Posted on 2005-07-21 00:18
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绘画教程
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This is a record of how I went about creating one of my digital paintings. This particular image was created for the CGTalk.com Machineflesh contest. My job was to create something that combines flesh and machine.
The first thing I did was come up with a story. You can read the story here. Basicaly, I want to create a man who created a body that was to make him god-like with an inslaved goddess attached to him.
On this page you can see me fleshing out the basic way that these characters would be connected. |
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| When I posted the previous image for feedback, someone suggested the idea of giving the larger figure a face. So, here I am playing with the idea of giving him a face. I like the bottom left one the most. |
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| Another comment I recieved was that the goddess looked more like a slave girl than a goddess. With that in mind, I did some studies to try and make her look more otherworldly. I ended up going with the bottom right version. |
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| Here is a pencil rendering I did of the characters. This is not my final composition, but rather just something for me to understand how they are supposed to look. I will go on to put them into an environment and into more dynamic poses. |
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| I decided to depict a scene where the larger figure is rampaging through a city. I came up with this composition and using my previous studies, redrew the characters in this pose. This will be the base linework of my painting. |
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| Here I am puting some basic color down. In both Photoshop and Painter, the way you do this is to create a separate layer for your color and your lines. The best way to do this is to have your linework on a layer above your color. In Photoshop, you just select your lines (which are probably on your background layer) and tell it to create a duplicate layer. After that is done you can erase the background layer. In Painter, you will have to select everything by pressing Ctrl + A or using the lasso tool and copy it. When you paste it, paste it on a new layer. In both programs, you will now need to make it possible to see through the white of the paper so that only the dark lines remain visible. To do this, you select the lines layer and look for something on the layer box that should say "normal". When you click on it, there should be a list of options. For our purposes, we want to select "multiply". This behaves as if you burn the darker colors down into the lower layers, letting you see through light colors. Now you are free to color on the background layer, or on another layer you create BENEATH the line layer and still see the lines. |
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| I continue to play with the colors and try to find a more unified color pallette. I want a very blue image to convey coldness and sadness. You will notice an arrow that I painted in the upper righthand corner. This is just a reminder for me for the direction of my main lightsource. |
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| Using that arrow as a guide, I paint in most of the general highlights and shadows in their approximate colors. I try not to be too concerned with little details at this point. However, I am very tempted to work on the heads. I tend to flesh out heads before anything else. |
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And here I go, bringing the details of the head out. Now, for this image, I choose not to have the linework show at the end. To do this, I created another layer ABOVE the line layer. I then paint what I believe to be the final colors on that layer, covering the preliminary sketch and the rough colors. I was not really sure how a brain looked like so I looked through an anatomy book and used that as refference. If you don't know what something looks like, find out. Don't try to fake it or it will show.
For the glass effect, I used yet another layer over the layer with the skin and brain and just painted over it with very transparent strokes, building up strokes to get the stronger highlights. To do this, just adjust the opacity of your brush. |
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| Here I jumped right over to begin working on the goddess's face. Notice that I am trying to use a different set of skin colors for her flesh. I am using more warm and saturated colors to show that she is more alive and less cold than the male figure. |
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| I'm now working out the goddesses torso. Since this is a more realistic piece than it is graphic, I want to be a little more realistic with my colors. To do this I pay more attention to lifelike colors. For example, areas that aren't in the light are picking up a lot of reflected color from the stuff around her making parts of her more gray or blue or green. Also, her own skin tone varries between reds and oranges. |
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| Now I'm starting to flesh out the background a bit more. I wanted to get the fire looking pretty accurate as well, so I looked up some images of forest fires on the internet. Of course, this isn't a forest, but I can still see the way that flames and smoke behave from the images. |
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| Here I am starting to put in a foreground. I made a mistake by not fully figuring this out in my line drawing. I'm just gonig to wing it as I go. I'm also working on some of the armor and making it look like scratched and dirty metal. |
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| In this image I have begun smoothing out the fire and the smoke. You will also notice that I've taken down the brightness of the fire considerably compared to a few steps ago. This is because the bright orange is really competing for attention with the more important elements of the image. As much as I liked the fire, it isn't as important as the main figures. |
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| Now I'm really starting to fine tune details and finish off parts that I haven't touched. All of this is being done on the layers above the lines. Of course, if I had wanted to leave the line drawing showing, I would have done this below that layer. Actually, I could just drag the layer down if I really wanted to. |
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| So things are starting to come together pretty nicely. It's good to get back and look at the image as a whole and make sure that everything is working together. It's easy to get caught up in the details and lose sight of the entire image. It's also a good idea to take breaks and come back to the image with a fresh eye. This image was painted off and on over a few months, so I had plenty of resting time between sessions. |
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| Here I again made a change that deviates from the original line drawing. Instead of chains and shackles binding her arms, I now have robotic arms coming out of the torso. This was done on a separate layer to allow me to get rid of them if the idea didn't work out the way I was hoping. However, I was satisfied and decided to keep them in the image. |
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| The hands in this image were difficult to paint. Hands are probably the most difficult part of the human body. I used my own hands as refferences for all of the hands in this image. Don't be afraid to do that. |
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| Almost finished. I tightened up the forearm and hand on the left half of the image. Again, I use my own hand as a refference for this hand when i'm unsure of how things should look. |
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| More detail is added to the foreground. I put in some flying debree to indicate the force of the arm smashing the man into the ground. All of the debree and foreground elements were created on a separate layer for simplicity. This allows me to erase pieces that I don't like without compromising the finished elements of the figure and background underneath. At this point, I am just going to add some finishing touches and then the piece is done! |
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After a little touch here and there, I'm satisfied with the image. You can keep working on a painting forever. A painting is never perfect. But, there is always a time for you to just step back and say that you're done. It is also possible to overwork a piece and it's good not to do that on accident. All in all, I am happy with this image. There are changes I can still make and I could probably spend another three months trying to get it perfect, but I've decided that it is finished. Plus the contest is over already anyway :p
To view the final image, click here. |