Everyone loves anatomy to some degree.
It’s something that I wish I knew how to better portray (especially in movement or with posing). But I don’t think I’m doing too bad. Mostly. In any case, this post looks to highlight a recent work in progress that may come as a surprise to some. Mostly because it’s another attempt at digital painting. Following what I said in Yearly Consistency, I’ve put my new brushes to use with a few ink versions of previously seen watercolour paintings. This piece was never finished as I wasn’t happy with how it was progressing.
So- let’s paint over that!
Or (more accurately) paint that again. This approach was one that I spent a couple of hours with before I actually started to make any progress with painting the piece. As I was working with different settings- different brush sizes, different brush opacity, and even tweaked the brushes once or twice- to see which suited the style I wanted to work towards.
It was a very interesting process as that very same process would take twice to three times as long with traditional materials. Mostly because most semi-opaque/opaque materials cannot be simply removed from the paper/canvas repeatedly, which is one of the major strengths of digital painting. The ability to redo as many times as it takes to get the result you want. I’m still not as confident as I would like to be with digital painting- but this is a start. I may switch from this piece to another to see if I can learn more about the process before attempting the complicated areas, such as the fins, which I’ve yet to find a way to approach, or at least one that represents the style I’d like to use.
The second piece is a simple pencil sketch which addresses some of the changes I’d like to make regarding those materials. Mostly done with either a B or 2B, this piece highlights a change in how I want to approach pencil pieces in the future. It also lays a good foundation for combining this approach with Polychromos. It’s going to be an interesting few months for pencil, either way. It’s also hinting at my constant push towards having posed pieces in the future. Albeit this one is just their upper body.
But, again, it’s a start.
I think it’s easy to become overwhelmed with wanting to change too many things at once. It’s important to make sure you’re not trying to completely rewrite everything from scratch, as, if you are, you’re likely to lose track of your progress. Or feel like you’re not making any progress at all. So I like to break things down into smaller incremental movements.
For now, I’m happy with how pencil is progressing and these gradual changes are trying to influence the direction it will eventually go. Likewise with digital painting. It’s still slightly surprising how much I’ve learned about that over the last year. But, with each, I’d like to continue to make positive progress, which leads to me pushing into these different directions. It might work. It might not. There really isn’t any way to know at this moment in time. But what is certain is that if you don’t try you won’t get anywhere. I apologise that these pieces don’t have more substance, but I’ve found myself in a rather interesting (yet complex and time consuming) transition phase. I’m hoping that I’ll have something more substantial soon.
Have a nice weekend, all!
Moggie
Art, design, and the like found herein (unless otherwise specified) is drawn and owned by David Wilkshire (also credited as Moggie) from 2006 to present date.
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