[sleepwalker]

Ok..Here we go!



Doing a colour/shape block up with hard brush size 40 and with 90% opacity! Looks good doesnt it !



After the initiall buildup I switch to the softest brush, size 30 and opacity 45%, pucking up the colours and make some nice smooth transition!



Here I am switching to a strange kinda brush and lower the opacity to 10-20%, also adding some darker and lighter colours.



Cleaning up with the same brush but smaller, varied opacity levels but mostly low!



Some background stuff and some more cleaning up, voila its finished, well of course it could be worked on and it has serious issues, but I did it in 1� hour and am a newbie to painting portraits and also with photoshop!!

[Ian Jones]

nice portrait, the use of lighting and the colours stand out to me.

Interesting process. Your first stage of blocking in with such strong colours and shapes really intriuges me. Thinking about it some more... I guess the colours get washed out after blending so thats probably why you chose such vivid colours to start with? I guess it would also help you establish a pallete and temperature range right from the beginning. Very interesting, thanks for sharing!

You need to clean up some edges to establish some stronger forms, and clearer shapes, like the nose or the profile against the background... you probably know of these anyway. I do like the feeling of it already though. Its debatable where you could go further with it, and all a matter of taste... but either way I like it.

Here's something to chew on... the background wallpaper. It has a vertical pattern. Interesting to me for a couple of reasons. It gives the feeling of much more space behind him. This could be because it is much more defined than the previous 'enveloping haze' in the previous step which you could say is much more claustrophobic if you were to compare the two. This could also be a bit of a psychological association with the vertical lines which form an obvious pattern and a direction that a viewer can base the assumption that there is more continuing space around him. Because straight lines have such a strong sense of continuance and direction they could also have other associations. I was reading in one of my old school art pamplets about an illustrative style of a particular artist who used mostly vertical strokes in the gentry of a streetscape and in contrast much more nervous and random strokes for any 'delinquins' in the scene. So the pamphlet went on to discuss the use of these lines to suggest more about the ppl in the scene. Vertical lines are supposedly used to suggest the dignified gentry upstanding against the lower classes and the random lines of the lower classes offer an obvious contrast.

Anyway, just for your interests sake, something to chew on like I said.

[Capt. Fred]

Wicked. And I must, say, that second step, that's by far the best of them. From there on it gets less good, though it still looks wonderful.
You may be new to photoshop, maybe even new to painting portraits, but you're no doubt a sound artist (atleast). How quickly your artistic skills adapted to the new medium of digital paiting in photoshop is a testament to it's similarity to traditional methods, and to it's ease of use : )
Cool! So what's your next step, now that you know you can paint self-portraits? Something cool prob. - can't wait : D

[sleepwalker]

Jones: Thanks man...

As I said im very new to this, I actually learned the trick with lowing the opacity on the brushes when I first got here about two weeks ago...And I am just trying out stuff and trying to learn at the same time!

I choose strong colours because I felt it would be fun, but as you said most of them became washed out...And I agree that it could use some hard edges, but I havent really gotten to that point yet, first thing first, and this is doing pictures with speed and trying to get good lightning/colours!

About the background, I really didnt put much though into it, just thought that it would look cool with some lines on it, thanks for sharing that info you had on it, I myself never thought much about it, but when you mention it I guess it does bring space to it, and also I am looking up in the picture, and the lines are going up...

Capt. Fred: Thanks, so you like the second step the most, I agree that I lost some of the shape in that step futher down the process, but I dont think it looks best...And I am not a sound artist, Im at an infants level imo, but I also am very hard to myself, so lets say a kids level shall we ...
I Have always had this problem with that the paint has to dry for such a long time with real oil paint, so my canvases often ended up like a total mess of grey/green blobs, thank god for giving me the insight to try out photoshop, I love it, no need for the paint to dry!

I will do cool stuff after I made alot and alot and alot of portrait/anatomy/light studies...I think it will be awhile!

[Kitamard]

Hey thats really neat Sleepwalker I really learned something here thanks for the post
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[sleepwalker]

Kitamard: Wow, you did, that is great... Thanks!

[Ian Jones]

heh, I didn't realise you were so new to digital. Obviously your traditional skills are paying off! keep up the great work!

[Frog]

Nice step by step, you're doing really well for someone so new to this. As Ian said, you really need to have some harder edges in there, at the moment all of the edges have the same soft quality and that makes the whole a little fuzzy. You might want to try using some hard edged brushes at low opacity, I find that helps me get away from soft fuzzy edges.

The other thing I would add is that the perspective on the wallpaper doesn't match that of the head, it seems to straight on while the head is very definitely from below.

Great effort though
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[Ian Jones]

Hey, Frog may be right about the perspective... it seems fairly minor to my eye, but nonetheless a great point.

[sleepwalker]

Al Ians: I really dont have much of traditional skill to talk about, I usually get mad because I cant mix the right colour and I just draw something obscene...Not very good with patience, practice I must!

Frog: You are right, the lines in the background should be well in a different angle, but I thought it looked better like this, maybe it didnt, and On the next training pieces I do I will try to use the hard brushes more...But its so hard And thanks!

[egerie]

I absolutely LOVE to see steps artists use in their works. It might seem trivial to others but I think you can learn or at least be tempted to try something new from it.

Thanks