lowpolymatts sketchbook--->21st November

[lowpolymatt]

Ok here goes...gulp...first time for everything I guess. I started doing a daily paint in Photoshop last week on Thursday or Friday...cant remember. Anyway, they're from movie reference....I wanted to do these to get me back into painting in Photoshop. It's been ages since I've done anything like this so bear with me as I'm still learning my way round. I'm also trying to keep the times down to below 2 hours per piece. This is about me learning shape tone and colour, not about intricate details...not for now anyway.

Anyway, please help me on this journey...constructive crits would be appreciated.



First one, about 1 hour at lunch at work. Colours are a bit off, but the form is fairly correct.



Not happy with the face on this one at all. I quite like the coat....and I should never have gaussian blurred the background. I may rework it a bit...
1 1/2 hour Photoshop



1 hour Photoshop. Really really enjoyed this one and kept it as loose as possible. I think it shows....this one's my favorite so far..




I'm still working on this one, Photoshop crashed on me last week when I was doing this so I wanted to have another go at it. Here's my second attempt, it's not right, but it is better than the first. I'm going to keep working on this one....

EDIT: Same image as above but I moved his nos and mouth up a bit with the clone tool...I knew the nose was too long, I think this is an improvement....its still not finished mind you...



Anyway, that's my first installment....

Thanks to my wife for all her support......*kiss*
Ta
Matt

[Madoliane]

Thanks to my wife for all her support......*kiss*

You're very welcome.....all part of the service !

[stewart one]

hey nice work there. looks like youre well on your way. Id recomend trying to use some other brushes aswell as the one youre using. painting with the normal round photoshop brush has a tendency to give a painting without any sharpness to it.

[stewart one]

hey nice work there. looks like youre well on your way. Id recomend trying to use some other brushes aswell as the one youre using. painting with the normal round photoshop brush has a tendency to give a painting without a smudgy feel to it. ofcourse depends on how u use it.

[lowpolymatt]

Thanks Stewart One,
Yep, I know I need to use other brushes. I've been trying out various things recently within painter and photoshop and artrage and opencanvas, but I always seem to fall back on Photoshop. I am still at that ' just paint it' stage and I guess not confident enough to venture into multiple brush types. I know I have to at some point and I will do as soon as I can...

I'd be interested to see what brushes people lean towards in photoshop...anyone?

[lowpolymatt]

Done in my lunch break...well part of it...started another Matt Damon pic and didn't like it so I moved onto this one...

More to come toomorrow...

[rollb82]

hey, nice paintings. I am kind of jealous, i wish i could keep my paintings loose but i am so used to painting pretty flat and structured. It is so hard to change my method. I will keep checking to see how things are going for you, and hopefully i will learn something. Thanks and drop by the sketchbook sometime.

[lowpolymatt]

My Seattle vs UK entry painted up. Done last Saturday. about 4 hours for concept and sketching and 4 hours for final colouring.

[lowpolymatt]

must.do.more.sketching!

[Eew]

must.do.more.sketching! -----> that is SOO true ! lol nice last sketch and cool paintings(yeh i know not any real crits from me ) show more stuff !!

[Madoliane]

I really like the Jason Statham one...even if I didn't know his name and had to be told !

[lowpolymatt]

Not happy with this one, needs a lot more working into...the whole idea of this was that I did one each lunchtime to get back into painting but im noticing that these are taking a bit longer to get to that roughed up stage. I'm going to have to rethink what I'm doing and see if I can come up with another approach. Some of these are just too much to do in an hour.

It's given me a headache and its nowhere near right.

Still, there you go. Maybe it's time to do some sketching stuff...

[mentler]

Welcome to the dailies ~ great portrait works!!

[Pichuerca]

I know him! I know him! it´s gerard di Pardeu. My present please

Greats paintings!.

[lowpolymatt]

I know him! I know him! it´s gerard di Pardeu. My present please

Greats paintings!.

heh...I think you'll find it's Jean Reno from 'Leon' or 'The Professional'....

Is the likeness that bad?

[Jokisalo]

really dig out your flowwy confident style.
keep your paintings up to come!

[Pichuerca]

Jaja. I think that i could say that it was just a joke but it wouldn´t be true...

I´m agree with you it´s leon, the film that was interpreted by natalie portman too when she was young... and still young and beautiful (que esta buena de cojones, vaya). I was thinking in a french actor and was Gerard the first that came to my memory... sorry. It isn´t that you paint bad.


Keep posting.

[pixelherder]

its you! here! drawering!

wahey!

[lowpolymatt]

Yes it's me drawerising!!!

(I think thats where you say 'Im going to start drawing more again now')

Pichuerca, Jokisalo, mentler thanks for the comments!

No crits so far?

Ta
Matt

[lowpolymatt]

Photoshop 58 mins exactly...

Cropped it for now, will get to the rest of it when time permits...

Edit: also resized it as once it was cropped it was teensy...(300ish x 400ish)



Here's the ucropped unfinished version...

EDit no.2 (28-8-04) I've just watched this film for the first time...I thought it was Liv Tyler when I was painting it from the ref shot...but its not at all! I think it's the girl from Amelie....although I could be mistaken. Now I look back at it, I can see its not Liv Tyler at all! Crikey....

[lowpolymatt]

I started this one tonight about nine-thirty...so about an hour or so in photoshop.

It doesn't look much like leon, but I am quite happy with it as it feels solid. I think I got the colours almost bang on too....something which I've been finding hard....but today it seems to be falling into place with this picture and the one I did at lunch of Liv Tyler. I guess some days it just comes naturally and other days it's a constant battle. It's not finished (obviously) but I figured before I battled with Matilda's face I'd stop...because I've made good progress...I will finish it, just not today.

Anyway, tell me what you think...good bad crap? What could I do to improve...

Ta
Matt

[southerncomfort]

Nice painting!! I would love to see more... or maybe a complete one.

[lowpolymatt]

Southerncomfort - Yeah I would like to finish some of them too! But...for now I'm going for quick one hour studies, if I dont get it all done in that time..then I'm moving onto the next one, why? Well seeing as these are my first attempts at this kind of thing I want to keep it quick and fresh. Once I've gotten comfortable that I can do it without it becoming too difficult, then I think I'll start doing some more finished pieces...Right now I don't feel confident enough toget them to that *finished* quality....but I will try over the weekend to get one of these to a really decent finished-ish state.

Thanks for the comments.
Matt

[lowpolymatt]

Today I dont.....I just cant get it. So Im gonna start over on Matilda at some point....

Anyone got any advice?

Oh and a word of advice...don't leave your PSD at home so when you go to work on a picture again you only have the jpeg off the internet...they just dont cut it for editing. This may also be part of the reason it came out sucky, fighting against this compression glitches.....

I don't like this picture now, I did when it was just Leon...she just looks like a crack ..ugh...fucking awful...


EDIT: Here's the Ref...

[lowpolymatt]

Trying to correct....a few things in this image would help....I'm going to go back to the initial one at the weekend and work that up...

It's close, but it's not quite..I mean lets be honest, the whole thing is off...bugger...I hate being honest with myself. Maybe I should just scrap this one?

[mentler]

Saw it several times~work looking good ~~~ saw Leon filming in Paris during world cup a few years back!

[spork891]

Awesome sketchbook, can't wait for an update!!

[lowpolymatt]

Didn't have time to Do anything today...I'll make up for it tomorrow...I really want to try and keep this daily...

Here's my DSG from today just to show I did *something* at least...



Crits and comments welcome as always..

[lowpolymatt]

Still going at this one...this is like the 4th attempt at her face...It's just eluding me...

I think because it's so difficult to capture that 'youthful look'...you know...

Anyway..back to it...

EDIT: This is so painfully hard...you know when you can see whats wrong but not how to fix it...my eyes are stinging and its 1.15am..I'll see how far I get.

[lowpolymatt]

Not entirely happy with it but I want to move on and not get bogged down.

Crits and comments welcome...