Piece finished up with the same detail work as seen in the previous close up. Layers merged down and edges softened as needed. Any other pencil lines that needed to go scrubbed out. A complete flattening of the layers then and some adjustments to color and contrast as a whole. Piece sent by the AD for approval and done!
Sorry for the couple days quiet. I had to do some bookkeeping and other such admin which wouldn’t wait. Back to the work in progress. 
Here on a new layer I’m establishing the light sources (warm, from the left, cooler from the right). I don’t want to get too shiny or he’ll look like he rolled off a car lot. It’d also be an image that just doesn’t gel with the frayed cloth that shows the wear of a long campaign. I’m saving the real brights for the edges of the armor, and his weapon.
You can see here the work on the metal. Laying in the brights from the various sky colors, as well as reflecting some of the dull colors off the rock, since any surface, especially a reflective one, is going to have a portion of the surrounding colors on display in its surface.
Further along. I’m a bit annoyed that the screen capture is coming out badly. The colors aren’t true at all to my workspace. Anyone familiar with this issue?
Anyhow, you can see I’ve put the city in a fair bit, flat colors into the soldiers and scrubbed out another load of pencil lines. Next I need to put the big work on the focal point: the warlord. Going for dark steel, perhaps with golden accents, but we’ll see if that’s too pretty or not.
Here you can see I’ve done a lot more with the sky, introducing some purples as well to keep it from being too monochromatic up there. Scrubbed out a lot of the pencil work into those spaces to blend in with the painting.
After that, new layer I’ve started on the cloth. It’s nice being able to isolate the elements this way so should I come to not like something, I can just delete the layer. You can see all the reds I’ve been mixing on the palette. For those who use painter, I use the Wet Oily Blender Brush a LOT. Almost exclusively. It’s got a short stroke to it, and with continued pressure the paint "runs out" so I can soften edges, or blend colors. If I need some blending without adding more color, I switch to one of the blender brushes.
I haven’t done a work in progress set in a while, so here you go.
The pencils aren’t mine. This is a job where I’m doing the painting from someone else’s design work. This pencil illustration is by Jason Engle ( www.jaestudio.com/ ), the cover for a project at savage mojo (http://www.savagemojo.com/tiki-index.php)
To start, I created my layers in Photoshop, and made the top layer a copy of the pencil illustration set to "multiply", toned red. This Multiply setting is transparent, so it lets me paint under the linework while still seeing the linework. I tone it red since I’ll be scuffing the lines into the illustration at a later point, and I don’t want to muddy the colors with black.
Next, I got to working on the background first. This sets the whole tone for the piece, and since the atmosphere is a big deal to this illustration, it becomes even more important. Everything is very rough at this stage, and in the middle values. You can see how the multiplied layer keeps it easy to see what I’m doing, and I what I need to do in the future.
More soon. Honestly! I know I haven’t been around much, but I’ve been super busy, some of it under NDA contract, some of it just not arty or interesting. With any luck, more things worth posting from here out.
I hope you’re all having a good year’s end however you may celebrate.
I am not dead, or slacking. Just under an NDA contract and swamped for work for the next month.
In the meantime, have a cute carrot!
This here is a poster I worked on for very soon to be playing live radio program at the Somerville Theater. A lot of fun to work on this poster, trying to get a bit of a vintage feel (but without adding aged grunge). This is the full poster version but there’s also a postcard version, buttons, etc. If you’re in the Boston area at the end of October, you might want to check it out!
Here’s the official website. And below you can see the theater (with poster in the coming attractions window!). Neil Marsh took the photo and kindly allowed me to post it with the poster.
So… my 60 day conclusion. I am very glad I did this. Painter’s come a long way since I tried it back in version 5. There are times that the brushes really give me the feeling of pushing around paint… with the lovely ability to undo several steps. It has layers similar to Photoshop as well as the ability to save in a Photoshop format, so those failings I do find in the program – and there are a few – I can remedy in Photoshop as needed. I don’t feel Painter X is going to replace Photoshop any time soon, but Painter has become an essential part of my toolkit already.
What I love: The brushes, obviously. The beginning of a stroke orients itself to the path very well and varies in texture enough that it often feels like a real paint stroke. There’s quite a variety. For my own preference, I found myself returning to the Artist’s Oils and the Blenders set. I do so love the selection of blending brushes that make Photoshop’s smudge tool look like a hack job.
Painter seems to manage my memory better for larger brush sizes, and canvas, which surprised me since when I think of Corel I usually think of bloated software code. With four GB of RAM, I was able to manage some pretty large brushes without getting the jagged strokes or waiting forever for my stroke to catch up to my action.
Color picking is good, and the color palette is great for smearing colors together before hitting the canvas. On the canvas, there is the lovely ability to pick up the surrounding colors as if painting wet-on-wet. If you wish it wouldn’t, just make sure you’re working on a new layer with the option turned off.
Now the not-so-good bits that I hope they have or will have improved upon from version X: The menus and shortcuts are not intuitive. I’m not saying they should ape Photoshop, but they could certainly take some cues.
The more heavily textured brushes like impasto could use some work lighting the strokes, as they come down too harsh to appear real. They quickly create a harsh and confused lighting that declares that it is computer generated. After my first few attempts to adjust the settings, I just didn’t use them much out of frustration. I’ll keep trying when I have more time.
Some basic features that are easy to use in Photoshop are still a nightmare of clicking through menus in Painter. Resizing a layer is an awful nuisance. Contrast/Balance, and the various color management tools need work.
Pen sensitivity is so-so, even after playing with the tool set to calibrate it. Some brushes end up coming out little better than off/on switch, either too sensitive or not enough, despite my own efforts to adjust. I’m still adapting to these things, and I expect some long-term Painter users don’t even notice a problem, since they’ve altered how they work.
Anyhow, a very solid piece of software that I’ll be using every time I paint. For artists who are looking for better brushes and a more natural painting experience than Photoshop can offer, I highly recommend Painter. For those who’re new to art, I wouldn’t say this is an easy program, nor will it make art look better just for using it. It can’t replace technique and practice, but it does do a better job at being a digital version of real tools than some other programs out there. Less frustration means more time to focus on the art instead of the tools.
As a final note, if anyone’s choking on the price of Painter as I did and don’t have the excuse of it being a business expense, I recommend Art Rage for dabbling with to start. It is inexpensive and there is a direct connection between the quality of its brushes and Painter. It also compatible with taking layered files over to Photoshop.
Whew. Sorry if this sounds like a sales pitch! No one gave me free software and for the most part, I just hope all my blathering will help other artists in deciding if it is worth their time (and money).
One more day!
