Speeding into '17

Happy New Year!  Hopefully.  And with the New Year comes the inevitable New Year resolutions.  One of mine?  Blog more, as I've been terrible at it over the last 12 months (you may have noticed).  'Blog more' is a bit vague though, so perhaps 'Blog at least once a month' works better.  Other ones are 'draw more' and 'draw/paint worse' (I'll explain that one in a future post, but it boils down to me doing more quick experimentation to improve, without always worrying about the end result as much, so it's more enjoyable).

So, here I am blogging, with actual art, for the first time since July.  Ugh, that's terrible!  Some of the upcoming posts might be about things I did a year or more ago, because I didn't mention them at the time, and in some cases I'd almost entirely forgotten about them until I stumbled across them on Facebook (or whatever).  Since the blog is as much for my memory as for your (possible) pleasure, I should probably write a post covering them.  This is not that post - this is a speedpaint post.

Time Taken: 90 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: http://tinyurl.com/hz6bfhv

With 5 Months since I last posted a speedpaint you'd think I would have a great many to post to catch up - well, I have enough that I don't want to write much about all of them, so I'm not going to.  This one doesn't have a step by step or anything, so take it as you will.

Time Taken: 40 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: Nothing

I did this while messing about with Photoshop's new(ish) Mixer Brush, which I hadn't tried before.  The guy on the right came from just sort of scribbling, and finding a face in the result, while the guy on the left was more planned, but only a little so.

Time Taken: 140 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: Jesús "Chuy" Alanis of Circulos de Nada

I got to meet Chuy, and most of the rest of the band Circulos de Nada, on my trip to Mexico. They invited me to attend one of their rehearsals, and this is based on some of the shots I took there.



I recorded me painting it here, but the capture crashed after an hour and I didn't notice until I was done. So that was annoying; Still worth a watch if you're interested though.  The music is by the band, if you were wondering and didn't watch to the end.

Time Taken: 150 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on - Bit of this - Model Stefania Ferrario

Not terribly keen on this one, though I think the hair came out pretty well.  I was trying to do something with more vibrant colour than my usual, and also something a little 80's feeling.  Mixed results.

I think I actually preferred it before I added the round frame around her head actually...

Time Taken: 145 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: See video

Personally I like this one a lot, but it seems to have passed by unremarked upon in most places I've posted it.  No accounting for taste I guess.  Anyway, I like it, so there.



Not a lot to say about the process - really happy how her hair came out, despite it not being remotely realistic, and done so rapidly.

Time Taken: 225 Minutes + 170 Minutes + 190 Minutes
Software: ArtRage 4 and Photoshop
Based on: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing

A sort of sequel to last year's halloween triptych.  That one was of  Horror icons of the 30's, while this one is the late 50's early 60's, and yeah, it was done in October.

None of the three is pulled from a single photograph, and Price is sort of a 'generic creepy Price' from the era, rather than a specific character (Lee is Dracula, and Cushing is Victor Frankenstein).  Price was also the most difficult, as there are surprisingly few high quality colour images of him online from that era (Except from Fall of the House of Usher, which in retrospect I should have gone with, but then he lacked the beard I personally associate with him - painting for another day I guess).

All the painting was done in ArtRage, with a little postwork in Photoshop to get the grain and such.

Time Taken: 90 Minutes
Software: ArtRage (Minor post work in Photoshop)

Usually I don't remember my dreams, but on this occasion I did, or at least this weird vision of a nurse with red skin.  I was ill and had a fever at the time (this may explain the dream), and decided to paint it.  I'm not terribly happy with the result, but it's not like I can call it inaccurate.



I recorded the painting of it, as I thought it might be interesting one way or another, and it's the first ArtRage recording I've done with my new setup too.  I just did a quick search for a few references and went for it.  I would not be surprised if I revisit this one day.

Time Taken: 90 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: http://tinyurl.com/gpjqhp7

This one was one I 'fixed' at the last minute with judicious use of Photoshop's Liquify tool.

I think he actually looks like a nice enough fellow before I made the proportional changes, but it wasn't capturing the aspects of the original I was trying to, hence the quick fix.  Not a favourite of mine either way though.

Time Taken: 150 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: Very loosely on a photo of model Keiko Inagaki

Faster than a Speeding Bullet

It's all about the speed right now isn't it?  That should be sort of funny, since very few of them are terribly speedy of late.  Still, here I am with another update.  Next post I'll (probably) cover where I've been for the past two months, and for a change there will be photographs, rather than paintings.  Yes, I'll be doing a dull as hell travelogue... sort of.

For now though I'm going to try and catch up on all my speedpaints at once (there aren't that many compared to last years pace), with minimal blathering about them (more because I've forgotten in all the excitement than just laziness, but some laziness too).

Time Taken: 95 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: Various references

I think the fact that it too an hour and a half is far more depressing than that I don't think it's terribly good.  I'm trying to get better at pulling from multiple sources though, and this is the start of that.  I'm still going to work directly from single photos sometimes, because I find it more relaxing, but less direct copying is a goal, and if I don't work on it I'll never improve.

Time Taken: 240 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on:  Well, it's the Man of Steel isn't it?

Speaking of direct copying.    For me Christopher Reeve will always be Superman, with every other actor playing the role just being Actors who play the role.

Hmmm...  Actually, a series of paintings just of people who've played Superman seems appealing.

Yes, that's a timelapse YouTube video for you right there, instead of just an image.  There's another one coming up later too.

Time Taken: 60 Minutes
Software: ArtRage
Based on:
This Photo - http://tinyurl.com/hnxb9rc
From this page - http://tinyurl.com/hlt6qt3

Speed wise, this is a little more like it.  I was working on playing around with some techniques in Art Rage that it's not really used before.  This one was done with a wet, non-self cleaning brush.  Not a worry if you don't know what the means, it mostly means the way I blend and mix the paint, and the way the paint flows is very different from my usual stuff.

 I did a version with a few minutes Post work in Photoshop too - mostly to give it a little soft focus.

And here's the step by step of it.  You can't see here, because I didn't save a shot of it, but I painted her head twice, because the first effort left he looking like she had the moon on a stick instead of a face.  Corrected for it pretty quickly, but it did not go as smoothly as this image makes it seem.

Time Taken: 90 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on (badly): http://tinyurl.com/hvq4tbd - Victorian era star Minnie Ashley

Despite not being a particularly good likeness, I really like this one.  It's another one with post processing, which I should really dial back on (don't want it turning into too much of a crutch), but in some cases it really adds to the final result (other times it doesn't, in which case I don't tend to show the post processed version.

In the step through you can see that I had her eyes further apart until right at the last minute, when I pulled them in a bit.  It wasn't wrong as such (beyond not looking like Ms. Ashley),  but I prefered the look of the closer set eyes.  You can also see that the post processing increased the brightness, and also softened the gradients a bit.

Time Taken: 130 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: Various Pinterest pins - See the end of the video for the most significant.

So the previous image was done almost two months ago, so this one was mostly one to get me back into the swing of things. I've started a couple of pieces (about a month ago), but nothing that got very far due to other distractions, so I needed something relatively simple to work on. This, like the first speedpaint this time, is a combination of a few sources to make something fairly new. I think it turned out better than the previous effort, but it also took longer, so there's that.

Like the Superman painting there's a YouTube video to go with this one, but I'm trying to make them look a little more polished at this point - hence the little logo at the beginning, and the inclusion of the timer and webcam view. Eventually I might do voiceovers on them or something, but one step at a time. The main references used are shown at the end.

A Hot Mess of Speed

The last month has been pretty bad for art.  My art that is, not art in general, which trundles on just the same with or without me.  So far this month I've done a mere two speedpaints; one of which was bad, and the other took 4 hours (so not technically a speedpaint I suppose).  Last month though, last month was pretty good.  Six speedpaints (though two were more sketches than paints), two of which were pretty good in my opinion.  Let's go have a look.

Time Taken: 15 minutes

Software: Photoshop

This is one of the sketches. Not much to say about it other than that - I was testing out a new brush.

Time Taken: 25 minutes

Software: Photoshop

Almost everything is Photoshop now.  I still love ArtRage, but it's unfortunately less easy to use with the Cintiq.  Anyway, this is basically a doodle, of Korean singer Park Choa.  It's not a good likeness.  I'll be painting her again at some point, but this just happened to be visible in Pinterest when I got an urge for a quick paint.

Time Taken: 170 minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: This photograph

This took far too long for what the result is, but the result is pretty good, so I'll take it.  I just wanted to paint a slightly more interesting face, preferably a man with good facial hair - and this guy has epic facial hair.

I find it interesting how much the white hair really adds to this one.  I could have done him with black hair, as the initial thumbnails suggest, but that was never the final intention, and as soon as the grey comes in for the beard it completely changes the feel of the whole thing.  He's like Santa on vacation in Cannes or something.

Time Taken: 75 Minutes

Software: ArtRage

Based on: This photo of the Scottish coast

Still trying to occasionally do some good environment pieces.  They're getting better, but oddly the ArtRage ones always have a very similar look, right down to the colours I use.  

This one was more a study of the water than it was the land, and I learned quite a bit from doing it, so that's something.

Time taken: 170 Minutes

Software: Photoshop

Based on: Personal photo taken in Indianapolis

Another long winded one, but I'm quite happy with the results.  Well, except for the large building in the background - that still looks sloppy to me, but the ground is quite nice.

I created three new brushes for this one - one for the grass and leaves, one for the branches, that I also used for the cracks in the foreground, and one for the fence.  Creating the brushes took a reasonable amount of the overall time.

Time Taken: 90 Minutes

Software: Photoshop

Based on: an old photo I found on my hard drive - I'll try and credit it when I do this properly

This one came about as I wondered if I could use the brush for the fence in the previous one for a whole painting. Not quite, but I do like the colour I ended up with.  One day I'll come back to this one and paint a lot more of her (hopefully looking more like the model so it's worth crediting).  I'll probably keep the colours like this though, which are quite different to the original photograph.

Speeding to Catch Up

I've decided to stop giving reasons as to why posts are few and far between lately, and just post when I can.  Eventually things should calm down enough that I can make them more frequently.  Until then, I have some catching up to do.

To simplify things a bit I'll just post the images of the last three months of speedpaints, and only comment when there's something of particular note.  For the most part the methods used are very similar to previous ones I've posted about. There's quite a few of them (10), so this might be a long one.

January

Time Taken: 85 Minutes
Software: Artrage
Based on: Very loosely, a photo of Bella Thorne (I think)

Did some colour correction at the end when I painted in the balloon.  Also a rare case of me working out the pose structurally, instead of by eye.  I should do that more often.

Time Taken: 140 Minutes
Software: ArtRage
Based on: Nothing specific - Space doodle perspective practice

Time Taken: 65 Minutes

Software: Photoshop

Based on: Nothing in particular, just a doodle.

More colour correction at the last minute.  I've been doing that a lot lately - I should work on getting it right in the first place, but sometimes it can help an otherwise insipid image, especially when it's not fully planned out when started.

Time Taken: 145 Minutes

Software: ArtRage

Based on: Gene Hackman as Harry Caul in The Conversation

February

Time Taken: 15 Minutes

Software: Photoshop

Based on: Nothing, just a quick loose doodle.

Time Taken: 170 Minutes

Software: Photoshop

Based on: Swiss/British/Korean Model/Actress Clara Lee

I kept thinking I would get around to removing the red, but in the end it added something I liked so I left it.  Did a fairly large rejig midway through using Photoshop's transform tool to pull some of her proportions in a little.

Time Taken: 60 Minutes

Software: Photoshop

Based on: Another doodle, some minor reference

Time Taken: 140 minutes

Software: Artrage

Based on: A Photograph (Source Unknown)

Painting rocks is time consuming it turns out. I have no idea where the photo this was based on came from, and Google is not it's usual helpful self.  Looks Eastern European or Russian though.

I did a colour pass on this one too, to get a different feel (more like dusk), but in this case I liked the warmer one more.

March

Time Taken: 20 Minutes

Software: Photoshop

Based on: Nothing, just a pose sketch to get it out of my head.

Time Taken: 135 Minutes

Software: Photoshop

Based on: Small Pinterested image of Christina Ricci

Some heavy modifications on this one.  You may not immediately notice, but between the second and third stage I narrowed her head and arm, and then on the fifth I cut her head out and scaled it up quite a bit.  Actually using some of the power of the tools lately.  Not useful for when I get back to traditional work, but very handy for a digital piece in a hurry.

April isn't over yet, so this months paints will need to wait until next time.