More Brushes
A brush I have always been using and am well experienced with his the brush I like to call the 'Charcoal Brush' because to me it acts similar and looks the way charcoal does. What made me find this brush is when I was watching the artist tincek-marincek process videos, they are one of my top favourite artists and so I really studied their technique so I could try out there style myself. When watching the start of their video I found that they started off very basic in black and white used a very rough brush which I found odd considering their final outcomes are so smooth and shiny. Once seeing the brush they used I knew I had to find a similar one for myself and so I went on a search and found the 'Charcoal brush'. I didn’t even continue the video I just began drawing with it only using this brush and nothing else an as you can see I created the image on the very right below of the face. This brush was amazing as surprisingly enough it may be rough but if keep blending it merges well together and it actually a really nice texture for the skin. i mentioned before as well that tincek-marincek starts off in black and white, well this was the first time I saw this technique and tried it for myself, I haven’t gone back since.
When I started photoshop I thought the Default brushes were great at first but then saw them to be useless once I discovered how you can dowload and create custom burshes. However this theory was scrapped in the bin once I saw how the famous artist Sakimi-chan creates her art. Sakimi-chan is the most popular artist on Deviantart and on Patreon earning 600k in dollars a year! So creates and sells many tutorials however shes uploaded a few free ones on youtube whichis what I watched. I discovered that Sakimi-chan simply uses the default brush which is insane however there is a trick to it which is to select the mod 'airbrush'. Wanted to try this technique out myself I actually for the first time practiced it on one of my final pieces for a college project, you can see the results below. Now I didnt learn how she did the way which explains the weirness of the creatures pink main however you can see how its skin is so smooth and this was all acheived simply using that technique. I wonder If this will be useful for my portraits but the more I think about it, I want my portraits to be ugly and gruesome and I believe this technque will make it smooth and go against wha tI want. It's still valuable to know any way incase it is needed.
Charcoal Brush
Default Brush
Martin Scoeller
Martin Schoeller is a New York-based photographer whose style of "hyper-detailed close ups" is distinguished by similar treatment of all subjects whether they are celebrities or unknown. His most recognizable work are his portraits, shot with similar lighting, backdrop, and tone. His work appears in "National Geographic Magazine", The New Yorker, "New York Time Magazine", Time, GQ, and Vogue. He has been a staff photographer at The New Yorker since 1999.
Scoellers work is a great reference to use for studying the human face as his photos are so detailed you can make out every intricate marking on the persons face. What's great as well is how the portraits are people so different from each other in appearance ranging from ethnicity and age. It really gives you a shock at how the face can change and how peoples appearances are so different and we really are all unique. I decided to open some of his work and photoshop and study the details i find that will be important to include in my own portraits.
Features Analysis
Realistic Brushes
If I want to paint my portraits digitally in Photoshop then I'm going to need to start to find brushes to use that will help acheive my goal for realsm and improve my efficency. I found an artist on Deviant who is well-known for acheive realistic paintings and they have uploaded the brushes they use for the public to download. So I downloaded the brushes and tried them out in Photoshop. I rubbed out a section on one of Martin Scoellers work and went back over it usng the brushes to see how close I could ahceive the same realsm. It was actually pretty close as you can see in the image on the right below, whats missing though now that I look back on it now is more highlight and also its missing that grainy feel to it which i believe are pores. Maybe if I had increased the sharpness this would have improved it. A problem I did have though is this brushes wern;t actually that easy to use in getting that standard, I did find it quite difficult and had to really study the photo as reference and see how I could use the brushes. I think I shill go on the search for other brushes.
Face Photography
Inspired by Martin Schoeller with his up-close face photographs I decided I myself needed to take my own photos of faces to use as original reference for my pieces. Plus this means I can get my own custom facial expressions that I need for my pieces instead of having to search online for expressions I had no control over and are only similar to what I want. So I got my two of my classmates to take Photos of and sat them in the room with professional lighting and everything, this meant the lighting and shading was really well done and made them a better reference to understand the planes of the face. I asked them to do specific expressions that I want to use for my final pieces which were serious, surprised, angry and neutral. I also got a side profile to allow me to understand their faces more and how this effected their expressions. I will be constantly looking back on these photos for reference for my portraits as they are great examples of the expression and allow me to understand it.
Book Learning Anatomy
In my spare time I am always drawing and have recently been focusing a lot trying to better my understanding at antomy. Although there are a lot of helpful tutorials online I find the best sources for learning are books. I own many antomy books and my favourites so far are the three below which contain many usful tips and tutoirals on faces which is very useful for my portraits.
This book althought focused on teaching you to draw in a 'Marvel Comic Book' style is grate for learning the basics and guidlines for the face. This is the first book I got and really helped get me started on the path to udnerstanding faces more instead of just being faced with overly complex antomy and too much writing and information.
Anatomy for the Artist
This book isnt focused on teaching you to draw at all but is instead dedecated to teaching you the complete anatomy of the human body and you can see how detailed it gets in the image on the right. It literally shows you a very itricate diagram of all the muscles under the face so you get a full understanding of it. It is a lot to take in and is defiantly a book I have to keep going back on to regrain my understanding and reference from.
As the title says this book is all about facial expressions and is so useful especially now in a time like this. The antomy for artists book annoted all the antomy in the human body however this shows you how the antomy actually moves and changes which is what makes it so much better. It will teach you how the face muscles move to form an expression which is exactly what I need for this project so I will defiantly be re-capping over that. Plus it actually shows you how to simplyify the animatomy of the face so you can actually draw it.
Even More Brushes
As I've said before on the previous page Loran De Sore is an artist who's style I'm obsessed with, I lobe how you can see the brush strokes and as I stufy then they are very harsh and sharp and it actually makes their skiin look like clay and that a fork has been scraed across it to sculpt it which is actually a nice effect but a werid comparrison. I decided to go out on a search simply for paint brushes and hats when I found the 'Squiggly Brush; which is simmply just dots scattered in a circly. However this is actually like a fork as besically its multipe points just not in a row but instead in a circle. So I gave it a try and tested it and this brush was amazing! It strangley enough just naturally gives off a realistic feel, it's as though im cross hatching with paint. You can see in the images below it didnt even take me that long to do and it's a really nice effect. It's rough yet detailed at the same time and I believe this is the style I defiantly want to go for for my portraits. The fact that you can see the brush strokes works well with my idea of my portraits wanting to appear like a traditionalpainting so it adds that authnicity and realsm to it. I have found my chosen brush!
Rule of Thirds
The rule of thirds is a very important rule to know when it comes to compositioning for any type of media such as drawing, painting, photography or films. Increasing you understanding of good composition will undoubtedly enhance your work. However it is importent to note that there is no 'perfect' composition. As a subjective art form, you won't ever reach a point at which you have achieved the perfect shot, but it is possible to have poorly and well composed pieces. The rule of thirds is a really simple technique and common tool so is used by amateaurs and proffesionals. The method involves dividing the frame into thirds, vertically and horizontally (so it actually becomes ninths), and then using those lines to effectively bisect your image, using the lines to section off areas of the image and using the nodes at which the lines cross as key areas for points of interest. This rule, although very simple, works extremely well when used effectively, for example, within a landscape shot, the horizon could cross the frame along the lower horizontal line, with the top of a mountain range crossing the upper horizontal line. Similarly, with a portrait shot, the eyes could be placed at the points at which the upper horizontal line bisects the two vertical lines.
How to Draw Comics The Marvel Way
Anatomy for the Artist
