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.

Painting at the Speed of Fail

Clearly I lied in the last post and did not get to writing another, until now.  I should stop trying to predict the future in my posts, because it's shocking how often things I predict don't come to pass.  Or maybe I should predict things I don't want to happen, so there's a lower possibility of them occurring.  Either way, here I am again with another update on some speedpaints, only two months after I actually did them.  Back to December for this round.  For the sake of my schedule though I'll try and keep this one fairly short.  On the other hand though, videos!

Time Taken: 25 Minutes
Software: Photoshop

It's a monster taking a selfie.  What more do you need?

Time Taken: 90 minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: http://fav.me/d4q8kuy from randomactscreative.com

Loved the lighting and colour on the original reference, so I had a go at recreating it.  I also had a go at capturing one of those fancy  timelapse videos, and finally got it working out.  So, no step by step, just a video.  Fun.

So as you can see, I have the original image open on the left while I paint on the right.  I used to have the reference open on my right monitor while I painted on the left one, but since I've started working with a Cintiq having a reference on my other monitor is only good for the occasional glance, so this works out better.

I have the images set to the same resolution, which means I can zoom in and then scale the other one to match with a keyboard shortcut.  You'll see my cursor appearing over the original image fairly regularly, especially at the start - this isn't me colour sampling it (I didn't sample any colours from the original here), but rather how I measure it.  Hover over a point, and then flick my hand to a second point.  Do that a couple of times and then use the muscle memory to do the same on the other window, but this time while drawing a stroke.  It's not as accurate as measuring properly, or using a grid, but it is fast and usually close enough.

If it's worth me doing more of these (there's another one along in a minute), let me know in the comments (you may need to brush aside some cobwebs down there).

Time Taken: 90 Minutes
Software: Photoshop

Not a finished piece by any means, but what I'm hoping to do more of from now on.  A piece from which I could develop something more finished from should I want to.  It's not really based on anything specific, though the pose is similar to one I saw on Pinterest.  Mostly I was just interested in blending some Medieval looks with some sci-fi tech.

I don't love the piece, but I quite like the outfit for the most part (not sure about the stomach region though, but it's better than just showing a midriff I suppose).

Time Taken: 190 Minutes
Software: Photoshop
Based on: A photo I took in St. Petersburg

Part of my Designated Area series, this is from where I had to stand outside the hotel if I wanted a smoke.  There were more people around in the original, but I left them out to save time.

Due to jetlag I was outside at some fairly strange times of day.  Twice while I was out there I encountered a young woman seemingly taking her horse for a walk.  She offered to let me ride it for a fairly small price.  I'm not sure this would have been pleasant for the horse - I'm a pretty big guy, and it was a fairly small horse - so I declined.  The young woman did not seem terribly impressed by that.  I was mostly impressed that she started off speaking English, but I suppose there's a reasonable chance a tired looking white guy standing outside a St. Petersburg hotel at 4am is a jetlagged visitor who speaks at least some English.

Time Taken: 130 Minutes
Software: ArtRage
Based On: A photo of our Foster Dog, Molly

We fostered a dog for a week after Christmas.  She ended up going to a new forever family after that, because right now we don't have time to introduce a dog into our lives full time (I can barely find time to write blog posts!).  Anyway, if it wasn't for our schedules we might have taken her ourselves because she was the most ridiculously well behaved Dog I've even met.  OK, enough about Molly, here's another video, this time from Artrage.

As you can see, I use a quite similar setup in ArtRage as I do in Photoshop.  Ref to the left, paint to the right.  The main difference is that I can't easily scale the ref to match the canvas size (I left the bit where I try and get them close at the beginning out of the video).  There are a couple of jumps here and there - that's where my recording ran out and I didn't notice to start it up again for a minute or so.  You'll note I moved one of here eyes at one point - I like to avoid doing that, but I quite liked how the eye looked, and didn't want to repaint it.  I think this one is recorded at a more frequent rate than the previous one, so you're seeing it at a slower speed.

And that's it for today!  No promises, but I'll try to be back before the end of the month so I'm only posting paints after a maximum of a month, rather than two (ugh, I can barely remember painting half of these ;))

Fumbling the Speed Ball

It's been a while!  Over a month since I last posted I think, which means I never posted the Speedpaints for October during November.  This is not caused so much by laziness on my part (though as ever, it's a contributing factor), so much as I usually post on weekends, and the weekends were full.  Obviously Thanksgiving was in there, but also two weekends of travel (to St. Petersburg) - the most arduous trip I've ever been on in terms of actual travel, but the most surprisingly pleasant time once I got there.  Not the best trip I've ever had, but perhaps the one I'd most want to repeat, if I could do it without the jetlag.

So that's three weekends accounted for, and I can't honestly remember why I didn't post on the other ones.  Some form of busy or other, I'm sure.

So, since the following were mostly quite some time ago I'll write what I can, but it might not be much.

Time Taken: 110 Minutes
Software: Artrage
Based on: Photo from the '60s of model Linda Morand.

I didn't want to do a direct copy for this one, feeling I need to be less afraid of stronger stylisation when called for.  This was the result.

I don't like it much.  I think it could have worked well if I'd spent a lot more time on it though (clearly stylising things takes a lot longer as my brain is doing things it's not used to doing while painting, or something).

Time Taken: 150 Minutes
Software: Photoshop

This one was sort of fun actually.  I didn't have a vision for it to begin with, I was just doodling and one of the doodles led to this.  Might lead to a more complete painting one day, but I just wanted to see how well I could translate the sketch into something more dimensional in a fairly short timeframe.

The sketch in the top left was done independently of the rest of the picture.  I just stamped it into a pleasing compositional place and started sketching around it.

Time Taken: 20 Minutes
Software: Photoshop

Just mucking about with some colour choices and brushes.  I don't even remember which picture I based it on.

Time Taken: 120, 175 & 110 Minutes
Software: Artrage & Photoshop
Based on: Boris Karloff as the Monster, Elsa Lanchester as The Monster's Mate (AKA The Bride of Frankenstein), Bela Lugosi as Dracula

So, it should be fairly evident that I painted this one for Halloween, except it's three separate speedpaints that happen to fit together.  The Triptych format was always intentional, with my coming up with the background before I painted any of them.  What wasn't so certain was what I was going to paint.  I wanted the classic Universal Monsters (hence the era appropriate Deco style background, created in Photoshop), but didn't decide on which ones, or which shots to base them on until I started each of them.

The Monster was first, and is probably the roughest of the three.  I din't use a grid of any kind for this one, relying instead on the pattern itself and measurements to get things in the right place.  It's taken from two separate photos of the monster (all three are taken from at least two photos), to give a relatively unique image.  Other than the background everything other than the final image is done in ArtRage, with Photoshop used in that last stage to give a little bloom, noise and subtle colour to the image.

Dracula came next, and the process was very similar to that of The Monster, except this time I used a crosshair grid to aid in getting the likeness.  I was actually happy with how quickly that aspect came together: the third image here is recognisable already, and the likeness actually takes a brief step backwards in the 4th.

Finally, The Bride.  I have to admit to never having actually seen Bride of Frankenstein, and despite her place in pop culture it was only while looking for references for this picture that I realised how damn striking Elsa Lanchester actually was; attractive in a quirky way that puts me in mind of Jennifer Tilly or Debi Mazar.  Anyway, I was originally going to do Karloff again as the Mummy, but quickly changed my mind when I realised the Bride's hair would be infinitely more interesting to paint.  For this one I used a 4x4 grid, and based it on three images.  I think it came together fairly well.

Time Taken: 65 Minutes
Software: Photoshop

Another piece that's mostly just my playing around with various brushes.  The picture is based on two thumbnails sitting next to each other on Pinterest: a man in a Parka, and a striking looking woman.

I don't claim it's terribly good, but there might be something worth revisiting at some point.  I think I actually preferred it in the early stages, when the palette was more muted.

That's all for now.  This only covers October.  There is another post with November's paints to come.  I haven't actually done a single speedpaint so far this month (I was away, but also working on a book cover), but there are still a couple of weeks left to rectify that.  November had 3 though (or 4, depending on how you count it), so I'll cover those soon.