[Leo]

Hmm... just made this pic a few weeks ago



so my question is what do you think 'bout using references? Seems like most of people think that it's sort of 'cheating' (compare it to paintover or tracing). Hmm i dunno. The only trick i can see is that you can pick colors from the original and your model dosen't move anyway. That's all.

-leo

[nightmare]

thats great! wow....
personally i don't think reference is cheating. everyone uses reference, its not plausible to draw things outta ur head or from real life ALL the time.

crit for the pic: a few things r blurry like the shoulder on the left side (our left). its kinda melting into the background. a few other places need tweaking too, just to eliminate the blurriness. other than that, its woooonderful!!

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it's all a conspiracy!

[This message has been edited by nightmare (edited December 02, 2000).]

[Bubonic]

Great Job Leo, it looks so realistic.. its like you just took a picture and put some paint over it.. or did you..........?

heh j/k

can you go into a lil bit in the steps you took to paint this? like what brushes you used and the opacity and layers you used?

thanks, great job, picture perfect like even...

[EviLToYLeT]

*nod* it does look good and realistic! Hrmm.... well I think you need to blur out the background a bit more because there isn't really a point of focus. It's kind of getting mushed up because the detail in the background is same as the portrait. Well....the focal point is actually the face.but then again those corn stalks mesh in with the hair.

[burn0ut]

looks pretty good, one thing i wanna point out is that her jaw looks like a mans, due to the color, mens jaws should be greyish and bluish, not girls ;D the greyish color represents hair stubs. id say give it a more peach color like the rest of the face.
hope that helps

good job

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-stephen
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Trial n Error.

[[Shizo]]

heh burn0ut you made me thing that this MIGHT be indeed a m....

[micke]

The biggest problem i think is the background. I think it looks like she stands
in front of a wallpaper or a painting rather than standig in the actual scene. There is also some very sharp areas and some very blurred areas wich gives it a unfinished look. The face and hair looks good

As for reference, It's not cheating at all, but i think you have to understand what you're copying, in order to make most of it and to learn most from it too. It think copying just for the sake and not enhancing it in any way is dull, you can use photos for that kind of stuff i don't really see the point with it. Just my opinion

-Mikael

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-Mikael Noguchi-

Mikael's artwork

[CyberLink]

WOW. That rocks Looks a bit too realistic like it's photo overpainting %) But anyway that's cool picture

[This message has been edited by CyberLink (edited December 03, 2000).]

[Leo]

Thanks for the comments!
Background sucks. As micke already noticed it's kinda wallpaper. I didn't play too much with it and her body. Only paid attention to the face.
How i [over]paint it? Hehe... nope, no tricks here - i remember Threnody's 'painting' of Natalie Portman - forum dudez cracked it very quickly. So to break illusions i've done a few screenshots explaining the process:

first, i take a reference photo drop it to painter and open a new blank file. So my workspace looks like this:


next, i've done a rough color sketch trying to catch her proportions and expression:


work is rolling...


and moving to final stage:


a bit later i badly repaint her dress and background. All done in single layer with standart sets of brushes (you can see my toolbar at screenshots) opacity varied between 40-60%.
burnOut, this greyish color on her jaw is a reflected light from dress. I've missed it with white shirt %).

Well, thanks again for your comments and keep painting - this forum rocks!!

-leo