[Lunatique]

I've always wanted to do a digital piece that looked indistinguishable from a real oil painting, and I think I might have done it.

Originally, I was shooting for that alla prima thing again, and someone had suggested that I used a tool that was incapable of producing fine detail, that way I won't render things to death.

Well I really tried to not render things to death, and I used nothing but the palette knife. It got rendered to death anyway, but with unexpected good results. Gotta love that palette knife. Give you nice, spontaneous feel, but capable of fine detail too!

I actually like what I've done this time.



Here are some closeups:

[zaar]

OMG Lunatique! you are crazy I guess you are stuck with your smooth stuff. But I don't care because this image is freaking awesome!!!! "indistinguishable from a real oil painting" hmmm, nah... It looks kind of oily but still has something digital to it.

[pixelsoldier]

Best piece ever. That is all.

[kana]

this is amazing.

[Sedone]

Very nice, Lunatique. I think this is my favorite from you. You did a good job of describing the forms of her hand, but I think the fingers and thumb could be tweaked just a bit, to really nail those shapes. The colors are great.

[ELLioT]

Now that you succeeded in doing a CG indistinguishable from a real oil painting, what are you gonna do? A real oil paint indistinguishable from a CG one?

[Awetopsy]

Luna.. this is your pest painting yet. I love it.. its about to be my desktop wallpaper. Awesome!

[el scoono]

that's pretty damn impressive! i like the girl's pose, i think it adds an interesting tension to the painting.

i just have to say, this doesn't look much like a real oil painting to me. if anything, i might have thought it was done with an airbrush. it's absolutely beautiful, but i'm still not sure it has a "natural" look. maybe lay off the blending tools a bit and use more constructive brush strokes to define planes? i dunno, i'm babbling again. if anything i should be asking you for a painter lesson

[LoTekK]

holy christ, lunatique, you keep putting out these utterly gorgeous pics one after the other... how do you do it??? i know fer sure something like that would've taken me days upon days upon days... i agree with pixelsoldier: Best piece i've ever seen from you... although you still can't see any brushstrokes...

[Zorglub]

[gArGOyLe^]

yeah.. what zorglub said

[Catfish]

Are you just naturally surrounded by beautiful woman, or do you pay them?

Do you paint from photos, life, or what? Do you use the references just for establishing the main poses, or is it your art very true-to-life?

[ May 22, 2002: Message edited by: Catfish ]

[Phb]

only one word

PERFECT!

[HellSpawn]

I'm stunned..... amazing work Lunatique. Just amazing...

- Shawn

[BlackPool]

Yes, this very nice!! You have a real nack for capturing realistic tone and color. Without considering what sort of reference you used and just judging the composition of the piece on it's own merits, I half to say that it cutting her off at the bum just seems like an odd place to me--a bit too suddon I think.

As for getting the feel of an oil painting, I think it still needs a little work. Loosening up would help, but I might suggest trying something like creating something to simulate the raised paint (perhaps with the help of Photoshops Lighting FX filter). Or you could you could apply a canvas texture to it and unevenly fade it off in a few places to simulte where the paint is thicker. Again very nicely done. I look forward to seeing more.

[Imirie]

wow!! that's really good!!

[-HoodZ-]

wow best one you'e done by far

[ARTEmio]

wonderfull colors, nice job!!

[eyewoo]

Yepsir... you got it right!!! This is a very compelling picture... palette knife, butter knife, swiss army knife... no matter... it's a very cool image!!!

[Lunatique]

gLitterbug- And what would you rather see than the the nubile members of the female of the species?

el scoono- I actually only blend with the paintings tools themselves. Whether it's the opaque round, palette knife, or whatever, I just set resaturation to zero and blend with it. Maybe I need to stop blending, period, and only use them with at least a bit of resaturation. BUT, I know that even then, I'll still have the bad habit of rendering to death. Maybe I should try painting with my left hand?

LoTekK- If you zoomed in REALLY close, you'll see the brush strokes. . ..

Catfish- all the "realistic" style pieces I've done lately are all with reference(all are photos taken by me, except for this one. I NEVER pay my models, unless when it�s for life drawing session with other artists involved. It�s always a mutual benefit�me getting a model, and them getting pretty pictures of themselves ). It's impossible to do works like this without reference from photos or life. Not even master painters can do it. The trick is HOW you use the reference. Some people copy it exactly, some people will add their own creativity to it and come out with something original. These realistic styled pieces are just painting exercises for me. I don't take them TOO seriously, since I'd rather be painting from head and doing cool fantasy stuff. But, I'm on a mission to attain that alla prima look, and these are my attempts to get there.

BlackPool- Mmmmm. Bum. . .. Yeah, that was me trying to be creative. The reference was cut off at the waist, and I thought that was weird.

Eyewoo- Thank you sir!

[Lunatique]

Messybrain pointed out that I never seem to thank people who gives me praises, and I realized he's right.

The reason I usually respond more to critiques is probably because I'm really hard on myself, and I'm never truly happy with the finished result, and when people praise me, I feel even more embarrassed about the glaring mistakes/weak points in the posted piece. But when someone points out mistakes and offers suggestions, I immediately react and take their suggestions into account and go back to fix the mistakes. Also, I have a hard time coming up with answers to one word/sentence praises. I don't know how to respond other than "thanks," but keep typing "thanks" over and over makes me feel kinda silly.

I need to be more aware that. People who take the time to say nice things are definitely appreciated. I didn't mean to ignore you guys. Sorry.

[TheRealT]

HOLY MONKEY SPASM!
That's awesomely cool ect... !
YOU'RE A LUNATIC LUNATIQUE!!!!
*bounces away*

[Rhomb]

I like it too, beautiful work. Very nice colors. Still, I think that the brush strokes could be bigger and more visible (if you're after that alla prima look). Also her forearm and wrist area look just a little bit akward and I agree with Sedone about the fingers. I love that hair.

Ville

[Lunatique]

I went ahead and fixed her hand/arm. I didn't even realize she was missing the third section of her forefinger!

Yeah, I still need to loosen up more. I'm not gonna give up! I'll keep doing these exercises until I get it right.

[gLitterbug]

Very nice painting Lunatique! I�ve not really enough experience with real oil paintings, so I can�t tell you if it looks indistinguishable , but it looks very nice and honestly that�s all I care for.

And the subject matter shows us once again who is da sijun pimp - you couldn�t draw something else than chicks even if you wanted to - right?

[Ian Jones]

WOW! She's sooo sexy! geuss that means you did a good job.

I really love to 'feel' of the painting, and brushstrokes, it gives the image such warmth and really invites you to explore it. Awesome work!

I also love the way the shadows on the wall blend with and make the form dissapear.

I think you could tighten up some of the 'edges' here and there, wherever one form overlaps another, it really needs a sharp edge to indicate this distinction between say the form of her hand and her body. Then I geuss you can try to loosen up a bit more with your 'over-rendering' because you can then prioritize the use of 'detail', perhaps tightening those 'edges' and try to ignore some of the gradual tonal changes, in favour of more important information. Maybe that will help.

Of course, despite the fact that you don't like the way you 'over-render' and blend a lot, I can honestly say that it does not harm this piece. It's so solid anyway. Fantastic effort!

Hope that helps.

[stan522]

great work, anyway i think its too polished looking to be an oil IMHO. just wanted to ask specifically what brush settings do you use, and what was the original res of the pic.

[Lunatique]

TheRealT- heheh. Thanks.

Ian Jones- Ahhh, you noticed some of the stuff I intentionlly strove for. Thanks!

stan522- actually, there are lots of oil paintings waaay more polished than what I did. I only used the palette knife, at various sizes and bleed/resaturation settings. The original is only about 1280 x 1024, quite small actually.

[Vertigoblack]

...Please be my teacher Lunatique. lol


Id love to see you work on a portrait of someone from african descent...whenever i try to color one, the skintones always seem to become "muddied". think you can help me??? ;P

[madmouth]

that is one unhealthy girl. but I like the technique