Tag: reference

eliciadonze:

Here’s your prelim sketch at last! From here, I think most of you have seen the drawing process. So I might go spare on the updates. But now you know how I get this far.

eliciadonze:

I took some time and worked out a proper color palette. 

Color is kind of a huge animal to tame, and I’ve made thousands of portraits, so finding that balance between Looks Good and Looks Correct is something I’m used to doing (read: actually really love doing!). But I’m totally aware that this is Hardest Stuff Ever for many artists. And how you’re using color can vary so much that any tricks or tips I might have would be useless even between my own paintings.

So I think some good things to keep in mind are: 1) Use colors you like. If you’re not soothed by or turned on by colors, change. 2) Don’t use any eyedrop/color picker tools. They will mess up your ability to see and judge what you’re actually doing—which is making art that looks like your art. 3) If you’re intimidated by color, stick to a small, analogous palette and find subtlety within those limited number of colors. You can always add to it and decorate it later. 

As for skin, some good rules of thumb (and you can see it in these examples):

1. Yellow highlights, orange midtones, red/brown shadows. This is true for all skintones. Skin is NOT beige + white and beige + black. Get used to using at least three colors.
2. Skin is reflective AND translucent. It picks up the colors around it. It shows the blood inside of it (yucky but true!).
3. Use references! 

eliciadonze:

There are two ways I usually go about handling color. One way is to focus more on accuracy and less on composition. That usually only works when there are very few references, and I can rely on observation.

The other way is this way—when the references are a mess, the colors don’t work together, so I have to come up with something. And honestly? It doesn’t really matter what. I eyeball what I can and see if it works.

The colors in the second image won’t stay this way. They look too pink. The background is not the vibe I want. But it’s a good place to start—orange can become glowing gold easily enough. Brown can become gray. The point at this stage is to get the tones right. If the tones (light and dark) work, then almost any color palette will be convincing.

eliciadonze:

So whenever I start a portrait, I think of it as a collage that I’m going to melt down and remold into art. Things like shirt color or body type or even lighting don’t matter a huge amount because all I need is a guideline.

This is the stage of art that some people find very disillusioning because it destroys their preconceived notions of the magic of art—even though turning this is into a drawing is no small thing.

uzlolzu:

Ilaria.