Create Web Sites

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Wednesday, 17 August 2011

old and new

Posted on 01:48 by Unknown
-By Jesper Ejsing





Just the other day, I was trying to find an old sketch of a dragon in the big pile of drawings right to my desk. The pile is also where I keep most of my illustration not on boards but on paper. Here I found an illustration from 5 years ago of a female warrior mage. While looking at it I thought "this is pretty good". Usually I do not have that kind of thoughts. If a painting is older than a month I start seeing it anew and find all kinds of mistakes I would change now. While looking at this girl illustration some more, I started thinking something was wrong anyway. Not in the sense that one of the arms was too long or the eyes placed wrong. Wrong in the way that, this is not how I would have painted it today. So I pulled out a new illustration of a similar figure. This is a guy portrait, also with a sword and a cool looking face and heavy standing pose. The sword are almost identical. But what is (to me at least) tremendously different, is the rendering of the colours.



Girl:

Each element is coloured separately. Gloves, cape and boots equally red and without dirt of transparency to the colour underneath. The metal band of the gloves are “metal colour” and is clearly separate from the gloves colour. Look at the gold in the handle of the sword. Yellow and orange to show it is gold. Not much of a mix between colours.

This is the way I painted then. Almost as a colouring book where you colour by numbers.



Guy:

Compare the swords. Instead of filling in the colours of “gold” I have focused on light effect rather than colour. It is the exact same colours I have used – straight out of tube. I do not blend much on the palette unless I have to – but they have been dotted on with much more carefree strokes with a larger contrast. The white light is the main element, NOT the colour.

Another huge difference is the rendering of metal. If you go back and look at the girls glove and then compare with the boots and leg armour of the guy you see that there is a world of difference. In the guys boots I have used the under paint as a base colour and only slightly added some grey on top in rough dots. The key element that ties the shapes together is the highlight. Not the metal colour. I did not need to element colour all the kneecap to make it look like metal. I only needed the light to look reflective.

The skin tone look more alive. I tried to make it dirty and used grey and green around mouth and chin and hairline.



When seeing these 2 illustrations together I become aware of the road I am going. I am slowly becoming more a painter than a colourist of drawings. I am loosening up. “Why did I not see this ten years ago?” ( I keep hearing in my head )
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to Facebook
Posted in | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • IlluxCon Lecture, part 2
    by Petar Meseldzija Emotion in Art This image is taken from Christopher Burdett’s blog ……. In order to explain properly these three stages ...
  • Paja Jovanović ( Vršac 1859 – Vienna 1957)
    by Petar Meseldžija Paja Jovanović is one of the greatest Serbian painters. Uroš Predić, another great painter, is perhaps the only artist f...
  • Painting Spider-Man
    By Paolo Rivera Mythos: Spider-Man, Page 22 . 2007. Gouache and acrylic on bristol board, 11 × 17″. Just a quick post today (but with lots o...
  • The History of Dragons in Art
    -By William O'Connor 'Flight of the Paladin', by William O'Connor, ©2012 The most iconic image in all of fantasy art is the ...
  • Frank McCarthy
    -by Arnie Fenner While putting together my previous post about movie posters, scratching my head and trying to remember who did what, I a...
  • Paleo-Illustration Into Creature Design, A Natural Partnership
    -By Terryl Whitlatch I am first and foremost, a paleo illustrator specializing in vertebrate, or back-boned, animal anatomy.  When I observe...
  • Bill Nelson Art Book
    A few days ago my friend and fellow creative Bill Nelson sent me an e-mail announcing his latest art book. Some of you may already be aware ...
  • Happy Birthday !!!
    Muddy Colors turns one year old today! Traditionally, first anniversaries are celebrated with 'a gift of paper' . So that's what...
  • Alien Portraiture
    By Terryl Whitlatch Towards the end of my tenure at JAK films (aka the Star Wars—the Phantom Menace Art Department), I started to work on ot...
  • Sketchbook 2012 Shipping Out!
    by Justin Gerard Sketchbook 2012: Ents & Orcs  ships out today!    The first 50 are individually numbered and have a personal drawing in...

Categories

  • Dan dos Santos
  • Justin Gerard
  • Paolo Rivera

Blog Archive

  • ►  2012 (266)
    • ►  September (4)
    • ►  August (36)
    • ►  July (33)
    • ►  June (36)
    • ►  May (36)
    • ►  April (26)
    • ►  March (31)
    • ►  February (30)
    • ►  January (34)
  • ▼  2011 (234)
    • ►  December (25)
    • ►  November (34)
    • ►  October (36)
    • ►  September (27)
    • ▼  August (29)
      • Muddy Faces
      • Printing your work
      • Lists
      • Coolest Trophy Ever?
      • Small Demo
      • Pirate Paintings for National Geographic Pt. 2
      • The Hidden People Sketchbook
      • Great books for under $15
      • FANTASTIC WORLDS EXHIBITION
      • Hugo Awards... Live!
      • New Start
      • Tapping Inspirations -Book Illustration
      • old and new
      • Patrick Jones Tutorials
      • Words of Wisdom
      • Crit-Submit #3, Call for Entries!
      • Fire and Ice
      • The Philosophy of the Illustration Master Class™
      • Tonight!
      • Photo shoot spin-offs
      • St. George Final
      • Spocon
      • Last Embrace
      • San Diego Comic-Con
      • Magroth the undead Wizard
      • Why dumb ideas can be great ideas.
      • Honeyed Words
      • Art Out Loud 7
      • The Brothers Shiflett
    • ►  July (35)
    • ►  June (31)
    • ►  May (17)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile