Disney Coloring Book Pages, WIP's

(Do I ever post anything that isn't a work in progress?)

All this time I thought that other digital painters must have some secret that they weren't sharing with me.  I thought I couldn't make the really pretty stuff because I didn't have the right program or whathaveyou, but it turns out I'm just stupid.  It's called 'Flow', and it's a brush setting in Photoshop, and all this time I thought it was just another way to say 'Opacity'.  It's not.  *facepalm*

I recently found a really amazing digital artist on Deviant Art.  Her painting style is just gorgeous.  It's all big brush strokes and texture, and I love it.  Anyway, I was going through her stuff and she wrote a bunch of FAQ/tutorial things, and one of them was what brushes she uses, and it was there I learned about 'Flow'.  So I've been trying to mimic her style all weekend to figure out how she does it.  So far I'm an epic fail.  I see chunky brush strokes and my brain goes, 'Gah!  Soft edged brush now!  Smooth that out!'  So that part isn't going very well, but I'm learning stuff through failure, which is a plus.

I've been trying things out using the painting exercise shown above.  You take a Disney coloring book page - Choose your favorite princess! - and you paint it in the style of some work of art.  It's fun and pretty silly, but I've seen it done with impressive results.

I started out this exercise with Jasmine, as I attempted to turn her into a Degas ballet dancer (in the coloring book page she's holding this length of sheer fabric, and I thought it might work), but my digital painting skillz aren't up to imitating Degas, so I gave up.

I moved onto Ariel and Eric.  I'm painting them in the rococo style (you can see the painting I'm drawing from here: Francois Boucher's Venus Consoling Love), because this pose screams 'rococo' to me.  I'm actually really excited about this one.  I don't think it's very accurate as far as being rococo goes, but I think it might turn into a cartoonish version of it.  And anyway, Ariel's hair looks fantastic.

I only started on Alice this morning, because I wanted to try the eye thing.  She's going to be the creepiest version of Alice I've ever seen.  The only part of her that's 'done' is her eyeballs, though I think I need to make the inner part of her irises darker...  But she'll be fantastic and weird when I'm through.

Novelist : WIP

Novelist : WIP

I've been working on three pieces to submit to iStockPhoto to be approved to sell stock there.  I didn't really have anything 'portfolio' worthy to submit, so I started this dude.  He's not only totally vector based, he's also an homage to National Novel Writing Month.  That frown, that wild hair, the tired eyes, that annoyed curl of his mouth, the mug of coffee, that finger poised over the delete key?  Yeah, it's so NaNo.  But it can also work as harried office worker, so there you go.  Stock.

He's not done.  He needs shadows in his shirt (which I can't wrap my mind around, and is stalling the hell out of this project), and a chair and some other things.  This is actually an older version of what I'll eventually submit - I changed the solids to gradients on nearly everything - but I really like it so far.  His face is so angular, which is different for me since I tend to make people more curvy, but this guy was crying out for a jutting brow bone and that nose.  And somehow it all works.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, be there or be square.  My ambitious YA Fantasy Epic?  Yeah, it's so on.

Snow Queen : Finished!

Snow Queen

All done!  I decided not to do anything crazy with the background, because I didn't want anything to detract from her face.  So there's a blizzard going on back there.

I sharpened up her hair and lashes, then stamped the whole mess, hit gaussian blur and set it to multiply to play up the shadows, and then put a Hue/Sat adjustment layer over it with the preset Old Style.  It gives it a nice de-saturated look, and makes the whole thing look like winter.

Snow Queen : WIP II

Snow Queen : WIP II

Today the Snow Queen got her icicle tiara, frosty cheeks, and a neck full of feathers.  (Does it look like feathers?  I fear it looks a lot like fur.  I think the feathers need spines, and maybe to look fuzzier.)

Those icicles were tricky, but not as tricky as I thought they'd be.  First I sketched out with a very fine brush where I thought the base of each of the icicles would sit, then a series of similar circles to the tips.  After that it was a mess of painting and blurring with the blur brush.  At the end I went back to the fine point brush and lightly lined the left hand side of each 'cicle.  I'm not entirely sold on the white fluff at the base of the tiara.  It's meant to be snow, but I don't think it comes across well.

I'm going to need to go over her hair and eyelashes again to sharpen them up.  The tiara is too sharp to leave them as they are now.  They don't match each other.

I'm not sure what I'll do with the background yet.  I've been flipping between having a darker one and this pale one.  I like the drama with the dark, but I also really like how pale and icy this one can get with a aqua gradient map overlay.  I've got a ton of snowflake doodles that I've never used sitting on my computer, so I'll probably fill the BG with them.  Ooh, or maybe some kind of art nouveau frame!  I've been looking for an excuse to try my hand at that...

I'm so happy with how this is turning out.  She's so pretty!

Snow Queen : WIP

I've been working on Christmas cards this week, and this face is the start of what will be the Snow Queen.  I was thinking Narnia, but darker and more dramatic.

I'm going to give her an icicle crown and some kind of neck thing - I'm torn between feathers, fur, or an Elizabethan collar with diamonds.  I've been working on the collar idea for the past couple of hours though, and it's not turning out how I'd hoped.  Feathers could be fun to paint.

In painting this, I finally figured out the secret to digitally painting skin!  You throw down some color, hit Gaussian Blur until you get something you like, then rinse and repeat ad nauseam.  But it works!  I did the same thing with her hair. 

Why is her hair blue, you ask?  Well, in my head she was going to be white blonde, but then I realized I'd done her eyebrows and lashes in black, so I'd committed to a dark color without realizing.  Hence, blue.  She's a Snow Queen, after all.  She can get away with that.

Steampunk Air Ship Mechanic Sketch

Steampunk Air Ship Mechanic

I doodled this on my iPad last night.  (The iPad is the best sketchbook ever).  I'm going to make a manly steampunk pin-up.  There just aren't enough pin-ups of hot guys in the world.

This guy is the mechanic for a steam powered air ship, hence the giant wrench and goggles.  He'll need more hardware to look steampunk-y, and maybe a shirt.  Or maybe just suspenders.  I'm undecided.

No, no shirt.  Pin-ups of the girly variety are all about the legs, so when it's a guy I think it's probably all about the arms/chest.  Though, look at this guys thighs!  They're huge!

The background of this, I'm thinking, is going to be a pain.  I want a sort of docking station of air ships in the background.  I'm still trying to figure out what it would look like. 

Oh, fi sci.  I do love you so, though you make me bend my brain.