Digital Painting Practice #2

                We're getting ready for our huge digital painting character environment, so this was our practice assignment: take a picture of a still life and create a Photoshop painting. 

Photo Reference (c) micalemer

30 min. block in

I wanted to do something atmospheric, and since I've had a thing for candles lately, that was my first thought.







      The easiest way for me to get a digital painting looking halfway decent is to go in 100% opacity and block in the color shapes with the solid circle brush. I work in a lot of layers, both traditionally and digitally painting. It's just never going to look good for the first three layers or so.

1 1/2 hr. rendering stage

I spent the rest of the 3 hours rendering the piece. From this point, I drop up and down in opacity and begin adding color gradients; I'm mostly using the fuzzy circle brush for this stage.

It's during this stage that I either make or break the piece - sometimes I go way overboard rendering, but I did my best to keep it looser than usual.

3 1/2 hr. finished piece

Learning Digital Painting

In progress (25 min.)

And finally somebody is teaching us the right way. My Comp ILL instructor is a fantastic teacher ~
We're preparing to place our characters into their environments... I'm thinking of background concepts and outfit designs in the meantime, while we're practicing painting.
So happy that I remember how to create clipping masks from Graphic Design back in high school - thanks Mrs. Campbell!!!

Grayscale quick study of a pot (I didn't pick the reference). Mostly we should be concerned about getting values right rather than perfecting the shapes... at least, that's what I'm most concentrated on.

Finished product (50 min.)

Character Develop. Sketchbook Page

Finally done! This probably was the most fun I've ever had with an assignment ~ <3 I really love character concepts and story development. The digital painting came out too bright again... I swear those cintiqs mess with the color display...

This is my original character, Damon C., who is 21 in the timeframe I decided to draw from his life. He's a retrograde amnesiac, meaning he suffers from complete memory loss from birth to age 17, as well as recurring repressed memory surfacing in the form of nightmares. He copes with this by smoking (temporary), but mostly with high-risk activities, such as bike racing and dangerous adventuring in the wastelands around his home town, an arid desert surrounded a small oasis where the city is built around. His world is set alternatively from ours in the future, where monsters from the wastelands and wild around cities are beginning to find ways to kill the populations hidden behind the walls. 

And that's all the backstory you get until the graphic novel gets underway (currently #2 on the waiting list).

Character Concept Development (c) Michelle A. Martin / micalemer 2012

I've had Damon for a little over 3 years, since senior year of high school. He's a fairly new character still, but his backstory and plot have been developed to the point where he is one of my senior characters. I hope you like him as much as I do~!! 

Reference Sketch #4

Facial Expressions + HAIR

Day's hair was super fun to draw - it's naturally wavy and pretty lengthy, so I had a lot of possible hairstyles to play with, particularly with his ponytail. I think it reveals a childish side of him when he ties his hair back (mostly when he's concentrating). His facial expressions were fun too, although I wish I could have done more to define his character more. But seeing as I still have more sketches I want to do, I don't think I can fit any more. : (

Reference Sketch #3

Costume Design
Day's (nickname) particular outfit and gear for his races; he's a licensed contestant of the Dome Races, a competition variating between superbike and hoverbike races. It's a huge event that the city attends, which usually takes place a few times each month. The bike is his superbike, and I am regrettably not releasing my sketches for the hoverbike concepts quite yet. 

Reference Sketch #2

Interactions x2
Damon is a pretty quiet person: he keeps mostly to himself, minus his two closest friends, he rarely shows emotion, and yes, he smoke(d) from age 18-19. He's an interesting character to work with out of my collection, for being so intellectual and depressing. 

Reference Sketch #1

Facial Features
Just some facial specs and notes, for me but mostly for the viewers (since they can't visualize him like I can). And now I realize that I should have also done a full-body analyzation... next time. 

Cintiq Speedpaint?

30 min. 

Just something quick, to get used to the Cintiq before starting on my character development page... this is the character I'll be designing! His name is Damon - the rest you'll find out soon enough! 

Also - it's so much easier to color with a Cintiq than a tablet!!!