Study update!

I've been doing a lot of work last month, but all I can show for now are a couple of studies.
100 faces, about 15 minutes each, with references from all over the place :B

And here are a couple of life studies - two hours each.

Thanks for looking!

Updates!

... It's been a while!
I have been painting some covers for the German pen&paper RPG Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye) since the beginning of June. Here are a few I'm allowed to show already:

More info here

More info here

More info here

As a sort of follow-up to my last post - here you can see how I use the same basic approach for studies from photo reference as well.

The finished study. I could have spent more time on it, but it felt pointless. I learned what I could from this one :)

And lastly, a little birthday gift for Melanie :)

Flower in a coffee pot

I've been meaning to do a still life like that for a while, but somehow I never got around to it during spring >.<
So although today there wasn't too much of a variety of flowers to choose from, in the end I was quite happy with my pink rose in the old coffee pot :)
Everything was painted on one layer, but luckily I remembered to save some steps!

Eowyn and the Nazgul

Sorry for the lack of updates!
So recently there was a pretty awesome challenge over at Art Order and Muddy Colors. The objective was to illustrate the scene where Eowyn fights the Witch King in the Lord of the Rings. Naturally I was really excited and wanted to get started on it right away, but then I ended up being too busy with other things until five days before the deadline!
Thanks to a lot of coffee and some sleepless nights I was able to finish in time though.

There were so many amazing entries and I consider myself very lucky to have received a short crit from Donato Giancola (Here - you have to scroll down a bit!). I will apply his suggestions as soon as I have time.
I'm really looking forward to seeing what the next Art Order challenge will be!

Self portraits

... are a cheap and easy way to find a model for painting from life! You can learn so much and I'd be doing one a day if it wasn't so darn repetitive. I should really try some different expressions, even though it's hard holding them for a long time.

The first two were done in January and the third and probably most accurate one in March, all ranging between 1 and 2 hours to create. In the first one you can see the cheap IKEA mirror I'm keeping on my desk mainly for this purpose :)

And to stay with the topic of self portraits - here's the pencil sketch for my new deviantArt ID. Pokémon and no grumpy face <3

Genie Doodle

This started as a random doodle to clear my head after a long day, so the process for this image was very intuitive and different fromt he last one I showed. That's why there is another progress video for you to watch!

Most of the painting was done with a custom variation of a default Photoshop brush, which I put up for download for you! It's very simple, but fun for sketching and feels a bit like a pencil when you set the size to 2-5px. Please tell me how you like it!

And by the way, any input on what you would expect from the little guide/tutorial I've been talking about would be greatly appreciated. Someone suggested streaming it, which is a great idea for the future, but I won't do it this time.
I was thinking about putting a few custom brushes up for download and maybe giving tips on how to use them. How does that sound? What else would you guys like to know or see?

Withering Forest

This is the finished painting of the teaser I showed you last time. It's a slightly bigger version than the one on my deviantArt, so please click to enlarge!

And here are some close-ups exclusively for all the great people who like to look at my blog. (Again, please click it for a bigger picture.)

Sneak Preview

I've been busy with different things lately and working on something very exciting for me that I can't quite talk about yet. I can, however, show you a teeny-tiny preview of a different painting I'm doing at the moment!
It's still a little rough at this stage, but expect the finished image soon!

 

I am also deliberating about the best way to tackle the guide/tutorial that people have been asking me to make. Definitely very high up on my to-do list :)

Daruma

Here's a study from life that I did a while ago. The little guy made such pretty reflected light!



 This was actually painted in Lab-mode, which I've been experimenting with lately. Most of the time the differences to RGB are barely noticeable, but there is probably a lot more to discover. One thing that stood out to me was that in Lab the colors seem to behave like light, whereas in RGB they are more like paint - the best example for that is how red and green blend.
I might try switching back and forth in one painting and see how that goes!

First Post!

I did a little sketch the other day and just when I started liking it, there was a power outage. Being used to working with a laptop and not expecting such a thing to happen, I lost everything. But after a short burst of rage I decided to start over again and save some steps this time!

Here is the finished painting. (Please click to enlarge)


... and here are the steps:


This is not necessarily the way I always work - I like to switch it up and try different approaches every time.

Would you like to see a more detailed step-by-step progress of a painting in the future?