Technically the blog's anniversary was the end of last month, but that post was just saying I was going to do a blog. It wasn't until May that I actually posted any art, so I consider May 2nd the blog's birthday. Also, even though I didn't start speedpainting for a few months after that, I count the same day as the tickover day between one year's speedpainting and the next, because I suck at remembering dates, so may as well collate them.
So today I'll go over the speedpaints I did this last month, and in the next post do an overall review of the last 5 years (actually 4.5) of speedpainting, unless I don't because I decide to do something else instead (5 Years! Where'd the time go?)
Time Taken: 55 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: The character of Sam Vimes form Discworld
As you may know, back in March author Terry Pratchett died. This hit me reasonably hard as he was, without any hesitation, my favourite author. Not as hard as when close friends or family have passed (and I've covered that happening on the blog before), but hard enough for someone I only met twice (at book signings, so I don't know that it really counts). Anyway, I spent some time the day after hearing the news sketching a couple of his characters, but I didn't get to this one who is my favourite of all of them. The character came up in a thread over on io9 a while later, and I thought "I should paint him. Why haven't I done that yet?"
He's Blackboard Monitor, His Grace, The Duke of Ankh, Commander Sir Samuel Vimes, or Sam to his family (usually Mr. Vimes to his friends). He likely doesn't look like a Duke in the picture, I suspect that's just how he'd like it. If you ever start reading Pratchett's Guards series, or have just begun, you may be confused why the drunk lying in the gutter in the first few pages is here referred to by such a ridiculous title. That would be spoiling things, although to be called 'Blackboard monitor' is now an honor (or possibly an insult) in Dwarf politics.
None of that has anything to do with painting the picture, which wasn't terribly exciting. I did gather some reference, but didn't work from any of it explicitly, mostly laying it by ear (or more accurately by stylus, because painting with your ear when you have no cause to is just silly). I used a range of brushes, and right at the end decided it didn't look like it was either raining, or night time, and so used colour adjustments to increase the cool tones of the image, and motion blur to make the rain strokes look more rain like. It is almost a certainty that I'll paint more of Pratchett's characters eventually, possibly even Vimes himself.
Time Taken: 50 Minutes
Software: ArtRage 4, Photoshop
Based on: This image by Alraunie-stock
Nothing special about this one really. I was more concerned about lighting than accuracy, in that I wanted to capture the detail in the shadows, something I've often struggled with. I was also trying out a new painting technique, that actually might work for laying down rough areas - it's very scribbly. Clearly the detail in dark shadows thing is something I need to work at more, but this came out alright, if you shrink the thumbnail down enough anyway.
A fairly by the numbers process too. I wasn't using a grid or anything for this one, and her face ended up being a little wonky, which bothered me even though I wasn't going for accuracy in that area, so for the last stage here I took it into Photoshop and spent a couple of minutes shifting the proportions a little, though it's hard to say which bits were the adjustments, and which were bits I painted in between these two stages (such as bulking up her skirt and hair).
Time Taken: 120 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: Michael Biehn as Kyle Reese in The Terminator
You know how it is; I'm scrolling through Pinterest and see a photo I've not seen before of a character I love, and immediately want to paint them? No? Well, that's what happened here. Only thing was I really wanted smoke in the background rather than the nightclub depicted in the reference photo, and I didn't have a suitable brush (I could have painted that with a standard brush of course, but it would have taken too long probably, and not looked quite as, well, smokey). So the time taken on this one includes the time taken to make a smoke brush (which was a combination of smoke photographs and the Photoshop cloud filter). Making the brush took somewhere between 10 and 15 minutes I guess, I wasn't paying that much attention to the time at that stage.
My original intention was to switch from the smoke brush to a more standard one once I'd done the background, but I roughed in the figure with it and liked how it looked, so I ended up using that one brush for the entire painting. When reduced it gives a nice pastel look, although it's a little hard to predict exactly what it's going to do with each stroke. I used a 3 across grid for this one to aid with the composition - usually that's not enough to get it particularly accurate when I'm whizzing through a speedpaint, but in this particular case it's really close. Either I'm getting better at it, or it was a happy accident.
Strangely, while this is one of the most popular images I've ever posted to facebook (44 likes), it didn't do terribly well when I posted the same thing to DeviantArt. I can never predict what will be well received.
Time Taken: 105 Minutes
Software: ArtRage 4
Based on: This photograph I found on Pinterest, original source unknown.
The photo this was based on was all over pinterest for a few days. It seemed to pop up every time I scrolled, posted by someone else. Not terribly surprising, because it's a gorgeous photograph, while this paint based on it... isn't.
Part of the issue is that I decided to adjust the palette when I was painting it. The intention was to go with very blue desaturated tones in order that the orange of her hair would pop more. Sadly I made those blues too close in value to the orange. If I'd made them darker, or even lighter, the result would have been what I was aiming for, but of course I realised that to late (increasing the saturation of the orange may also have worked, as it would have altered the apparent value of her hair), but last time I used a lot of orange it ended up being overpowering, and I didn't want to head down that road again just yet).
The other issue was that I just didn't work out the proportions very well. I have a tendency to make the side of the face on the far side of the nose too wide, and this time was no exception. You'd think by now I would know well enough to make the face far narrower than my brain is telling me it is, and then make it wider if I need to, rather than the opposite. I swear I will remember this next time I do a 3/4 view because I then spend far too long fixing the issue rather than spending it on places that are more enjoyable. You can see I also had some issues with her chin in the first image of the bottom row, but I got that sorted out fairly quickly. She also looks as though she has a giant left breast, which is because I was trying to make it look less pointed, and inadvertently added to the size of it instead. For what it's worth I quite like the way her face ended up, but overall this was not a great success.
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