Help me start this!

[Meshead]

Ok, I need help with digital painting... I understand there are virtualy endless methods and schools of thought on the subject. There are books on the subject that I need to look for (obviosly); and ive spent hours looking through painting tutorials online ie. Sparth's tutorials, and many other on Conceptart.org. They have helped but not enough. What I find myself asking every time I sit down to paint somthing is; Where do I begin? Do I put colors down first? Do I start off dark or light? etc.

Here is a sketch I did today. The character has two light sources on his person. The hologram on his head and the hologram on his left wrist.


How would you start this painting? How would you do this? Show me to teach me. PLEASE I understand that I deserve personal training from you no more than any one else on these forums but perhaps if 1 or 2 of you (who are confident with thier paiting skills) work on this with me we will ALL learn something from it.

[Hanuka]

i second that demand. would love to see, how you guys approach this painting.
sadly, im not skilled enough yet to give it a reasonable try. sorry.

nice sketch btw., just hard to make out, what these holograms show.

[-sideshowbob-]

i never tried digital so far * no good skill*

but.. subdevide the detail u wanna have in parts.. base color.. skin detail highlights shadows and other details.. all seperate layer and color.. then start adding... base is first.. maybe then comes shadow and some dark areas .. and so on the last last detail u may add will be the finishing touch.. more accurate light and shadowing + some more highlights on shiny stuff like lips eys and that blade maybe

i would start with the pants and skinn colors + club colors * wood or something.. and add base color for each part u have.. then add some shadows * not the shadow caused my light* to form the volume
then add detail and some more light or what u want but do it step by step *i would do it so* start simplified and then start the rage

[Signature]

Guess that is a little late.

What would your steps be when you copy from a photo?
Your main problem is the light/shadow-pattern?
Guess you should make some studies with basic shapes then.

Tutorial By Ron Lemen

You should kinda collect info and construct the image.
Then you should be able to paint it.
If you are going more for a graphic style (less painterly) you still need to know the light/shadow pattern.
You can simplify it then.

You won't learn anything if an artists posts steps or that process.
The steps that you'd see there can be seen in a lot of step-by-step tutorials.
Maybe you'd be able to draw that image then ... but you wouldn't be able to apply it to other images.

Try to draw several studies like value studies. Then color studies based on those.
I think laying down local colors first and then adding shadows often leads to flat images.

There is a pretty good thread that shows some steps of the making of an image:
Notre Dame