Coloring a black and white drawing...

... is fucking hard!

I tried too color my drawing from yesterday, but I just can't color skin at fucking all.
I bought ctrlpaint.com tutorial on the subject and it's great (yes I actually buy some stuff from time to time - shut up!), but I still can't draw skin. It feels like either I start out painting with colors from the get go or let things stay in black and white.

Nothing to see here...

Just a quick scribble, no details... but entirely a product of my own fucked up brain and state of mind. I wanted to first draw a hand squishing an eyeball, but went with this instead... while drawing this I thought about drawing the other eye and have a finger covering the entire pupil, but maybe tomorrow. Also I could go further with the hand acting as eyelids..."should've would've could've"

The gif.

Long time no see (pun intended)

I’ve been away for a couple of weeks now and fml etc. [short rant warning]

I got some shitty autoimmune disease that likes to scar my cornea from time to time, the last 12 years I’ve had a big scar on my right cornea which blurs everything on the right eye, but my left eye was okay, so it didn’t affect my vision per se (the brain works in mysterious ways I’m telling you!).
Anywho a couple of weeks ago, I got a little scar on the left eye as well, it’s not as bad as the one on my right, but enough to blur my overall sight, facial details blur together after a couple of meters and I’m squinting when reading and writing, I can still do both luckily… but to put it gently - it fucking sucks.

The 1/10-12 I’m going to see a specialist team here and they will decide on whether or not I can get a cornea transplant, but what I’ve been told by my own eye doctor the chances aren’t good.

As one might imagine this shit kinda puts a damper on things, everything not only drawing.

So naturally I’ve been playing Diablo 3 and not drawing at all.
I’ve been focusing on limitations and all the shit that could happen and bla bla bla “what use is learning to draw if you will lose your sight at some point?” etc.
The way I work is very “all or nothing” everything is on a scale, like this drawing business, while I was doing that it was the only thing I was doing - literally.

So what do you do?

You apparently talk… and after that you finish a depressed drawing.

It’s a portrait of Jens Pulver which I didn’t get to finish before this shit, but managed to put the last touches on it yesterday as the first thing I’ve worked on for weeks.

I guess you could say I got a bit angry with everything, but if for nothing else that shit can be turned into fuel at least.

I didn’t want to bother with details or doing anything slow and meticulous, I just needed to draw/paint some fucking anger and frustration.

It should be Ed Harris, but I didn’t really care I just wanted to blow off some steam, I won’t be adding details or anything, it is what it is… a fucking fist in the table, fuck the rest.

------

The process gif's

Still very uncertain about everything, but I do remember my ol' favorite quote.

- Kurgan: I got something to say! It's better to burn out than fade away!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-bOKsOveYD0

Digital painting continued… ”pratice is pratice”

Not really keen on drawing portraits that much, but it can still be fun from time to time and even if I don’t think I get much out of it, there is prolly still tons of hidden shizzle I pick up without giving it a single thought, practice is practice and it can never be time wasted imho!
It’s a slow process though, digitally painting takes an absurd amount of time, that’s prolly in part related too my lack of knowdelegde about the media and base drawing ability, but that’s life :)

I started out with a Russel Crowe portrait (reference from Gladiator). I wanted to try and just block in the rough values and not depend on lines to much, dunno if I prefer that approach over a line sketch start, maybe it’s easier in a way since you don’t overly commit to anyway in the start, so it gives you a bit of freedom, but ofc too much freedom can be an issue when you’re not really sure of yourself ;)
The ear was a really big obstacle for me and I couldn’t really break that code, also the nose got a bit too wide I think and I didn’t really capture his line of sight or what you would call it, so in the end it turned into a portrait more of Walter Matthau than Russel Crowe - haha :P

Then I’ve been working on a portrait of my favorite female model Ariel. I wanted to try out some coloring, but the whole grayscale to color process is still very strange to me and when I try it looks like she lived on a diet of nothing but carrots or tomatoes, so didn’t really go full out on an attempt yet, instead I just worked on painting and rendering the drawing further along. This is still very much a work in progress, her hair (WHICH IS FUCKING ANNOYING – WHY ON EARTH DOES HAIR EXCIST?!?!) and clothing specially are just started on, I would like to pain the whole pose with a full body, but the time that would require… ehh yikes :S

Kinda annoying when you really just wanna cut out all the rest and just have the small thumbnail version -.-

Also I can't get the fucking cheekbone to work AT ALL, so been thinking about just changing her haircut, to something like below... lazy much? hahaha

And then a quick little texture effect just for the giggles – yay for being easily entertained :) (texture is from the hubble telescope - I so need to do my own enviro study of that shizzle!!!!)

 Have a good weekend :)

The more you learn the less you know.

Feels like I had a slow week, didn’t get a lot out of my spare time - being busy sucks!
It takes nothing for me too loose focus, if I got too many appointments, social engagements etc. I can’t seem to zone in when needed, even when I know it’s all about taking the first step and just start.

Nonetheless I did manage to start something “new”, I’ve been busy with Stephen Kings – The Dark Tower series (read it!) and I always wanted to try drawing out Roland Deschain of Gilead. Being too intimidated too start out on such a task from zero I looked up some old Eastwood movies, Man with no name series and Unforgiving for some reference.  God I fucking love that Man with no name series (or Dollars trilogy w/e), Sergio Leone what a focking boss -they don’t make movies like that anymore…

And then… the pictures, I wanted to try “painting” in Photoshop again… anything to avoid drawing crisp lines with the tablet!!!
I made some gif’s of the process, dunno if they serve any purpose - but I think the process itself is interesting, I at least like to see how other people got to their finished… uhm… work? Dunno the word :)

Not sure I’m doing this the most effective way, ofc you could argue talking about effective routes and work processes doesn’t really matter as long as it works for you. Still the way I’m doing these is pretty much finishing 98% with one area at the time and then move on, I think maybe I should try fill out the rough shape and then render it down and do details on the whole thing together, but maybe that’s biting off more than I can chew ><
In the end I added some quick textures and tuned the colors etc. – totally an attempt to disguise my mistakes haha or not, but whatever! :P
On the second one - the profile - I tried to add a bit more scars and stuff for a bit more weathered look.

As so many times before I went from one thing to another, not sure how I ended up with Mila Kunis, but think I just stumbled over a picture in my reference pile (Book of Eli).
Holy duck, this was a slightly bigger project, but for once I thought I would start with the worst first, so yeah… face time.

As you can see when you make gif’s of the work process, you suddenly discover your “oopsies” here I at some point dragged her hair flowing down over her forehead a bit back by mistake… fucking layers man! But ofc I didn’t notice my mistake before now and I already layed down shadows… what a bunch of bullshit Tue! Excuses, excuses but ugh… come on ><

I didn’t have much time to  continue my old project from last week, only got to finish up one more addition not sure if it’s Bub or Bob, but the green fella from Bubble Bobble getting it on with a koopa shell – don’t ask. Anyway, no reason to post the whole thing just for one little addition, so here’s just a small pic of the “scene”.