchanged their shoes.

Thumbs

Narrowing it down

 Final Alice

 Turn around

 Expressions

 Poses

 Hands

Render

Queen of Hearts
I wanted her to be definitely different from the rest of the characters, that's why I went for the blockish one. The slender one looked too "Maleficent-like", but I still like it.

Thumbs

 Narrowing it down

 Final Queen of Hearts

White Rat
Since the story had this punk twist I thought it would be more fitting happening in a city, a sewer and a theme park for Wonderland, instead of a cottage house, a well and a forest. That's why I changed the white rabbit for a white rat. I like this design quite a bit.

Thumbs

 Narrowing it down

 Final White Rat

 White Rat study

Mad Hatter
Same thing as the white Rat, since this is happening in a decaying place, I thought that a homeless drunk would be more fitting for the situation. I'm also very pleased with this design =)

Thumbs

Narrowing it down

 Final Mad Hatter

PROPS

Well, props! What else? This elements would be in this world. Theme-park related things, dead trees and other wonderland elements that could be inside this version of Alice. I don't usually draw this kinda things, but I have to confess that they were fun to draw.

Hot dog/ice-cream carts

 Buildings

 Cars 'n rides

 Props

 Dry trees

LAYOUTS


This was definitely the hardest part. What I do less, but strangely I did enjoyed it a lot, and to discover that I can actually do this kind of things was very encouraging to continue. I'm not including value studies or color studies just 'cause I don't lilke them that much. So here we go!

Thumbs
This thumbs briefly portray some highlights from the story and possible finished future layouts. For the finished ones I actually picked three thumbs. One remained quite faithful to the original idea (n°22) and the other one is a mix between number 7 and 25.

Wonderland
Alice grows and shrinks too much in the story, and I really wanted to do something with my urban-carnival-theme park wonderland. I went with complementary colors, only exagerating the highlights 'cause I thought it wold look better with they punky-ish story. In here I added several props I designed earlier.

The Trial
I made this one with tuscan red col-erase pencils. I love the look of a big drawing with traditional media, and it's been a long time since I did one to tell you the truth. That's why I decided to draw this first.

So, also complementary colors (red orange accent, desaturated blue green overall) for the mood and conveying a clear focal point, plus lots of environmental and linear perspective to give a sense of space. I think it works =)

Hah! Look at that. Four months of work in a nutshell.
Hope you like it guys!
I'll upload some creature design and digital painting later. And sketches also probably =)

Hope you had an awesome new year, and if you went through everything and read this: I love you. Really.

Saludos, terricolas!