Male portrait

yeah! just revisited some of your images in the old thread. The line work is startig to look more confident and accurate. Still doesn't seem to be much thickness variation in you line work(!) if you haven't tried it - try setting both opacity AND size jitter to pen pressure.

-no cookie for me, no idea who the dude is :(

Oh as i said that linework is simply rough guidlines, as you can see in this WIP ive got that layer turned off. Im using them less and less as time goes by. The ear is one of the most refined sections here.

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/MoonUnit/200672453526_shavo1WIP2…]

cookie still up for grabs then, heres a hint: know your alt rock.

That ear is looking sweet, your definetly putting to good use the new techniques you learned.

thanks man :) ive no doubt with everything else going on this projet will take a while but im seeing this one through thats for sure

And allthough i rarely have time to work on it, im sticking by that :P

An updated WIP shot:

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/MoonUnit/20068135427_shavo1WIP3…]

He's looking very airbrushed at the moment because i havent really gone ahead and added the wrinkles and spots and heavy detail that makes him look a lot more...real. The only really "completed" segment remains the ear though every segment of the face has atleast been touched and worked upon to some degree now which is great. Its just a matter of working on every corner untill it satisfies me i suppose.

Now since no one guessed it the cookie remains mine! But id like people to see the photo im referencing this from for more advanced criticism so you can find it here: http://www.soadfans.com/index.php?module=PhotoGallery&do=showpic&pid=24…

Its the bassist Shavo Odadjian from the band Sstem of a Down. Aye i like em, though im aware not everyone will. I just chose him because i thought he had an interesting face rather then doing stock standard short haired male life drawing model kind of character. Plus theres a certain different ellement to it when its a "celebrity" portrait, your capturing an ellement of character aswell.

Comments and crit as allways, appreciated.

maybe it's just me, but that's starting to look like vin diesel.... maybe I'm losing my mind though.

its the baldness

Aye people have been saying that (outside these forums). Once ive got the details and especially the beard im hoping itll be a lot more...shavo

quote:Originally posted by Neffy

its the baldness
no, it's the eyes.

comming along nicely. Something that i have recentily being doing (your not the only one that has been practicing heads with the tablet) is changing the colour of the background to mid/light gray and painting on a dark tone for the hair near that start of the process. I found that it was impossible to judge tone correctily otherwise. I bet when you add the beard you find that the shadow under his chin doesn't look dark enough anymore!

You know your probably right about that, especially when you look at the source photo. When you say "painting on a dark tone for the hair near that start of the process" Do you mean when blocking out the colour starting with a darker colour or what exactly.

Since i am going to tackle the beard next id appreciate any tips for painting hair

yes, at the stage of choosing and painting the initial base colours/tones of the face I have been putting in base colour(s) for the hair too. I choose a moderately dark colour and work in the super dark shadows and highlights from there ...I'm sure there are good hair tutorials online that would be work a look before taking on Shavo's beard.

Don't forget to add some subtle key feature freckles as a finishing touch! After reading comments on the SOAD site, I think people might find them a notable characteristic for making him look like him ...and not Vin.

Aye i have, im working on making the moles not look kinda random fuzzy circles. They sit on a seperate layer atm (at uni now so i might upload a shot when im at home) so i can manipulate them with brightness/contrast, hue, filters etc.

UPDATE: Heres the promised WIP3.5 update:

[img]http://www.sumea.com.au/forum/attached/MoonUnit/200681583524_shavo1WIP3…]

So not much of an update, just uploaded due to whole make him not look like vin diesel effort :P just adding a bit more fine detail. As i said its been hard to not make the moles look like just random instances of the exact brush dotted about... might redo them :S thoughts?

the moles look okay to me... if you decide to redo them, you could try more variation on size (which I see you have to some extent) and darkness. But I think what you have works fine.

just came across a tutorial on hair and thought of ya Moonunit. I haven't used a custom brush on hair before but looks like it could work well. thinks I will have to give it a go.

http://www.2dartistmag.com/artists/forum_images/free_article.pdf

So yeah its been ages since i visited this thread, uni just wrapped up so its back to work on this damn thing! I actually went to work on the hair before re-vising the thread, seems that URL now points to something else unfortunatly though (painting wounds). Anyway heres my effort:

Im quite happy with the goatee bit on the chin considering i didnt actually study how to paint hair at all and just kinda made it up, but the rest seems sorta lacking. Theres not a lot of tonal variation in some of the "buds" in the photo (heres the link again: http://www.soadfans.com/index.php?module=PhotoGallery&do=showpic&pid=24… ) and its seemingly just kinda hard to do overall. Or am i being too critical (ive certainly got the "just one more brushstroke" fever) or can you offer some tips? thanks for any help.

Oh and the area where the hair meets the flesh i didnt really know how to tackle properly either, what do people think of that?

I dont know how much of the toso im going to tackle, im thinking about doing the collar area and just kinda fading it out, we'll see how it goes.

oh and by the way John, yeah you were right about the shadow under the chin hey :P darkened up the shadows around the ear to match it as wellMoonUnit2006-11-02 20:03:06

yeah, finally! I have been waiting for this :D
I think you could indulge your 'one more brushstroke' fever. with out looking at the ref. photo, I think there should be way more tonal variation in the beard (as you have said, but that includes the top). you could rework it in a new layer, then if you don't like the result it can be binned with out losing the original. The ear looks a little under worked compaired to the other features too - it still has line work describing it's shapes/forms rather than tone. If it were my painting I would rough in a torso down the the bottom of the beard. Keeping it pretty loose as the face wants to be the focus. The base of the beard also isn't quite working, as you have identified. The transition is too sharp, and should be 'hairy'... I think there are tutorial online that cover that detail, I think generally the aim is to do a soft transition of the colours and then blend them together with individual hairs. sorry for low detail description, posting in a few spare lunch minutes. If that doesn't amke sense let me know and i will try to clarify.

looking forward to the next post.

Looking at the ref photo though the beard really dosent have much tonal variation to it, my bit on the chin is an exaguaraion in itself. Im trying to keep some ground with the ref photo just so things stay consistant, yet i know the beard needs improvement obviously.

I think the ear is like it is because its one of the first things i "completed" and this is my first digital painting, itll undoubtedly get tweaked over time but ultimately all factors considered ill probably not stress too much as i recognize ill probably have a much bigger leap upon starting my next piece when i can apply what ive learnt from the beginning.

As i said with the torso ill probably work from the colar down and just see whats important/looks right as it goes.

Now onto important hair talk, i dont really know how to give it the right kind of feel. I drew the lower ones from scratch (that is no colour blocking) using pretty much a 1pt brush the whole way, with some variation from the swatches seen there. Trying to mimick the lines from the source photo. What transistion are you talking about exactly? in the thickness? (so like the quanitity of hair in the bud) the colour you said? Cause i actually worked of the same swatches the whole way down, just applied them at different quantities and whatnot. I suppose i need the clarification yeah. thanks for helping out

yeah that is fair enough regarding following the reference pic. I think if you give it a really hard look though (paste the photo into photoshop and zoom into the beard) that the tufts get significantly lighter in the centres, especially near the bottom.

I wouldn't blame you for finishing the torso and calling it done. Seeing where you started and why you did this project I would have to say it has been a 100% success.

Well trade show madness got in the way of this again (im working on a video project i dont really want to unviel to this audience untill we have a proper site going, some people will know it allready) but ive finally spent the last hour or two im going to spend on this project today. Its totally not perfect but for my first major effort im super stoked. So heres the final:

thanks for all the help people, comments and crits appreciated

Entirely hand digi-painted, photo reference.
original photo: http://www.soadfans.com/index.php?module=PhotoGallery&do=showpic&pid=24…MoonUnit2006-11-23 23:56:06

I'm very impressed with the effort you have put in to this Moonie, and i think the hard work has really paid off, you should be super-duper stoked.

thanks heaps man, and thanks so much for all the advice you gave over the course of this project. It was a great help :)