Time Taken: 60 Minutes (35+25)
I'll be the first to admit that this one is crap. Well, technically it's two, but we'll get there. My son wanted me to paint his picture from life, which I thought would be an interesting challenge (speaking of my Son he's right here asking me to go and play "'Sackboy' or Lego Star Wars, right now Daddy, please!" must type faster). It was an interesting challenge because my son is 4 (looks 6) and is physically incapable of keeping still for more than a few seconds. It'd be like painting one of the blurry head demons from Jacob's Ladder.
Turned out it was even harder than that: he sat there for about 3 minutes (head bobbing the whole time) before just getting bored and leaving me to paint the rest from memory. The result looked nothing like him (the left image), so I ran off, found him, took a long look and then ran back to try again over the top of what I already had. The result was different enough to show them both, but neither looks remotely like him or remotely good (although he did just recognize himself while nagging me to go play, so that's something).
Time Taken: 40 Minutes
It's supposed to be Lola from Run Lola Run. Looks almost nothing like her, but I like the piece a little anyway.
Time Taken: 6 minutes
Look, I know it's ghastly, but it is recognizably the 11th Doctor if you squint your eyes and tilt your head a bit. I wanted to know if it was possible to do a recognizable portrait of him in the time it took his theme to play.
It sort of is I guess.
Time Taken: 30 Minutes
After I found Deviant Art one of the first images I saw was the source for this speedpaint. You can find the original here (might be filtered for adult content, I dunno). Anyway, usually I'm turned off by gas-masks because they creep me the hell out, but this one was so striking I wanted to paint it. Given the gas-mask and the dreamlike feel of the image I thought I should paint it very roughly and with an off kilter palette. The result is far from the best thing I've ever done, but there's something I quite like about it all the same.
Time Taken: 50 Minutes
A while ago I posted a sketch of what appeared to be a black fairy with an afro (I guess she might have been an elf - I can't really tell the difference) - this was my attempt to expand on that. I felt she wouldn't be just be dark skinned but also greenish (due to being a fairy/elf/imp/thing). The result loses everything I liked about the original sketch, but does have some redeeming qualities, especially as I wasn't working from reference other than the original sketch. Fairy/elf girl may reappear at some point, because I think she has the potential for a cool image.
Time Taken: No Idea
I already covered this one. I guess it's technically not a speed paint, although the actual painting bit was done in a hurry and led directly to the next one.
Time Taken: 35 Minutes
Another slightly creepy image. This one was done for Halloween. She was supposed to be a vampire, but I forgot to add the pointed teeth (I know, daft). The roughness is done in the exact same manner I painted the previous piece, and I guess it's related to the gas-mask piece too. I suspect I was in a funny mood generally around this time and it's reflected in the work. Anyway, it's intentionally rough and not many people who've seen it like it but I actually do, so there.
Time Taken: 45 Minutes
A huge gap between that last one and this (about a month), but I finally had enough inspiration to sit down and paint something. The image is completely out of my head, although when I finished I realized the subject looked like CJ from GTA: San Andreas thumbing a lift. Sub-conscious, or coincidence? I have no idea. Quite pleased with his anatomy and skin tone, less pleased with everything else.
Time taken: 60 Minutes
This is the worlds slowest speed paint. It took 60 minutes, but that was in two sessions about a week apart. The first session was interrupted by my son having a bit of drama, and I didn't get back to it for a while. I like the result though, especially the face. It's based on a small (100 pixels-ish) thumbnail from a photo taken in the 60's I had saved - I know nothing more about the source than that.
Time Taken: 50 Minutes
Since I wrote the bit above several hours have passed. This is neither here nor there beyond my son finally getting his 'Sackboy' fix.
I mention this because that's him there, giving his friend a hug. Yes, it's a bit late for Christmas now, but this was done for my family and friends on facebook and I did it in the hour leading up to Christmas, posting it at around midnight.
It's a bit lacking in subtlety, but if you look at the thumbnail for this and the original picture it's hard to tell them apart. You can't do that of course (unless you happen to be a friend of my wife's since it's her photo), so you'll just have to take my word for it.
Time Taken: 55 Minutes
I've painted a lot of women recently. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, it's just how it goes - I find painting and drawing women preferable to drawing and painting men. That said, I don't think I should ignore my own gender completely so I made a point of doing a male portrait. This is it, obviously.
It's base don yet more stockart, and it's not terribly good (my work, not the stockart). You'll note his brow is wonky for one thing, though I am quite pleased with the colour and lighting and his general expression.
The wonky brow does bring up an interesting point about speedpaints, at least the way I do them. Part of the point of them is to do them quickly. ArtRage lends itself slightly better to this than Photoshop because it has a far more accessible colour picker (at least in CS3 which I use at home), and so less time is wasted in picking colours. Other ways I save time are not sketching the image out beforehand (usually anyway, there are times when I do), and not really checking my proportions and angles the way you're traditionally supposed to. Usually you're supposed to use your paintbrush or pencil or stylus to measure your source (be it from photograph or from life) and then transfer that measurement back to the picture you're working on. I'm not a stranger to this, and I've done it many times (most recently here), but it does tend to slow you down, so for speedpaints I just judge it by eye..
One advantage to ignoring the checking of angles and proportion for speed paints is that I'm increasingly getting better at doing it without, and taking into account the optical illusions that tend to happen when working from perspective or portraits. I'm a long way from perfect at this of course, but I think I can often get a reasonable likeness without measuring now, which is far better than I could do a year or so ago.
The result of all this though is that things like this poor fellows wonky brow line occur in the pursuit of speed, but sometimes things go really rather well and a good work can result.
Anyway, the mention of speedpaints being sketched out before actually painting segues fairly well into my next planned post. Until the next time, have a very happy new year,
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