Underpainting
Now I finished the “underpainting” process by putting basic tones on top of the characters. You can do this any way you like – I enjoy using the Noise>Median filter on my original sketch, to gently blur out the details. Here’s what that layer looks like on its own:
Then on a separate layer I roughly painted in dark and light tones, so that I ended up with a rough guide for the figures. At this point in the process, I’ll often put rough colors for the main characters too. But here, I made a decision to do a very monochromatic, or “one color” painting. There’ll be a few colors, actually, but all in the yellow or red/orange area.
Next is a little step I like to do. Everyone is different of course, and this is really the part of the process where we’ll all diverge greatly. At this point, I flatten the layers and take my picture into Painter and use the “grainy water” tool to smudge the painting around and get an effect very much as if I’d moved Oil paints around on a canvas.
I think this gets a nice artistic effect, and also lets me experiment with losing details into the shadows (something I love to do). By thinking more about forms and shapes, and less about lines, we create more of a Painting, and less of a “colored drawing”.
Early Success – paint the face
Here is another little thing I do that some artists might not… Very early on, I like to do the most important detail that I can, which is generally the face of the main character. By doing this right away, I give myself a feeling of success, and give the rest of the painting something to “live up to”, so to speak. If I can really bring one difficult part of the picture to life, then I’m more likely to have the inspiration to keep going through to the end with vigor!
Here, I started by adding in a bit of a pinker skin color, at about 50%) then began working on the details. This is a very important screen shot – notice that I’m working on a large window, while viewing a smaller view of the picture to the right. That’s a GREAT feature in PhotoShop! By seeing the picture both large and small at the same time, you get an overview of how it will look at the final size, while still being able to work on small details.
Also, I’ve got my reference photo on screen, at the bottom right. It helps to keep the reference as close as you can, so you don’t have to move your eyes around and refocus each time you look at it. In fact, if you have a reference photograph or magazine clipping – something on paper – consider scanning it so it can be on-screen with you like this. It’s much easier on they eyes than constantly referring to a piece of paper.
Once the “centerpiece” of the picture is in good shape (not totally finished, but on its way,) I’ll move on to the rest of the rendering.
