People often ask - 'how do you do this digital painting stuff ?'.
Well where do you start, I follow a conventional path, I sketch the face out on paper, with a 'real' pencil, scan in and paint usually all on one layer. My weapon of choice is Photoshop CS3, there is other software, some much, much cheaper, but, they always seem to have 'bits' missing.
Once I'm in Photoshop, that's where I stay from 'first brush stroke to print'.
The lovely young lady above was a recent commission if you look closely you can see the strokes - I mainly use the dark and light pastel brushes, particularly to finish off, it gives a more chalky/grainy effect, more realistic. A lot of digital paintings I see have that highly glazed look - like china dolls. I spend ages with a small chalky brush 'finishing' off - if anything I need someone else to walk in and say ' Oi, it's done - PRINT IT !!!'
The top picture is one I'm working on at the moment, for yet another 50th birthday, you can see I started from the jaw working my way up, big brushes to start with small, ones to finish.
I really love doing the faces, the little bodies and accessories are something the clients want and really irritate me. I often have three or four finished faces and avoid adding the rest until I feel like it. A body bottleneck.
I've just got a commission for four faces, yep just the faces, and 'make 'em ugly' they say - now that's a real job.
Nothing to do with caricatures - I went, with my wife Nola, for a morning walk through the forest near Darlington Winery. There was a lovely mist that had all lifted by 10.30am. Luckily I had my camera took four shots and stitched them in CS3 ( you've got to try Automate > Photomerge it certainly beats the software that comes with my Canon ). This huge granite outcrop looks, when the mist clears, across the Helena River Valley. Not a sound and only a short distance from a city of 1.2 million people. Makes us realise why we left suburbia - magic !
