[Agelaos]

haha some sick stuff in here D: definitely can see the improvement in every new image you do. Love all the hue shifts in your work, I gotta start experimenting with that myself. Keepem comiin

[gloominati]

jskotte- thanks man, yeah I kinda feel that this "creepy creature"-thing might really be "my" thing, something I want to dive deeper into

eleven- hahaha yeah, so here you go. Though the entire process itself is really simple, nothing that you couldn't figure out yourself, what's going on inside your brain is the important part. Painting happens inside the brain, not on the convas or monitor

Agelaos- thanks man, great to hear that. yepp the more I paint, the more I realize how important these subtle colorshifts actually are. Maybe they are even the most important aspect to bring your work to life.

so here's the next stage. Didn't have to much time yesterday to go on, but today everything's different As you can see I decided to refine the b/w underpainting a little bit more.
After that a "color" layer is added with all the basetones included. This is where the funpart starts No matter how much of a noob I still am, one thing i have discovered so far is that THERE IS NO SUCH THING as "harmonic" colors, meaning that there are colorcombinations existing which work better together than others in a painting. Sure there are colors which simply do not "fit" as far as the subject, you are painting is concerned but there are absolutely no colors which do not fit together as far as color itself is concerned. That's why I love to get at least a lillte bit wild with colors in these stage, and that's why it might look a bit weird at the beginning.
Making these colors work together through value/edges/ textures etc. is one of the major things which make painting for me the best thing in the world. Taking these colorpatterns and bringing them to live. God damnit, nothing better than that!

Anyways, now Painting can start, the next step is all about thinking how to "sculpt" that dude outta that flat surface YES!

[gloominati]

sooooo lets dig into that bitch.
Kinda hart to explain that step, because it's actually only diggin into that stuff and pushing it by simply drawing/Painting, no secrets
so painting painting painting PUSHING PUSHING PUSHING!! I strongly feel that this stage is the one where you can really get to your limits, here's where the improvement happens.
Since all the values and colors are already layed down I can allow myslef to get directly to where I want the focal point will be. I am gonna push that as hard as I possibly can and then paint arround it as long until the surrounding kinda "matches" the focal point
oh yes this shit is intense, I tell you guys. Kinda going deeper and deepr inside your own brain, trying to find the answers on your own before going to refernece photos and stuff. Finding things out is one more of that awesome things about painting. using reference would kinda destroy that.

[sirgreensock]

Sweeet job with them reflections! Like the addition of the little hints of eyelashes and the little scrathces in the cornea!

[eleven]

Nice progress! I find it very amusing to see the eye so polished and everything else still so sketchy. I could've never pull that off. One question though, 1000x1400: is that the original you work with? What resolution do you work with on this one (px/inch)?

[gloominati]

sirgreensock- thanks man. uh just discovered that you have a thread over here as well, gonna take a look now

alex- thanks man. yeah that's kinda cool with that painting technique. since color and value are already layed down it's actually possible to get into polishing things at first. No this piece is 2480x3508 pixles big, 300 dpi. This is actually the seccond piece I do at such a high resolution, just in case I am going to print some of my future pieces. It can be a pain in the ass in the first painting phases where rather large brushes are used, at least on my PC. Sometimes I paint the beginning stages at 150 dpi and then rise it up when the more detailed stages "start"

So seccond eye is finished. Just realized that I won't be at home the entire next week, which REALLY sucks because I initially planned to do five of these yodas and now I will barely be able to finish this one
Nevermind, two days left for me, I am just gonna hype it up with that one and everything will be cool

Second eye is finished, things starting to work together now. Gonna leave the eyes that way now and do some more work on them in the finishing stages

[gloominati]

here we go, the next step. again, nothing "special" happening, just zooming in and painting as well as I can .
Can't even describe how I love that shit, just painting, hyping it up to the max and already now seeing that this picture will be better than the last one, crazy feeling I tell you. It's so awesome if you decide to believe in something, threat it in a way that makes you ABSOLUTELY certain that if you do "that", "this" will happen as a consequence. I tell you guys it's crazy! This way improvement isn't something i hope for, it's not even something that happens during the process, it is something I create! I improve because I want to, because I decide to do so!!
I know it sounds kinda crazy, and maybe it isn't even true, but who cares? This kind of believe just gives me a blast, the best feeling in the world, and even if it's only that it's still worth it, and moreover this believe gives me absolute certainty that things will work out. There is still so much time left in the challenge and I feel like I have already improved so much, I can't even imagine what awaits me in the future

[gloominati]

uah done! At least for today. This is basically the stage where I lay the intuos pen down and decide to give this one a rest for one night. Gonna look at it with a fresh eye and a fresh hand tomorrow morning and do some finishing tweaks here and there.
whow yes, that one was a blast, what an awesome experience, once again

[LisandroG]

Nice job on yoda; love the rendering of the eyes, very nice! For some reason I prefer it with him facing to the left, how you had it originally, just feels better...

keep up the good work man :]

[gloominati]

lisandrog- thanks man! hmmm I kinda disagree, having the focal point eye on the left sife of the painting makes it feel somehow better for me compositional wise. Gonna see what other people think, I might as well change it again

so, finished. slept over it, did some last tweaks around the mouth and done.
Damn it's so annoying that O don'T gave the time to do more of these, but I guess it's no use getting meeeh about it

[jskotte]

This is really great, wonderful job on the eyes and great rendering. But I would crop a bit of the top, at the moment I think the eyes are too close the middle (vertically).

[Fetsch]

Love your work gloominati. Your take on yoda looks cool, i thought the lighting should come more from above after watching the reflection of the eyes. I made little overpaint, hope you dont mind.

[gloominati]

thanks man! Liking the idea, especially that additional rendering on the far side of the face. What I do not like, however, is how you flattened the value on the "light" side of the face, sometimes flatening it out this way can really add to an image but I am not feeling it to much with that piece. I think that the additional rendering on the dark top side of the skull would've been enough, thanks for that, mate

[gloominati]

since this forum is not as busy as sketchbook forums on other boards, I do not feel too bad bumping this one with an answer without update

Aerendyl -thank you. I try to use as little reference as possible. For the pieces in this thread so far I didn't use any reference at all (exept for that fat guy sittin in the kitchen, it was actually a photostudy, so reference was needed).
I strongly believe that as soon as you have seen something it is somehow saved inside your brain(even if you think its not!) and it's your TASK as an artist to be able to get that outta there. Moreover I try to understand what I want to paint in terms of "how is it built". Nature does most likely always make sense, so if you know what it is, you might as well be able to paint it. For example with those eyes on that last yoda guy. I have already seen such eyes in the past in zoos, in movies, and on photos. Moreover I browse wikipedia to see how an eye is build exactly. That, for me, HAS to be enough to be able to paint such an eye from imagination. And even if it seems crazily hard at the beginning I can always convince myself that just thinking and focusing hard enough will get me the answer out of my brain. and I gotta say that it really works for me.
thats what I love about painting: doing things of which you thought were impossible for you to do. Painting without reference is big part of the process for me, at least that part of focusing HARD, as hard as I possibly can gives me the impression that I am improving fast as hell. It's really all about the effort you are willing to put into that entire process

[SteFlack]

Very nice job with yoda, he looks awesome and its a very interesting take on him.

Thanks also for your post on the use of reference and your views on it.
I been focusing on doing a lot of studies lately but now find I struggle to work without some kind of reference. I'm now starting to feel my work and studies are suffering since I feel like I'm not making any progress and remembering anything for them.

Your post has really made a lot of sense to me as I can now see that I don't focus hard enough on the things that I probably do already know.

I'll be keeping what you said in mind when I get back to my work this week.