[Lunatique]

This one is done in both Painter and Photoshop(I've picked up the strange habit of going back and forth for no apparent reason just so I don't get bored).

A lot of the features and lots of other details are still quite loose. I'll be tightening them up in the next session. The background, in case you are wondering, is not digital. I painted it in acrylics and oils(this was originally an oil painting, but since I'm far away from home, I can't finishe it, so I just grabbed a picture I took of it in its early stage and started finishing it digitally).

I havn't decided on the definitive lighting yet, so it's fairly bright and diffused.

C&C welcomed.



[ February 18, 2002: Message edited by: Lunatique ]

[Twacle]

Already looks very good.

One of the most important things with this picture, in my opinion, is the detail on the skin. Can't wait to see that.

[Stitch66]

I like this. There is a delicate etherealness captured here. I especially like the embroidered edge of her garment and the bone structure in her face, although the forehead seems a tad tall. I also love the color of her eyes, but I keep going back and forth between wishing they were a little less saturated, and feeling like they�re exactly right. I�m riveted to her gaze, but as a whole it radiates a kind of softness that is quite an accomplishment in capturing. Excellent work.

[jabber]

really nice image. for some reason, its reminding me of the baldurs gate character images, or maybe thats just what im comparing it to. and its for sure right up there.

the face is fantastic and matches the rest of the image i think. those eyes are absolutly stunning. i really like the browns and greens in the image.

the softness of it all bothered me on first glimpse, but after looking at it for a while, i like it. i think it creates a delicatness for her.

great painting.

[Gimbal8]

Something about the face looks real enough to touch. I kinda felt self-conscience about poking her in the nose but she seemed ok with it.

[DarkStalker1]

Beautiful work Luna ! I really like the skin tone and her eyes . Can not wait to see it finished !

[Novacaptain]

This is nice! The neck, collarbone area seems a little off...flip the image horizontally and you'll notice some symmetrical issues too.
I'd really like to see the "early stage" picture too

[Lunatique]

Twacle- Thanks. She's waiting too.

Stitch66- I'm going backand forth with her eyes too. I think the princess likes them exotic, but she's really shy and don't like too much attention. She's a little upset about her forehead, so I'll have to fix it to calm her down.

jabber- She should become sharper in the finished version. I think the BG paintings are a lot more realistic than mine, and probably better too.

Gimbal8- She doesn't mind that much, as long as your hands are clean and you don't poke her too hard. She thinks it's cute you wanted to poke her nose. Remember, she's shy though.

DarkStalker1- Thanks.

Novacaptain- I'll flip and see. I always flip throughout the painting process anyways.

I don't keep things in lots of layers anymore, ever since I found out a lot of the more painterly digital guys get that look by using just one layer(it's better for brush strokes and blending of colors that interact with each other). But now that you mentioned it, I really should've kept a primitive version. But, what's done is done(if you havn't, read my digital art haiku in Pat's random musing's thread), and this version is the only one I have.

[Dr. Bang]

f*ck man, screw all the picture you did in the past, this is my ALL TIME FAVORITE PIECE OF YOURS I"M HONEST!! If you dont finish it, i'll fly to China and make you.

fjasldasld Damn man, this piece gives so much inspiration to me.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Yes, very good... don't change her face, she's got a rare blend of youth and age there... she could be 14 or 1400 years old...
If it was me I'd probably desat the eyes a touch though.

[-HoodZ-]

im not much of a critic.....when you look at those eyes she looks like she knows what your thinking...

[Lunatique]

I'm not sure what it is, but when I started detailing, the painting seems to lose it's original magic. Maybe I need to keep this piece very soft and ambiguos?

Here's one side with more detail, and the other side with less. Which works better?



[ February 08, 2002: Message edited by: Lunatique ]

[Lunatique]

I think I like this better. My first try to detail it went too far and I destroyed the soft/ethereal look that made this piece interesting in the first place. For this second try(or 10th try, counting all the layers I experiemented with and discarded), I tried not to change the shapes and just cleaned up some. Any details I added, I kept them as soft as possible.

What do you guys think? Is it working?

[traveller]

i enjoyed the softness of the painting as well. Since there is no obvious light sources, I won't say anything about hair highlights or the shadow under the head bracelet? I bet you have already figured this out. I was however going to comment on the clavical bones. If you find a good source, you'll notice that on women, the bones slant slightly inward while on men, they sit pretty much the way you have it...straight across. I'm also tempted to say increase the width of the neck a little but you know...i bet there are some people out there with slim necks in the way you have portrayed your image.

Gosh! THis picture is very good. You did a great job in blending. Make sure when you put your lighting in that the hair sits flat on the head. Sometimes when the image is too soft and the shadows even softer, everything may look as though they're floating.

Can't wait to see the finished product! Goood stuff!

[Basement bound]

I like the revised eyes you did, but I don't know if they would work well with the rest of the piece (like you said about matching mystism of the rest). The only thing I would suggest would be to add the slightest detail to the face, sharpen the edges of the face a tad, and add some detail to her hair in the foreground. All of these to create more depth without loosing the sofeness ot the painting.
Just some thoughs, that you probably have had already.

JA

[Lunatique]

This is at 200%. I find myself sitting too close to the monitor and it tires out my eyes, so I zoom in to 200% and sit waaay back Buddha style with the Wacom on my lap.

I'm in the middle of shaping/defining the lips right now. Even though I wanted this piece to be very soft and luminescent, I didn't want a dead looking rendering, so I use the natural brushes instead of the round ones for the blending to give it just a little bit of roughness. (In Painter, I take brushes down to 0% resaturation and about 30~50% bleed for that same effect. I find captured bristle works pretty well.)



I decided the eyes are still too harsh. The princess is a melancholic and tragic character in my story, and I have a very specific image of her. So, once again, I made changes to her eyes. It might not look like much change, but believe me, very minor changes in a person's face can make a huge difference in the way they look.



[ February 10, 2002: Message edited by: Lunatique ]

[Lunatique]

Grrr...

Definitely far from being finished, but I want to ask your opinion on what color should the background be.

The current green?


Blue?


Brown?


I know there are lots of rough/unfinished/weird parts. They will be worked on.

[Lunatique]

One last update before I hit the sack. I decided have her lips partially parted for an even more melancholic look.

Poor Princess just keeps sadder the more I paint her.

[Lunatique]

Still not finished. But it's getting close. I need to mess up the background more with looser brush work, cast shadows from her hair and clothes, detail the hair more, and finish up her clavicle. Oh yeah, gotta paint her jewelry back in too.

Any C&C before I finish?

[Kaete]

I must be crazy. The first thing I though when I looked at her was "Sarah!" (From the movie Labyrinth.)

She's really lovely.

[J-D Leon]

no it is not finished.

soo blurry....

[Lunatique]

JD Leon-- Actually, I was shooting for blurry. . .. I was worried that it was too sharp.



Here's the looser brush work on the background. It's mostly the palette knife from Painter(I FINALLY got version 7 installed. Woo hoo!). I just lay down some patches of colors with the natural brushes in Photoshop 6, and then switch to painter and use the palette knife with the resaturation turned to zero. Worked like a charm.

Now that I'm getting more familiar with Painter, I'm liking it a lot more. There's a lot of stuff you can do in Painter that you could NEVER do in Photoshop. I've gotten into the habit of having both opened up and switching back and forth between the two. So far I havn't noticed any slow downs with both apps taking up all the RAM( I have 512 mb).

And to think I almost gave up on Painter just a short while ago. Thanks to all the people that pointed me the right direction(Jenn, Pat, etc).

BTW, Pat(if you are reading), after I finally got version 7 installed and popped in your funky, I found out they behaved a lot like a set of camel hair I had tweaked in version 6. Your explanation on setting the feature really helped me understand the brush controls furthers though.

[gekitsu]

whoa, lunatique...
she's so sweet... i hope you don't mind if i saved a lot of the interim versions

[Strawberrysauce]

me stupid.. just realised that your basing this image on the combination of faces you posted in the Breathtaking Beauty thread.

looks fantastic!

[Lunatique]

gekitsu- Feel free. I posted them so people that are interested can see a fairly detailed progression of this piece. It always bothered me that turorials usually jump from "Here's the sketch" to "Here it is finished!". It's like, WHERE are the detialed steps inbetween? They never show you the failed attempts and the same parts rendered in different ways. I'm going out of my way to post even the failed renderings(the eyes, lips..etc) so that people can see how decisions are formed and what was chosen in the end.

shamhead- Aha! Finally someone noticed! That's what the experiement was for in the first place. This experiement of mine is to paint someone that seems real, but doesn't exist in real life. Also, I've noticed that all faces have their own quirky flaws, no matter how beautiful. So, I composed my own face out of lots of beautiful faces and faded out their individual flaws. But even then, what I painted is quite different from the composed face. The composed face is beautiful, but the features are still too harsh for what I wanted, so I had to really push it in the painting to get that ethereal/melancholic look. I have this thing for angelic/melancholic beauties. I don't know why.

[ February 16, 2002: Message edited by: Lunatique ]

[beans]

hehe...I noticed but didn't say anything. ^_~ Are you going to soften the trim on her dress any? It seems kind of harsh right now. I love the mood she has...this is really beautiful. =)

[Pat]

Lunatique, I'm glad you liked the brushes. Just keep in mind they're based on size. If you haven't installed 7.1, I suggest you do it ASAP. It helps _so_ much. The misc bug fixes are good and the new Tinting brushes work great. I use them at around 5% opacity and they work fantastic --even at enormous sizes, which is something of a rarity in Painter.

-Pat

[Lunatique]

beans- Yeah, I think they are a bit sharp compared to the rest of the painting too. So you noticed too, huh? The funny thing is, the combo face I created actually doesn't look all that different from the kind of female faces I have been drawing/painting all these years. I guess my image of the perfect female face has always been that combo face, even before it existed?

Pat- dude, I looked for 7.1 everywhere and I can't find it. Grrr... *goes back to hunting*

I found it on a link from a Japanese site. (Very weird.)

[ February 16, 2002: Message edited by: Lunatique ]

[SoMK]

Adorable... especially with her parted lips... Just like an image in a blurry mirror... simply adorable !

[MoleculeMan]

the way her neck gets so dark as you rise towards her chin makes her look like she is getting a really skinny neck. Otherwise beautiful painting. I love it much.

jake