Tutorials
The Doubtful Inquisitor
- Details
- Category: Wednesday Tutorial
- Published on Tuesday, 31 March 2009 23:06
- Written by Chenthooran N
- Hits: 3136
In today's tutorial i'm going to go through my painting process for creating The Doubtful Inquisitor. I work exclusively with Corel Painter so this article and future articles may also function as Painter tutorials. Now onto the actual thing.
First up is the list of brushes I like to use:
| Pencils>Cover Pencil |
size 1.6 |
| Erasers>Eraser |
size varies throughout |
| Artist's Oils> Wet Oily Brush | size varies |
| Artist's Oils> Grainy Blender | size varies |
| Artists>Impressionist |
size varies |
| Tinting>Basic Round |
size varies |
I use the pencil for most sketch work, tinitng for blocking in or experimenting with colour then move onto the wet oily brush for actual painting.
Stage 0
Research is always valuable and I'm not just talking about a google image search. Read up on your subject, if you're working on a character concept find out about the time period, about the clothing, the societies, their beliefs etc. Beyond the obvious reference gathering for the look of the character you'll also find little bits of info which can act as inspiration or influence your design in some small way. It all comes together for a more interesting, developed and believable character. Besides the more you know about anything the better an artist you will be, you'll find that many professional artists know about anatomy, evolution, psychology, history, geology, technology, engineering etc.
Stage 1
The next stage is pretty fun as you don't have to worry about render quality. I selected the cover pencil and just started moving my hand, barely thinking to begin with. Sketching often takes many hours and many pages, this is to ensure you decide upon the right concept and don't rush it. An hour in I started sketching seriously, exploring designs and utilising my research. Initial sketches can be done in many ways, the standard is to create black and white thumbnails. This time I prefered to draw as much as I felt comfortable with before moving onto the next design/idea. For this image I wanted a strong central character so I opted for a pose that has little interaction with any other elements. These are some of my initial sketches.
Stage 2
I'd decided on a pose and an initial design, I used the wet oily brush to flesh it out a little with some basic colours on a multiply layer.
Stage 3
Onto the background, I decided early on not to use an actual setting. This was for a few reasons, 1) personal preference of abstract colours, textures and simulating real paint 2) because the character was the sole focus of the piece and 3) because of the torture victim backround I already had around his upper half. I picked a brown/orange colour as I felt this went well with the reds and tans of the character. Next I selected the gessoed canvas from the paper selector and started lightly going over the whole page with a large chalke brush to get the woven canvas look. Then it was just a matter of experimenting with different imported textures, brushes, layer types and opacities until I achieved the look I'm after. The process of making the background took a lot longer than it should have done as I had gotten caught up in just playing with the paint.
Stage 4
Pasted the character onto the background image. For some reason it looked off to me so I flipped the character horizontally. I also had to change his weapon holding arm as the physics were just weird, the new pose is a lot more natural. I blocked in the base colours over the linework and picked a lightsource (the yellowish cone). With the lightsource determined I could start to add in shadows on multiply layers and add lights on screen and overlay layers. I'd started working on his face as that would be a focal point on the image. Focal points should be especially well rendered as people will spend time looking there (obvious i know :P), it also serves to emphasise the area further. I was still using the artists oils brush set, the grainy blender is useful for blending in a way that still retains texture, but it should still be used with care as any blender can be overused to bad effect.
Stage 5
I'd walked away from the image for a few hours and going back I noticed a few things that need changing, primarily that the torture victims were really unnecessary. I was feeling ready to paint again so I continued with the task of rendering, I kept building up the shadows as the image looked too flat and the composition was suffering. I'd also changed his expression to one that looked more doubtful.
Stage 6
Changed the arm, I noticed a little late that his arm was looking too short so I cut up the image and rearranged as needed. This was one of those times I was glad I kept everything on separate layers. It's a good habit to keep if you're machine can handle it, my layers usually get into the hundreds. You can reach a good compromise by grouping certain layers and collapsing them. The rendering part was complete, I wouldn't have much more actual painting to do.
Stage 7
Now for some effects, first up was to get rid of this washed out look, it was really making the whole pic kinda dull. During the earlier painting stages I had messed about with effects and found a particularly pleasing colour palette so I got to work recreating it through the tonal controls particluarly saturation, contrast and reducing the amount of blue in the pic. The tonal control can be found under the effects drop down menu at the top. I used both correct colours and adjust colours. I also applied lighting (under surface control). It can be modified through its many sliders and thumbnail interface to create any lighting effect you want. In this case I added a soft orange light to the upper left corner. The image looked finished to me so I called it.