Khaleesi - My First Digital Painting

[Kazu]

I know my way around Photoshop, but this is my first time trying real digital painting... Besides reading some online tutorials...I don't know what I'm doing. I'm kinda stuck...

Any help is appreciated.


Reference used (though I want the hair flowing instead of how it is in the photo):





Photoshop brush used: Oil Medium Flow - with pressure sensitive size and opacity, with Wacom tablet

Thank you so much for any help you may give!


--------UPDATE-------

Thank you for helping me realize the under drawing was completely off! It was much worse than I thought, and that made me want to start over. So I found a different reference pic, and now I think the underdrawing is really close to the original! No tracing. However, the painting aspect might be too advanced for me after all, as everyone here has suggested. So I should probably stop and just paint an apple next...

Reference:


Thanks for being so direct! I appreciate it, I'm here to learn.

- Kazu

[arenhaus]

You aren't building the structure or tracking the head anatomy very well.

I suggest you stop trying to copy movie stills in digital and switch to drawing everyday objects from life in pencil. Study the basics: structural drawing, perspective, anatomy, and lighting. You need a solid base in those to be able to make a portrait or use a photo successfully.

[Kazu]

You aren't building the structure or tracking the head anatomy very well.

I suggest you stop trying to copy movie stills in digital and switch to drawing everyday objects from life in pencil. Study the basics: structural drawing, perspective, anatomy, and lighting. You need a solid base in those to be able to make a portrait or use a photo successfully.

I agree I didn't work on the under drawing as much as I should have. I was just really eager to start painting. Normally, I'm pretty good at drawing. With so many different approaches to Digital painting online, I'm not sure what to follow and thought I'd experiment, though I got to a point where it just looks bad and I'm not sure how to fix it.

I'll redo the drawing tonight, but I would like some help on the painting approach.

Thank you very much for your feedback!

- Kazu

[Avvatar]

Really don't worry about painting right now, your proportions are way off and there is no structure. If you need to see where you are going wrong you can overlay your sketch over the reference though it is best to train your eyes to see the differences. No amount of painting will overcome a weak sketch, so make sure it is solid first.

[sanya]

Like the others have said, structure is very important-- no one starts working on a building before laying down the foundation-- it would just fall apart. You don't need to necessarily start learning the latin right now, but even just setting up the shape of the head, placing the features, etc.. would be a huge help.

Additionally, as a painting tip, try zooming out of your painting a lot, until it's really small, and try painting it a bit like that as an exercise: it's a good way to identify the most important shapes, planes and colors-- and it also slowly, over time, breaks down the need to "over paint" areas.

[Kazu]

Additionally, as a painting tip, try zooming out of your painting a lot, until it's really small, and try painting it a bit like that as an exercise: it's a good way to identify the most important shapes, planes and colors-- and it also slowly, over time, breaks down the need to "over paint" areas.

Thank you for the tip! I will try this, I can see why it would help, it would force me to just get the basic shapes down without worrying about the details.

Thank you for the feedback, everyone.

- Kazu

[shiNIN]

You did a common beginner mistake: huge face. It's too big for her head. Your lighting changes aren't good, the ear should be in shadow, just like most of the hair around there, just as the reference shows. You borrowed the lighting for the face, you should be consistent. The hair color clashes with the rest but you shouldn't worry about colors at this point. Human heads are hard, you really should study the basics in order to pull it off.

[Blackthorne]

If you're just eager to paint why not start with something a little simpler...like fruit/veggies? You could have painted 5 apples in the time it took to do this, and you would have learned more, IMO.

[Juggertha]

It's already been noted about shape/form, so I'll get right to the painting.

You've got this gorgeous girl in a nice still from a movie, but it feels like you're barely referencing it. The hair's wrong, and the shadow is unfinished. The colours you've chosen (hair especially), are really hurting this.

This is a tutorial I did for cell shading. but I think you could also experiment with layers in your shading. I used them to create this yesterday.

Good luck.

[williams73]

I know what I'm about to say may be controversial to some but here I go anyway trace the original capture and overlay it over your painting.....it will help you learn and see what planes of the face you have changed......
look at this layer then hide it and paint some more bring it back up when you get lost. If you do this many,many,many times in many,many different portraits you will start to see all the landmarks that lommis and everyother author on anatomy talks about. Then after you have done this many times you will start to see when your portraits are off kilter more quickly....It is my opinion that you must also teach your hands what your eyes see and this is what tracing does.....it is a learning tool not a drawing technique.

[Kazu]

Williams73, Thank you so much for taking the time to do this! By the time I saw it, I had already worked on a different piece, which you can see above. I have a long ways to go, but I think it's an improvement.


- Kazu

[Kazu]

If you're just eager to paint why not start with something a little simpler...like fruit/veggies? You could have painted 5 apples in the time it took to do this, and you would have learned more, IMO.

Yes, it was very advanced for me, I feel that my second attempt is much better so far, but I will try to paint some apples for practice, then go back to the Khaleesi painting.

Thanks for the advice.

- Kazu

[shiNIN]

Your second try is better but your ref seems to be too unclear for your skills, I mean it's obvious you try to draw that without knowing enough about the features. The mouth is the best example of it I think. You saw zillion human mouthes this far. Study/think how it's wrapped around the teeth (and forgive my English but it's understandable what I want to say, right?). You should use your anatomy knowledge when draw a head, even if you could copy wonderfully, there are tricky pictures (where there's too little information in the shadows, for example) and I don't think copying is your goal anyway.

I wouldn't make my life harder to figure out colors that aren't in the ref. Nothing wrong with doing studies in grayscale.

Probably using a mirror would be a better idea, it offers extremely huge resolution, you can move so you get a much better idea of the 3 dimensional form and there are other advantages as well compared to a camera, our eyes work differently than its lenses.

[williams73]

the newest one is better......take your time and enjoy it....