Digital Oils, Concept Art & Illustrations

[Zorran]

Not exactly finally finished (some of the paintings were done couple of years ago), but finished all the same. Painted mostly in Photoshop and ArtRage.

[Izi]

ew. lol

So did the client attempt to eat your brains during the session?

[Zorran]

If by client you mean the subject, he tried, but after I told him that my left side has nothing right in it, and my right side has nothing left in it he gave it up

Took some persuading though... Definitely the last time I'm painting monsters from life

[Pavel Sokov]

I am confused, how do you glaze digitally?

[Zorran]

Basically, you work on a layer with dilluted paint, just like in real oils. In Photoshop, or Painter for example, you would paint with lower opacity settings. ArtRage has an option of dilluting paint with thinners, which is as close as you'll get to painting with real oils.

You can work on a wet or a dry surface which gives different results (the usual method is glazing over a dry surface but some great effects can be achieved wet-in-wet). For instance, if you look at the edges of the figure (especially the left side of the face) you can see the fuzziness which, sort of, blends the figure with the background. This was done by painting over a thin layer of dilluted paint and smudging it with a palette knife.

Glazing technique can be emulated in most painting software (Photoshop, Painter, Sai) but for me, ArtRage gives the best results with minimum effort. And by minimum effort I mean spending less time adjusting the brushes settings and more time actually painting.

[JeanFumero]

I'm very surprised about how right lighting looks to me and how much 3D sensation you got on the face, it seems almost painted over a photo, guess is not the case.

As something negative, I'm not sure about how well fits the classic style of painting on clothes and BG, and the face, with harder shapes and lines.

[Jasbat]

Love the style and I'm intrigued by your technique too. It's remains me of Dracula by Mark English :



Nice experimental painting BTW, and great result. I don't know what's to critic cause you have to explore this style, I never really seen it before so...
Let's go on!

[Zorran]

@JeanFumero

3d model was used as a starting point. For clothes and BG some victorian portraits were used as a source of reference. In a sense, it is a Frankenstein painting And the 3d sensation is strengthened by dark BG. The face just pops out.

Having said that, and now that you've mentioned it, looks like there is, indeed, a bit too much of a contrast between the face in relation to the rest of the painting. Perhaps I should have softened it a bit more. I really wanted to emphasize the face and I might have overdone it. Luckily, this can easily be fixed.

Thanks for the input.

@Jasbat

Normally, I believe that in visual art, the technique shouldn't draw attention to itself. But in this case, I wanted exactly the opposite. I was trying to emulate traditional with digital, as close as possible. I even went so far that I've painted all the tiny knots on canvas by hand

There are similarities with Dracula. Compositionally, Dracula is almost the same, but so are all the portraits. One big difference though - Dracula is almost faceless, stripped of all identity.

But I have to admit, the part that I liked the most is that you've never seen the technique before. Convinces me that I'm on the right track

Thanks for the comment.

[Zorran]

Something completely different

[Ruckusleaf]

Zorran, that zombie is top notch!
What did you do to emulate the appearance of oil so successfully? It really captures the feel I love about oil paintings.

[Zorran]

I used ArtRage

I use it in combination with Photoshop where I do all the "preliminary" work and then finish it in ArtRage. For details, you can visit the Tutorials section on my blog where I've described some of the techniques I use, with a focus on ArtRage.

If you'd like to get as traditional as one can get in the digital medium, I suggest you try it out yourself, see how it works for you.

[Zorran]

Another one, different color scheme, different mood, well... different everything

[Zorran]

Concept art (actually, a matte study) - Photoshop.

[Zorran]

Batman is mad as hell and he's not gonna take it anymore Photoshop.

[Zorran]

Silmarillion book illustration. Unpublished.

[Zorran]

Extravehicular activity. ArtRage.

[hitnrun]

Silmarillion book illustration. Unpublished.

Okay a question or two on this one:

How did you do that border?

How did you get the look of the paper - looking aged, yellowed, etc..

And about all the other stuff - The digital oils are *very* nicely done! I tip my had to you good sir!

Excellent work all around!

[Zorran]

The border is a pre-made Celtic ornament. The old paper is an actual sheet of old paper

Here's another one from the same series.

[Zorran]

Concept art. Photoshop & ArtRage.

[Zorran]

Concept art. Photoshop.

[Zorran]

Personal work. ArtRage. After Caspar David Friedrich: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi...-_WGA08279.jpg

[Zorran]

Concept art. Photoshop.

[Zorran]

Concept art. Paint Tool Sai.

[Zorran]

Concept art. Alias Sketchbook Pro & Paint Tool Sai.

[Zorran]

Concept art (after Gimenez). Photoshop.

[Zorran]

Illustration. ArtRage.

[Zorran]

Private comission. Artrage.

[Zorran]

Concept art. Paint Tool Sai.

[Spectre_04]

Those are some very beautiful works I must say, very nicely done.

[hitnrun]

Heh, "It's an actual sheet of old paper" - raw materials are always a good option!