Teaser

Teaser of what I'm working on right now.

 Hope to finish it soon.

The Fop Panel

Stacy. Another panel for The Fop. Man I gotta finish them pages already!

I like her, she is cute.

For more of The Fop click here

Artjam 17: Army of Me

Please listen to Army of Me (Sucker Punch Remix) while looking.

Suckerpunch!

God I loved that movie. I know it doesn't have the greatest story plot in the universe, but the visuals... man! The visuals is all I'm about, and this flick has them -like a boss! So this is my tribute to my favorite character of the movie: (and I think almost everyone else's too) Babydoll.

I really liked how it turned at the end, so I decided to share the process. I condensed one or two steps so I can make it shorter but it is essentially the same as always.

Here it goes:

1. Sketch. I covered the sketching part on my last post but here it is again.

2. Background and flats. After deciding that the fight was going to take place just like the scene in the movie, I painted a cloudy sky, then filled both characters with color for easier selection. After that, I changed the color tones and start building from there.

One thing I think I have never mentioned before is the order of the layers in Photoshop. This is important because, each artist has its own style and order of the layers. This obviously affects painting or coloring process and the final outcome of the piece. After several years and experiments, in this particular style (digital painting) this is my basic placing of the layers:

1. Artline. Mode: Normal. 


2. Color: Mode Normal. I used this layer in Multiply mode, but this distorts how the colors look and causes trouble with any layers placed below. Later on this layer is merged with the artline.

3. Background. Mode Normal. In terms of selecting and erasing, it is easier for me to have the background and the color layers separated.




3. Light Sources. You might face the challenge of not knowing where to start painting. When this happens to me, I start with one thing at the time, in this case, from top to bottom. Once you have decided where your light sources are, you can start painting by parts. First Babydoll's skirt, outlining the folds and then the whole outfit and the hair. After that I continued with the samurai's armor, trying to emulate the texture of metal as much as I can with different brushes and techniques. And at last, the spark of the clashing of katanas. I also color the artline in some places like the hair or the speed lines.

4. Bright lights and Gradient overlay. In this stage I blend the art line with the color layer and start "painting". While coloring, my color tones tend to lean more to the desaturated side. So, one trick I use is duplicate the color layer, place it on top of the original color layer and set it to Overlay Mode, which makes the colors extremely bright. This is an easy fix with the opacity bar, bringing it down a couple of notches, just as I saw fit.

I do use more than 3 layers, specially when I want a special look or effect. Playing with the layer modes can give you different outcomes, in my case I use mostly Overlay Layers and Screen layers. One last thing I like to do is try a Gradient Overlay Layer with different color settings depending on the mood I'm trying to set. Here I used a green-ish tint that serves too well with all the piece together.

This is what my final layer count is like:

Of course that this is just a way and there are infinite ways to do things. You have to find your own way, what works for you and always try to improve on your methods. It is an ongoing process.

Here are some detail shots:

That's it! I hope you guys liked it, and if you have any questions or comments they are all welcome.

For more Babydoll art

• Emily Browning on Deviant Art

For more killer Suckerpunch art, check out:

• EDSFOX's Rocket

• Martegod's Amber

• Pungang's Babydoll

Baby Doll (artline)

Artjam!

This time it was the turn of Sucker Punch, that spectacular visual delight of a movie (not for every one I know) but since it had girls, guns, samurais and dragons, I was pretty much into it since I saw the very first trailer.

And since Baby Doll was my favorite character, I chose to draw her in action. 

Here are a few steps of the process:

First the roughs, just to place both characters in line and define the anatomy and size of each one. Then comes the laying of the clean lines over the roughs, depending on the amount of detail we want. In this case, I don't want it to look to loose but more defined when it is colored. 

This is only the version with the art line. I hope to have the color version soon. I'm dying to see it fished.

Rock on.

Art Jam 11: Chun-Li

Talk to the hand biatch.

This piece is special.

2 weeks ago, we decided to pay tribute to one of the toughest and hottest videogame babes ever, that is of course Chun-Li. I decided to go for a different kind of pose, something I have not done before. This is to push myself to do other things and explore new alternatives. Plus, EDSFOX dared me again to paint it, instead of color it (all digital). 

And even though I begin the sketching during the ArtJam! I wasn't quite sure of the final result. I was not happy with the first 4 sketches, and it took me almost an hour to do one that was sort of decent. So yes, I didn't finish that day, or even that week.

I finished the final art line just in time for the next session, and we did a coloring marathon during last week's ArtJam.

Overall it took me two sessions of ArtJam! to finish the piece, mostly because of the pose and the style of coloring. This has been the closest to painting that I have ever done, not just using the lines over the coloring, but integrating everything as a whole... or at least I tried. 

I'm thinking of making a Cell Shaded version of this one but I'm not sure anymore. It was a lot of fun but at the end it wore me out. 

Check out EDSFOX's version of Chun-Li. It kicks ass! 

Hope you like it.

Cell Shaded Wonder Woman

It started out as a warm up, but sometimes this babies just have a life of their own. Soon I realize that It could turn into my very first Wonder Woman piece, so I just went along with it.

And just after I began coloring it, I decided this could be my very first Cell Shaded experiment. I always loved how MetalHanzo and Lastscionz do their his anime-ish coloring so this was my shot at it. And I have to say I like a lot the way it came up. I'm too planning on doing many more like this one. It can't hurt to have different styles on one's art repertoire.

The sketch

Here is the Chamba piece I used as help on the tecnical side, you know, the Layer modes on Photoshop. More of his tutorials here.

Art Jam Sketching

Just a quick sketch I did while at Starbucks in an Art Jam with a friend. I think her eyes are kind of big, but I don't really mind. Still trying to define a style experimenting.

Also I will try to make it a custom to organize this art jams. It was so edifying to talk with another artist and exchange so much stuff.  Besides it was just a ton of fun.