Latest comercial/personal work

[isissousa]

Hi there! I'm starting this thread to update my latest comercial and personal pieces

Starting with my VENUS ILLEGITIMA (REVAMP):

A redesign of an old character, personal painting made last weekend.

Painter XI + Wacom Intuos 3

For more details on this painting, turorials and more about my process, visit my BLOG: http://isissousa2d.blogspot.com

[isissousa]

Here is my latest personal work:

Pathfinder; inspired by a “salad of things”: Masterplan’s Soulburn, Tristania’s World of Glass (the whole album) and the cover artwork of Wishmaster, from Nightwish!

Done with: Painter/Photoshop/PhotoPaint and in mixed technique: mate painting/digital painting.

I had reference for her posing.

OBS: The background is composed by photos of the Trollstigen here in Norway, taken by me and my husband a few years ago!

[isissousa]

It’s my attempt to make a much younger Andi Deris (Helloween, ex-Pink Cream 69) like an elf!

I think that together with the charisma and the great voice he has fantastic facial features and they fitted perfectly for my portrait!

To come up with this result I looked at several pics of him, (past and present) from different sources on the web.

Painted with Painter XI, Wacom Intuos 3.

[HULKFish]

Brilliant stuff! The hair on these characters is STUNNING! That elf could almost be a character out of my novel...

[isissousa]

Thanks a lot HULKFish! I checked your site! Now's it's on my favourites! I got very curious about your novel! Your site is on my favs now and I'm downloading the first two chapters hehehe

[isissousa]

Ok, here we go...

This is comissioned portrait I painted for a friend:



And this is Elisa, a vampire for this Helloween season...



You can check the technical details of these paintings on my Blog

[thegrayslayer]

Nice work - I can see you enjoy doing hair!

[isissousa]

@ the grayslayer: Thank you so much, man!

And yes, I really enjoy doing hair! And eyes, too. I will see if I post some close ups of these paintings

Cheers!

[isissousa]

I almost forgot to post this one... Made (both the painting and typography/design) recently for a book cover.

The story is about Macbeth (The Scotish King) and Groa, his wife.

Macbeth is based on a real person, a friend and co-worker of the book author, who gently provided us with photos for reference.
I had reference for his costume, too. I used a lot of texturing on it and on the characters faces to convey more realism.

Groa is also based on a real model, from the book ”The Fantasy Figure Artist’s Reference File” by Peter Evans. Recommended!

TECH INFO:

Software: Painter, Photo-Paint

Brushes: airbrush (Fine tip soft air) for painting everything, and the blenders (diffuse blur & blender pallete knife) for smoothing the painting and mixing better the colors.

Texturing: diverse, of my own stocks

HAIR/BEARD: no texture! All of it is painting with the airbrush, varying the colors, transparency and thickness.

STAY TUNED: A making of is coming soon on my BLOG

[thegrayslayer]

Great piece of work again! Will look out for the workflow when you've posted it - as I'm exploring texturing skin and hair myself at the moment (allbeit in Photoshop).

Good skills!

[isissousa]

Great piece of work again! Will look out for the workflow when you've posted it - as I'm exploring texturing skin and hair myself at the moment (allbeit in Photoshop).

Good skills!

Yapp, Thanks for that! I am very curious to see your experiments with texturing and hair! Keep me updated

By the way, one thing I'd like to improve is composition. I have a passion for portraits, and I could only work the facial features and hair and nothing more!... But that isn't enough (maybe) to call viewer's attention... So I have to work hard on to get interesting compositions and I see you do pretty good on that.

You compose really well!

[thegrayslayer]

Wow, another compliment - thanks! As for composition, I use a professional photographer to get a lot of the reference I need. I'm lucky to be able to discuss what I'm looking for with the model, who puts her ideas into the shots too. She posts me a hundred or so, then I pick which elements work best. I guess the photographer deserves some credit if I get lucky with composition...

For the digital pieces or those I can claim more credit for composing myself, I've spent years studying the old masters, and my favourite fantasy artists to see how they do it.

Once I've finished my latest portrait study (with texturing) I'll post a few workflow shots. I'd be interested in your feedback / advice.

[isissousa]

@ thegrayslayer:

Oh that's really cool you have a photographer at your disposition! That's a good way to have nice references for a work!

And yapp, learning by observing how others do it is a great way too. Not everybody is can do it. I must admit I learn a lot simply by observing the environment/poeple around me

Oh please, It would be so cool to see your new portraits and how you have done it!

[isissousa]

Several times I was told I do hair pretty well… What a great compliment and a joy for me to have this kind of feedback!

I also discovered I enjoy a lot working the eyes of my characters/paintings…
As I use to work in HI RES, I found out the smaller promotional images I post on my online portfolios don’t do justice to the eye details!

So, here is a meme, with + - 40% zoom of
-both eyes of 4 my latest paintings
- one eye of 4 older paintings to the bottom

Hope you like it!

[thegrayslayer]

Ha! Awesome eyes - and I appreciate how 'down-res'-ing is both frustrating and demoralising (as I work in games). Great post, it reminds me of the LOTR films, when the team put so much effort into Galadriel's eyes...

[isissousa]

The hair on these characters is stunning!

Thank you so much, Caaraa! I takes a good deal of time to make detailed hair like this. But the process is very simple once you get it. I will post some hair tutorials soon!

So far, I can say they are all done with a very thin soft airbrush, with varied intensity and colors and, in many layers!

[isissousa]

Ha! Awesome eyes - and I appreciate how 'down-res'-ing is both frustrating and demoralising (as I work in games). Great post, it reminds me of the LOTR films, when the team put so much effort into Galadriel's eyes...

Thanks a lot for the friendship request Much appreciated!
Oh yeah, much is lost in downsizing the images/animations! And the compressed files also kills a lot of quality and details!

Oh, so interesting! You work with games? Which games have you worked/ is working on? (If you can't reveal because of some NDA thats ok

And about Galadriel, oh yeah, I simply loved how much effort the LOTR team put on making those films, that's why they got soooo good and inspiring...!

[isissousa]

This is my latest (and best) painting so far!

Painted with Painter XI, it took me about 3 days to be finished with it; one for the concept, two for the painting process.

These are two fantasy characters of mine, from the end of the Viking Age. The guy is called Torbjørn and the elf-girl is Ragnhild.

Torbjørn is dressed in” saueskinn” (sheep skin); while Ragnhild is using a woolen cape, decorated with traditional bunad* stiches. Her pullover is made in a technique called nålbinding, popular among the Vikings at that time.

You can research more about “bunad” and “nålbinding or nålebinding” on the Wikipedia and other sites.

Hope you enjoy this one as much as I do!

[isissousa]

Frankly speaking this one is best one from all others the characters are not looking imaginary they are being reflected as the real people. Great Work

Thank you so much David! That's very much what I tried to do here. Make something very living, without being photo-realistic!

Thanks a lot for passing by!

[isissousa]

If you’d like to know about the process behind the painting “Torbjørn og Ragnhild”, which is my latest, take a look at the PixelArts magazine site. An exclusive making of has just been published!

Making of: click HERE.

Hope you like it!

[HULKFish]

Good grief... Such detail! Torbjørn and Ragnhild could almost be a photo!!! The hairs of his beard; skin-tones... WOW!

[isissousa]

Thanks HULKFish! I'm glad you liked it! This is my best, I think, so far... heheh I hope I can keep up the quality for the next paintings! Cheers!

[isissousa]

This painting was made for a book cover competition held on Epla.no .

The book is called “Dødelige Masker” in Norwegian and the original title is “Death by Cashmere” by Sally Goldenbaum.

So I thought of painting Angie Archer, the character that calls the mystery/thriller side of the book.

By the way, she dies mysteriously in the pier of Sea Harbor… And that’s somehow a little of what I wanted to convey with those distortions-and-reflections-like-water on her portrait…

Painted with: Painter 12 (Yeah! I’ve upgraded!) & Wacom Intuos 3
Water-like distortions: Photoshop effect
Water-like-reflections: painted with a round brush in low opacity with “overlay” blending mode
Time: Hm… about 8 or 9 hours…