Social Profiling № 8: All in the Eyes

Well, this was embarrassing.  I'd started prepping for today's Social Profiling post, when I realised I hadn't written the last one! So now this is that and I'll write the new one later.  How did I miss one? Well, I painted it way back at the end of February, and as you may recall March was, well, a little full, so I honestly thought I'd already written the post, when in fact I'd not even prepped the images for it.   It's been that sort of year.

So, anyway, I'm getting to it now, just over 4 months later.  Oh, and I didn't post last week because it was a choice of painting the latest Social Profiling picture (not this one, remember?  I just mentioned that, try and keep up), or writing a post, and painting won.  Then I hurt my back, so that painting took longer than planned (in terms of days from start to finish, not actual hours spent).  OK, all up to speed now?  Good, lets look at this picture then.

And there we have her.  OK, all done, onto the next!




I'm kidding, obviously. Just because it's late doesn't mean I'm going to skimp on the coverage, though I've obviously forgotten some things what with it being 4 months since I painted it.  I'll do my best though.

Unlike the last one, or the next, I decided to actually do a sketch for this one.  'Save rework with repositioning things,' I said.  'Should be pretty easy to just measure it,' I said.  'What a complete idiot,' I said, two hours later.

You see I wasn't using a grid or just eyeballing it, but actually measuring things with my stylus, calipers and thumb.  I learned two important things: 1) Trying to measure from a photograph reliably without actually touching it is a mug's game (because the image is obviously skewed slightly in your vision, unlike a real thing, which isn't flat, so can't be skewed).  2) Lineart can be deceptive.  You see I thought that looked fine - I still think it doesn't look too bad there, but when I painted over it...  Well, see for yourself.

Arrrgh!  What have I done!  It is the end of times! The dogs are cuddling the cats! Rains of bloooood! Etc, Etc.  Yes, this didn't turn out right at all.  Was it because of the skewed photo effect?  Or a miss measure of a distance or an angle somewhere?  Don't know, don't care - the results are freakish either way.  Poor woman has had her head swelled up like a balloon!

See how deceptive that line art was?  Or can you see it even there (I can't, evidently)?  Well, anyway, I needed a quick fix.  Oh, how sad that I laid it out first to avoid rework later, for it was all for naught.

So, I threw up a big grid (4x3ish), and massaged things a bit.  The grid wasn't on the painting, it was mostly just to use to see what was lining up and where.  That helped a lot as you can see above, though her left eye was still slightly off (What is it and me with left eyes?), but I fixed that as I went along.  Oh, and remember last time I said about there being coincidences in these images (of course you don't, the last was in January)?  Well, two of them ended up being for people I've done images for before.  This one is of these guy's mother.

Just a good mid point to see a full image.  It was here that I think the most important part was painted too.  I really wanted to get her eyes right, and I think I got very close.  Lovely eyes, even on the original (fairly grainy) photograph, so I felt it vitally important to capture them as accurately as possible.

So here you can see more development in the face and hair.  I've broadened her jaw on the right image as it was a little flatter than in the original photograph, and was starting to make it look like she had no chin.  The hair I kept super rough - I felt that that way it wouldn't draw away from her face particularly.  Oh, and purple hair?  Totally badass.

After that I just roughed in her shirt and hoodie (not too much detail, for the same reason as the hair), and added her necklace.  I suppose I should go into how I painted this, as it wasn't my usual method.  I used ArtRage's oil brush (as usual), but this time I had it on a higher opacity paint (less thinners), but with very little pressure.  I thought that might capture some of the noise I was actually digging in the original photograph, and I think to some degree I succeeded.  Yay.

OK, off again now.  I have to send some text to someone that's been delayed by a week due to that bad back, and I also need to write another post  - but not for today, so don't come back too soon.

Really, I'm gone.  Try not to think of the balloon head stage when going to bed tonight m'kay?  Nightmare fuel right there.