The last few days I’ve once again been looking through photos in search of new ideas/concepts. I have a few muddling around in my head, but not sure if they’re ready yet. While looking through images from Stacy’s shoot, I saw some with a cute expression and the phrase ‘charmed I’m sure’ came to me. So, with that now a focus, I was able to pin down once pose that I felt worked best. The photo set was nudes, so I considered adding an outfit or accessories, but nothing seemed really useful or necessary for the concept. Instead, I gave her a simple waist chain with some charms attached, and a rabbit’s foot on a bracelet. The background will have a very subtle (hopefully) rainbow flowing toward her…
Tag designing concept
new image designed and ready today
work progress – still struggling
Okay, the face is getting better, but it’s been so over-worked that it may never be all that it could be. That said, I may have managed to get somewhere near what I originally intended. We’ll see.
For now, here’s the face from this morning, after I blocked in the oil pastels with the improved eyes and mouth…
Meanwhile, to take my mind off the frustration and also give me a fresh perspective, I’ve found a new image to paint next. The pose interested me, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted from it. I played around with different hair styles, colors, and crops, but her hair and color always won out. It was a full body shot at first, but cropping it to the hips felt better (the legs, although nice, didn’t do anything for the pose nor the design). The bra has a leopard print on it, and I’ve changed it to an aqua-green color (from the original tan-orange), but I didn’t bother drawing the spots yet, as I may still change it to some other pattern (maybe)…
model – Gia
I was able to mask out the image and airbrush the background tonight, but didn’t get a photo of it yet. I’ll give the details for that tomorrow.
new concept designed and ready
It’s been nearly a month now since I first drew it, so I think it’s time to begin that vampire design I mentioned back then. Looking over the design I built using both photoshop and Hash’s Animation:Master (highly recommended for the home animator!), the background is going to require quite a bit of masking levels and airbrush color passes. Hopefully I can get through it without damaging anything along the way (like pulling up paint with the masking)…
model -Kneely
New concept designed and ready
I once again spent the last few days going over photos, hoping to find something to entice my next painting. I had a few concepts in mind, but was having trouble finding poses that would fit properly. I kept returning to this one photo of Mackenzie, but it took a while to find what I wanted to do with it. Not having much luck designing within Photoshop, I took the photo and hand drew the pose on paper, then played with it that way. Even with a tablet and pen, I still don’t feel as natural drawing in Photoshop, so using actual paper and pencil works better. It might even tap into a different part of my mind, because it wasn’t long before this concept started forming. It’s not often I can free flow an idea without having any preconceived notion what it should be. Even with it ready now, I’m not sure what it really is (sci-fi, cyber-punk, steam-punk, video game fantasy, anime?). I like the look, and the colors will be fun, so I’m going to go forward without it being fully explained…
model – Mackenzie
new concept ready and drawn
Okay, after going through many photos and playing with a handful of ideas, I’ve focused in on one. How does a sexy teacher sound? Well, that’s what this one will be, featuring my new model, Stacy Lee…
working on designs and concepts
With the new piece completes, I’ve been going through photos looking for what should go next. Plenty of potential ideas floating around, but nothing concrete yet. If nothing else, I still have the vampire drawing from a couple weeks ago I can get back to.
work progress – background change
This morning, before I did too much detail work, I tried to clean up the paint bleed from yesterday’s frustrating airbrush work on the stockings. Go figure, the background paint was coming up more than the bleed paint, so a fix was not looking good. Trying to paint over it to cover would be difficult since the bleed color is darker than the background (even more so with some of it lifted now).
I took a step back and looked at the whole piece at this point. I wasn’t happy with the lack of contrast between the background and the skin now. Also, the white areas didn’t stand out much (especially the white feather duster). Outlining would help, but still wouldn’t give it much punch. So, I went back to the computer, opened the reference image in photoshop, and began reworking the background color to see what might work better. By deepening and darkening the same colors (magenta and vermilion) I was able to give it a much better contrast and visual interest.
Now, the fearful attempt on the actual painting. I needed to cover the image with masking, so there’s any number of potential problems that can happen. First, would it even stick to the oil pastels, especially once the airbrush is blowing across it? And if it did hold, would it pull up anything once I remove it? I couldn’t stand to keep the painting as it was, so either I chance it, or toss it. So, I go for it, carefully applying and cutting the masking over the entire piece. It seems to stick, so I mix the acrylic paint for the airbrush and begin. With a sigh of relief, it holds without a single edge flipping loose. I covered the majority of the background with a mix of magenta and black (reddish purple is how it ends up), and then mix vermilion with crimson and black for the bottom (the crimson keeps the mix from becoming a mud color). I round the edge of the piece with a light spray of black, as well as hitting the shadow beneath her feet. I finish it off as before, with a mix of pearl and red ’sparkles’ (showing much more against a darker color).
I peeled the masking off as soon as I could, and another sigh of relief to see nothing was damaged by it. It’s still drying a bit, so no picture tonight, but tomorrow first thing I’ll get that up, and hopefully finish it all by evening.
designing new project
I have this loose rule with my work, I try to never paint the same model twice in a row. My reasons – it keeps a variety in my gallery; it keeps the images fresh to me, as I’m not ‘redoing’ the same face; and it spreads out the photo shoots to last longer. So, with that in mind, although I have a drawing ready to be painted from last week, I avoided it due to it being the same model I just painted (Kneely). I will get to it, but will put it aside for a few weeks, or until I cannot create any new ideas elsewhere. I was close to feeling this way, but managed to push through and find something else that might be fun.
The image I came up with is a sexy maid concept, from a shoot I had a few months ago (with Percolate). I had trouble with the pose and outfit working in a way I liked. I ended up piecing together a total of 5 photos to create this one. Photoshop is a great tool for playing with ideas, but it’s still tricky to make it all fit together in a believable way (lucky I don’t move around much during shoots, so my perspective and position are relatively the same in each photo). One issue I had was her left hand – she wore black net gloves, and the hand is right in front of the black net skirt, so it seemed to disappear. I liked the black gloves, so avoided changing it at first, but in the end I made it white net instead. Other things I altered were the skirt’s height (which meant I needed more leg to show, so I had to find bare legs in the same position), and added the right arm (original only showed the elbow). I’m sure I could have simply drawn these adjustments freehand without photo reference, but I feel better if I can find real reference, as I feel it keeps the model ‘intact’ and eases my view of the lighting. Had I not found reasonable pieces to fit, I would’ve ‘faked’ them then…
…
model – Percolate
New concept designed and drawn
Still uncertain what direction to go for the next painting, yesterday morning I decided to research and the Hindu Goddess. It came together surprisingly fast, but I wasn’t positive I wanted to go with it yet. So, I bounced back and forth between it and the vampire nurse idea the rest of the day and part of today.
I feel both are about ready now, and still undecided, I went ahead and drew them both on boards. Now that I could see them at full scale, I feel the goddess is what I will do now. So, here it is, drawn…
model – Kneely
Based on Lakshmi, Goddess of wealth and prosperity.
stuck on designing mode
I’m back to looking through photos, trying to find something to inspire a new painting idea. I’ve been looking through Kneely’s sets, and am leaning toward one of two designs. One is loosely based on Hindu Goddesses (multi-arms) and will take some time to design completely. The other (and more likely at the moment), is a vampire theme I worked on 6-8 months ago. I’m still uncertain of its overall design, so it’s not ready yet.
Tomorrow I’ll look again with fresh eyes and see where it takes me.
