Tauriel
Thranduil
So I decided to paint Tauriel and Thranduil to get hyped for the new Hobbit movie. I've never painted a person before, and I don't usually draw people, so this took me a while to complete.
I painted Tauriel with the oil brushes first and then later went in with the impasto brushes. At the end I went over the whole thing with the clear varnish brush to get the paint strokes to look more flowing and natural. I found it very difficult to use the wet mediums. It never seemed natural and the blending was very difficult. Because of those reasons I decided to keep the line work and make this one more illustrative. I'm not really happy with the result, but I gained some experience in drawing faces.
I started drawing Thranduil in dry mediums, and after about an hour or two I got used to the program and it felt natural. I started with the 2B pencil for the line sketches and then used the Real Soft Pastel and that's about it. I didn't want to use the blender tools, because I liked how the rough canvas texture looked. I'm really happy with the result of this. It still has some improvements that could be made, but I'm going to leave it for now.
I really love the canvas texture you used for your Thranduil piece. It looks like it worked really well with the medium and I can tell you got a firm grasp on using the dry media. The Tauriel painting looks a little off to me and I think that's actually because you kept the linework on there. The oil and impasto brushes create a very textured, almost 3D effect, and the linework flattens it out along the edges, so it's kind of confusing to look at. I feel like even if you struggled with the wet media, even just keeping it a looser painting without the linework would have been interesting to see.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy both of these! Your use of brushes and layering really show within both of these. Although I enjoy both of them, my favorite one has to be Thranduil, the rough canvas textures look amazing on this painting and seeing the process shots is nice to look at!
ReplyDeleteFor someone who doesn't usually draw people, you did a really solid job. I totally hear you out on wet mediums (ran into the same problem) but by the looks of your portrait you're definitely getting there. You're nailing it on your Thranduil portrait. Nice work!
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy how the Thranduil one looks, and leaving the canvas texture apparent was a really good choice. As for the Tauriel one, I think you could really take it somewhere nice with a few adjustments. Making the linework less opaque and maybe removing some of the impasto texture would help clear up her features, as I think the impsato ages her face, like wrinkles. Overall these are very good, especially because I know how little you've ever drawn people.
ReplyDeleteThese are rad! You've definitely captured their likenesses. There's something about the middle Thranduil image that I really like with the flesh sitting on this field of gold that got lost when the more subdued background was placed in. In both the finals the pieces seem a bit more muted and I think a few vibrant touches at key points could really make them pop a bit more. Super cool though dude. 👍👍👍👍
ReplyDeleteThere are some really nice things going on with the way that you're using shadow / lighting in the Thranduil piece - I think this one is a bit more successful because you're really able to get the depth in his cheekbones / around his hair and even the lighting on his hair. One thing you could do to make it even more cohesive is to add a third color in his crown - maybe to transition the light red to the dark red. Maybe it even has a bit of reflective light coming from another area of the environment. I think you could achieve this with an overlay, or a "color" layer, that is turned to a more transparent opacity, just to give a tiny bit more color variation -- the same way you have it going on in his face! I think that the dry media was a good choice and I think that if you were able to use some of the textural elements of the wet media in the same kind of way in the Tauriel piece that would be nice. In that one, eliminating a bit of the harsh outlining of his hair, or maybe transitioning the color that defines the lines in his facial features to something a bit more soft, that would make those transitions a bit easier. Just something a little less dark, maybe. I think that for not doing portraits, this is a really nice step. I think that dry media is definitely a great one for you to work with and I'd continue to use it!! I really like how that one turned out!
ReplyDeleteHell Yeah. I love that texture on the dry media portrait. I think in terms of color, you could try using a little more variation in undertones of the skin. White skin is soooo difficult to paint. Ugh. In POC, it's a little bit easier to see the different jewel or warm tones underneath the skin, but with white skin it's kind of all the same and difficult to find variation. Maybe when you start off with your palette of colors you can have a bank of warm and cool versions of the main skin tone. Adding small areas of neutral greenish or bluish colors can sometimes make the rest of the skin appear brighter.
ReplyDeletewell first thing i love the modeling and the build up of paint on tauriels face. it really pushes the lit side of her face forward and let letting the shadowed side recede. i wish i was in a few other places.
ReplyDeletei love the texture on thandruals painting i really feels like it was made on a canvas
I can see a bit of your struggle with drawing people in the first piece but I want to say for having never drawn people before, you did phenomenally well on your second piece. I think this can in part be owed to the way you owned the materials more in the latter- the first feels a bit more like a hodgepodge of digital and actual impasto so it seems somewhat off (and in part of her forehead the paper shows through some of the skintone, having a discoloring effect)
ReplyDeleteBut by the second you really turned those issues around. It was a really smart idea leaving the blender alone because the dry medium really worked well with the canvas you chose- the materials are more consistent and more convincing. On top of that he appears much more defined with the shadows and the more directional strokes you took with the brush. It's really cool to see such a noticeable improvement between two back to back pieces and it shows you picked up on a lot as you went. Well done!