[jenmundy]

Hellooo

Natalie Portman is so gorgeous, I've been wanting to paint her for a while now-- but I'm having a bit of trouble finding a balance between working defined paint strokes and blending smoothly-- I'd like it to look like a painting and not so airbrushed... Also I'm having some trouble with contrast/skintone balance-- I've only ever done portraits in black and white with pencil/acrylics/oils, so working on one in color digitally is a bit overwhelming! Any suggestions and/or critiques are greatly appreciated.



Thanks for your help <3

[ish]

wow I love this. You really captured her. I have such trouble really getting portraits to that state. xP

I think you're doing wonderfully with blending, which in my opinion is the hardest part. I think what would help is some nice crisp detailing lines. The eyes look lovely. you used a good amount of detail there. You have that thick dark line along her left side and that kind of thing helps sharpen up the overall feel nicely. Hehe it really looks to me like you're doing wonderfully. I wish I could help more but at this stage I don't think I could tell you anything you don't already understand.

You may have already considered it but I'll throw this out there too. Alot of what makes it looked so airbrushed is how smooth the skin is.. it's just not natural and our eyes reject it. After smoothing out your shading the way you like it I'd try fixing a nice skinlike texture over it.

I really want to see more progression pieces for this one if you're willing to post. ^^ I love your work.

[DanHowardArt]

Hi Jinju.

Looking good so far for the construction. The ear looks a tad far back but I could be wrong too.


So for skin tones and all, the face has a ton of different hues. The eyes, cheeks, nose, brow areas have more blood flowing through them so thus you'll see more pinks and reds in those locations. The upper forehead and jaw areas are sort of the "green" areas where you'll see greenish hues.

These obviously change skin tone to skin tone, but Natalie is a rather fair skinned girl, so she'd be a perfect muse to try out some fun things with skin hues

[jenmundy]

ish: thank you so much! I've been able to achieve a more 'painted' look in Painter, but ever since upgrading to X I can't get used to that program so I've been working in photoshop-- I find that doing portraits digitally is a lot harder, because when you work in oils, the paint actually takes care of a lot of the work for you... So having to texture things manually in photoshop is really foreign u_u; If I can't get it to look right by hand, I'll definitely try overlaying some textures-- thanks for the advice <3

DrEuphony: I think you're right about the ear *_* Actually everything is a bit off, but I think if I move the hair in a little bit and reveal some more skin right before her ear starts it'll help-- thanks for catching that I tried adding some greens/reds to some parts of her face, really great suggestion and I had totally forgotten about that, so thanks again-- I'll probably have to add more in, the skin tones are nowhere near complete ;_;

Here's an updated WIP-- I'm working on this rather slowly.. during breaks from other work :[ Any new suggestions/crits are greatly appreciated.

[jenmundy]

annnnd finished. Thanks for the help guys-- looking forward to getting more feedback on WIPs from now on.

[vervex]

You did a great job For some reason, I am very fond of the lips!

[ish]

I agree, Painter X made things so difficult for me. I'm going back to photoshop the second I find my cd's

Oh and you did a fantastic job, I love how it turned out!

[jenmundy]

thanks guys!

[fongmingyun]

So pretty. I think my favorite part is her eyes. I also really like the hard line on the right - it gives the piece a nice style that shows it's someone's painting, not someone just trying to copy a photo.