Non-map art

[Ramah]

Thanks all.

Ok, here is a little run through of the image as per Ravell's request.

First off I'll just show the image with various sets of layers turned off so you can see how they interact with each other. After I'll do some kind of filmstrip image with each of the skin layers being turned on as that is the area where I had the most trouble and it has about 15 or so layers in it. :s Hopefully someone can get something out of it.

Ok.. so here is the image with just the base layers turned on - background, rough costume and base skin colour. The background is how it appears in the finished image as it was done on one layer. I had roughed it in with a giant brush, expecting to try and do something with it at the end. When it came to it I just couldn't be bothered though so I added a layer mask, filled it with rendered clouds and then added some blobs of white to the actual layer it to make it look like there were some out of focus reflections in the distance somewhere.

Zhang-Ziyi 1 - base.jpg

Next image has the eyes turned on. The eyes have about 4 layers in total. I actually shot myself in the foot a little here as when I draw a face I always start with the eyes, which is fine, but then when I worked up the skin I actually worked over the eyes to adjust them slightly and so had to keep the eyes below the skin set which is counter-intuitive. Next time that will be something I change.

Zhang-Ziyi 2 - eyes.jpg

Next up is the skin. As I say, this was very akward for me and a large part of that awkwardness stems from me doing most of the painting with a round brush. I am very lazy when it comes to changing brushes in PS. If I can get away with doing it with a round brush then I will. It wasn't until I'd been working on the skin for a while that I tried switching to one of the other media brushes that I found out how much easier it was to blend the colours. So, my top tip would be not to try and do everything with a round brush.
Another problem I had was getting some of the tones, the warmer pinks and yellows, and getting them to blend nicely. In the end, I found that a layer switched to Hard Light and overlaid over the others provided a very cool and easy way of getting those pinks.

Zhang-Ziyi 3 - skin.jpg

Next I added the lips. Well, actually I did them after the eyes and before the skin but once I had decided to move things around and do the details in a more intutive manner I was able to transplant them above the skin and work on them.

Zhang-Ziyi 4 - lips.jpg

And then the hair. In the end I ended up with about 4 layers for the hair (and 2 for the eyebrows). I added a lot more lighter hair than there was in the reference photo for variation. The bit I had the most trouble with was the top of the forehead and the hairline. It was akward to get a balance between too many and too few hairs there.

Zhang-Ziyi 5 - hair.jpg

[tilt]

thanks for the walktrhough
what resolution are you working in? how big is the picture?

[Ramah]

Here is the image with a layer of black positioned in front of the base layers but behind everything else so you can see how the skin is built up a little more. It also reveals how most of it was built up with a round brush. :S DEFINITELY something to change there.

I also turned on the finished costume set for this so you can see how quick and basic it is. That is something else that got simplified due to running out of steam at the end of the painting. Had I done the costume at the start it would have been a lot more detailed probably. Not necessarily better though I guess, rough and ready looks decent enough to me.

Zhang-Ziyi 6 - black.jpg

[Ramah]

thanks for the walktrhough
what resolution are you working in? how big is the picture?

Finished image size is what you see here: 1024 x 768 and I did it at 72 ppi.

[ravells]

Thanks a million Ramah! I'm going to try and give this a shot!

[tilt]

cool... and yes, the round brush is prominent here... I never really painted digitally, but on canvas I've always used flat brushes - I believe however if I had started painted digitally (which I still plan to do one day) I'd probably just used a round brush too - so thanks for the warning

[Ramah]

No problem.

I also forgot to mention that I finished the image off with a warming photo filter, which is why the sky is bluer on those layered images above etc.

[Djekspek]

You are so talented dude! This is amazing! and thanks for the explanations! cheers!

[Jaxilon]

Ramah, that looks great! Thanks so much for the workflow as well. Even though you are working that part out yourself it's helpful to see how one could go about taking on something like this in the digital world. Amazing painting man.

[Ramah]

Cheers Jax.

Well I'm really finding the desire to paint pictures at the moment, something I've not really had for the last fifteen years or so when I used to do the occasional watercolour.
So while I'm in the mood I thought I'd start a new one, work on it as and when I find the time and document it here a little more, like a WIP thread.

I've never been good at creating stuff out of my own imagination (like Sapiento is with his alien creatures), so I thought I'd have a go at redressing that and doing that old fantasy staple, the dragon.

So here is my first image in that attempt. It is a very roughly coloured sketch that took me about half an hour to do in total. This was more an attempt to get a decent shape and pose than it was doing scenery or completely accurate lighting. I plan on building on this image now, refining the dragon somewhat and working on a more interesting setting.

Dragon - Rough 1.jpg