waltervan00

For those who love to see the process taken in artworks.

The image had been an entry for an art contest named 'Lord of the Garden' of which the prompt is of the title.
I had thought of doing a chef, a travelling chef to be more exact.
    
I chose idea number 11 on the second sheet from a selection including pirates designs, travelling merchants, herbalists, arctic hunters and sea men with modern day clothes. (There are close runner-up's: I just wanted to do something involving an island)



Developing the idea more, which I found incredibly enjoyable. I was looking on Pinterest for bags and ideas for what she would be prepared with. Admittedly, I wished I stayed more in this step because when I was painting, I had problems selecting which colours for her design. The shot I had chosen for the final illustration didn't showcase much of her equipment too, which I would have taken in account if I'd put more attention in them.


Dylanpierpont's post showed me the value in these thumbnail plans. I did a couple and setting on this one because it was dynamic with the large diagonal and the light value framing of the charater. In hindsight, there were other much more interesting thumbs to use. (And more conceptual ones!) Guess that's to be utilized next time.



      Left: sketch         Right: colour profile


Not much to comment on with these ones. Except that the colour decisions could be made easier if I had figured out the character's colours prior to the colouring.

On painting, I've hit many road-blocks, of which is mostly caused by not studying my references enough before making my move. Reckless I was in attacking the painting.

The lesson for me in the making of this piece:    Lord of Her Garden
Like chess, careful planning and setups are to be meticulously sorted out (including observations of references). And every ounce of work put in must have an intention borne within.

What needs work? Anatomy, values, colours, technically all skills in art is a must!

To post or not to post? That is the really question here.
Of course the obvious answer should be yes. The only thing holding me back is the fact that I still suffer from a bit of cowardice from my last attempt to post a webcomic.  Although, after I gave up on it, I felt the urge to do this a year following...

I was under the crazy pressure to do an 'episode' a week, which is comparable to the chore Mangaka go through. So I got thinking, to what schedule to I post? I was thinking one page every two weeks or something, but that'll equate to two pages a month and that's not great for progression... for you guys at least; I will be needing tons of time to gather some pre-production stuff because once that first page goes, I'm under the pressure!

Well, if you got advice or some idea on how I should be scheduling things then feel free to dunk a comment. I think I'll get myself the courage to start uploading sometime soon.

Disclaimer: these sort of things tend to be a mouse-scroller.

Oh. Hello!
Recently, I've decided to post these long journals that aim to cover my progress and processes taken in my artwork posts. To be fair, the only reason I do this is to, really, explore what to do next (as well as be a little laughing stock when I get older). Maybe some may find this helpful, although I wouldn't expect it because I've only, so far, been drawing for two years.

One of the craziest things about drawing is flow and movement. You see it happen everywhere and I hope to capture the 'essences'. In all honesty, this is it... I'll be doing much more as time passes. I was attempting to create a pose linked directly to a particular line-of-action and story. Although I may have missed conveying the message across, I did do my best and carried on.

The image down here shows the thumb-nailing process I took. It may seem to some that I should really be putting more effort in this (and I tell myself sometimes to create more), but I don't like to stay pigeon-held in one artwork piece too long. Many of the times I make something, it takes about five days to a week due to my skill level so I don't want to exhaust much energy and focus here.


1. Very basic colour blocking for the background


2. Character's in

I have done the character on a single layer because I find that it really feels organic. If you are in for how I approached it, I first figured out the gesture with simple, smooth, curvy lines and punch the gesture with movement. Then, I applied basic building blocks and forms to 'flesh out' the character. Blocked in the colour and shading and went about the slow process of rendering and pushing around hues.

3. Background details

This is where my Hercules heel kicks in...(I don't use references) uhhh.   


4. Final touches

Added a little colour balancing (for awesomeness) and a multiply layer to fix the values.

Personal opinions: I love how the colours ended up. I mainly used the red-cyan complimentary theme for this piece and little accents to add a twist, although, now that I realized, the light behind the character is completely ignored.   The pose of this fella appears to work-ish. Not sure about you... (He has that Sonic feel with the shoes.)

Plans: I want to try something technical and perspective-heavy. Perhaps aiming towards some still cityscape or a scene in the city. Maybe a mech.

Final piece.

We all have those pieces that we wished we'd never started in the first place. Those that, in retrospect, absolutely suck, and those that inflict the pain during its creation. Well, here's one of them, depressive thoughts.
Please note: these tend to be a mouse-scroller.

I wish I could call this thumb-nailing.Well, during that time, I did feel like I was doing something; I felt as if I was finding out the options of what this piece could become, which is the essential point of it, right?

Rough sketch in. In all honesty, I thought that this was promising. After bashing my head around what to actually draw and thumbnails, I said, 'yeah. This is pretty promising.'



Soon upon I had the idea to plunge into the details. Now I know that it was a BAD mistake. I thought: 'you know what, it's about time you did something with great, intricate details Walter! Time to test your Sherlock Holme's eye.'


This was when I realized that I messed up. The going was slow, frustrating and tiring. I also had attended a livestream by WestlyLaFeur and brought up my problem. He highlighted it kindly, saying something like that I drowned into the OCDness of detailing (don't quote him for that).


Value painting just to figure out the forms. (oh don't mind the intended dragon-riding pirate figure)
I used a gradient map to not only make it look pretty for the time being, but it also helped my identify the subtle value shifts better.


Colour layer. That shift from greyscale to colour is annoying sometimes. This was where the pain stemmed as I threw all I ever did beforehand as a foundation just to use a normal layer and paint over EVERYTHING...  Which is right below.
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This is the final product: sketchy, rough, unfinished, ain't it?
Yeah. I've lately not been thinking much about this, ain't expecting much. I'm leaving it as it is. I got to do other stuff, really. This is, I feel, as far as I can go, mentally. Gee, I should step down a bit and start simpler -- this no line style is messing with me. (FYI, just to see the magnitude of how much I gave up, check out that sweet brown hair that fella has.)

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