HOME | DD

gyrfalconthegray In reply to vladimirsangel [2004-09-27 03:58:12 +0000 UTC]

Yess... teh drows they are yummy! Me and some others are plotting a "Hunks of the Drow" 2005 calendar with a collection of artwork. If I can arrange it, this would be one of the pictures in it.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

gyrfalconthegray In reply to twosilverstars [2004-09-26 21:33:24 +0000 UTC]

Aw... I'm not really that fast normally... I'm only fast enough to do a painting in one day when I'm inspired, and have the picture in my head already. Otherwise I'm snaily too.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

gyrfalconthegray In reply to Cavale [2004-09-20 03:15:52 +0000 UTC]

yes... he is supposed to be a lady-killer. So that is how I interpretted him. The client expressed an interest in black and white... but in my experience, even when the client says they want black and white, in a head to head competition a color piece will win. People just like color. But since B&W was asked for, I kept the colors very desaturated... just hints of purple/blue and yellow/orange for lighting, and gray greens and pinks to pick up subtle skin tones. And then the deep reflected red in the eyes.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Cavale In reply to gyrfalconthegray [2004-09-20 18:45:42 +0000 UTC]

Hehhe, you are a sly one my dear
Those colors are very subtiles but they are the reason why the skin looks so rich and alive.

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

gyrfalconthegray In reply to Mistresselysia [2004-09-19 17:23:46 +0000 UTC]

Heh... yes... my other female friends were quite agog over this particular pic. Normally I'm not into so much beefcake either, but... yupyup... I sure like how this one turned out!

Ok... answers to questions (hopefully)

1. Noses.... Well noses are one of those things it take a lot of time and study to get right. I personally still don't feel I'm all the way there, but my noses are WAY better than they used to be. One of the things i had to get over was fear of nostrils. It's hard to commit yourself to painting dark holes in the middle of someone's face... but they are there. In some ways noses are easier to paint than they are to draw, because they are such an unusual shape, what line is present at any given angle changes quite dramatically. I find that it is much easier to think of them as a volumetric shape (in fact, a LOT of stuff in art is easier of you make this switch from 2D to 3D). I looked carefully at the way that other painters did noses, how the light hit them, how they made the nostrils not look scary. It was also helpful to work from photos too... Fionela was great for me for learning that angle of the face. Anyhoo... when I painted this, first I had the image in mind of what viewpoint I wanted, then I painted in where the face went, making a blob of dark neutral purply gray. You should always start with a neutral color when painting regardless of whether you paint from scratch or draw your image first, then color it. Then I put in dark areas for the eyes, nostrils and line of the mouth. Those are generally the darkest and sharpest areas of the face regardless of lighting, so you can always place them to get the main structure. So yes..I start with those shadows, then I decide where the light is going to come from and worked a lighter shade of gray, this one with more purple (that is the color of my main light, so all my highlights should have that color.) The highlights help you pick out the parts of the nose and face that protrude towards you. It would probably be easier if I had a step by step tutorial like thing for this... but I don't at the moment... However, Enayla has a pretty good nose tutorial at her website: furiae.com Just click on the tutorial link and you'll find it. I've got so many things I want to turn into tutorials... argh... why is it that we always have more things to do than we can possibly finish?? or maybe it is just me...

2. Masculine faces... lol Yup... whenever you draw or paint a random head, it should be able to go either way, masculine or feminine... the basic structure is the same. It's the nuances that make the difference. Men can have narrow faces too, without looking feminine... so it's not just that... the main areas of difference are in the jaw (male jaws are more prominent and "heavier") and the brow (male brows tend to be lower over the eyes and more prominent.) Also men have thicker necks compared to their heads (even skinny guys have thicker more muscular necks than women generally) and men have a visible adam's apple (even more visible on skinny guys.) Male features overall tend to look less smooth and more angular, unless the subject is very young or portly. (note that children's faces can very androgynous until they hit about 10. Typically you can only distinguish male vs female by hairstyles and clothing--though that is not true in all cases, it is more often true than not.)

3. Digital painting.... heh. Well, it's hard for me to say... I've been painting in various programs for about a year and a half now, and I know some better than others. PSP8 I probably know the best because that's the one I started with and had the most familiarity with before really getting into painting (I used it at work to do photo stuff.) But I don't know if I would say that it took me that long to learn the progrm. I had very very little painting experience prior to a year and a half ago... so I kinda feel like I was learning painting itself--working in color rendering--at the same time that I was learning the program. So I was discovering what worked best, both in the medium as well as an overall technique thing. Because "learning digital" and "learning painting" were done together it's hard for me to separate the two and know how long it would take to learn a program if you already had a concept of painting to start with. Most people I have seen who are already painters who try out digital take far less time learning what to do with the different tools. As to "digital pens" or tablets... HELL YES! Some people actually LIKE using mice for digital, but there are some effects that you just cannot get with a mouse that require using the tablet's ability to sense pressure. For myself, being firstly a pencil artist, the tablet was like standing up and walking after being confined to a wheelchair. It takes a little bit of getting used to how the pen controls the cursor, but within a couple of days it was second nature. I bought myself a fairly expensive new tablet a little over a year ago, but as far as I'm concerned it was worth every penny and then some!

Anyway.. hope that helps answer some of your questions!

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

gyrfalconthegray In reply to nyxi [2004-09-19 18:21:00 +0000 UTC]

Hee hee! Yeah... that was pretty much the description. He's not supposed to be "excessively muscled" the description said, but it also said that the guy was like 5'11" and close to 200 lbs so.. uh... well I don't think all that weight would be in a beer belly...

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

gyrfalconthegray In reply to DarrkestDrow [2004-09-19 18:17:21 +0000 UTC]

Thanks for the fave! I hoping you would stop by and have a gander... Mmm drow... tasty...

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

DarrkestDrow In reply to gyrfalconthegray [2004-09-20 03:10:51 +0000 UTC]

Mmm...tasty yes, and they go great with milk don't they?

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

gyrfalconthegray In reply to DarrkestDrow [2004-09-20 04:06:29 +0000 UTC]

Or whipping cream....

👍: 0 ⏩: 0

gyrfalconthegray In reply to Totoroz [2004-09-19 18:16:16 +0000 UTC]

Heh... ok. Glad you like it!

👍: 0 ⏩: 0