Hello!! I've been so transfixed by your studies of Lovesick that I wanted to know how you went about doing them?
omg that is so sweet... I never formally trained in painting or rendering so idk if my process is the best ever, but I can give you a rundown!
I start with a sketch, trying to map out large important shapes. I still get a little caught up in details, but you get the idea. The goal is to figure out where big blocks of color will go.
I then go in with a general color wash, very loosely blocking in large shapes. Ignore the already rendered bg piece it's just how I saved this layer
Random notes regarding this step:
I keep the sketch layer as baaarely visible as possible. I'm not filling in those lines -- I just use it as a guide for where things are positioned and sized. I'm still working off of the image of the original scene, more than I am the sketch.
I try to use larger brushes, smaller brushes are for detail later
I started with the darker wash first, and then filled in the negative space with light. My goal is to highlight the subject (in this case, noh) so I used his skin as the base color (also because It's a very present color in the whole scene -- I might not have done this for a different scene). It's a personal thing, but I really like it when the subject is carved out of the negative space around him, as opposed to drawing him on top of the background... if that makes any sense.
I work in a single layer, so the colors can bleed into each other. I find it just makes things more harmonious. It's intimidating, but I just copy and paste the file every now and again, like "saving" my progress in case I want to go back. This is because I try to stick to my decisions and paint over previous colors as little as possible, so if I dislike something I just go back and do it over again. It makes the work look more confident.
From there I turn off the sketch layer and it's basically just refining those shapes and filling in colors.
And okay I skip a lot of steps here but it's just the layers that i bothered to save ok... spare me... the idea is still the same. Working big to small.
For instance, with the lamp I start with the larger darker color and add the glow inside of that darker color. Or with the case of the shelf, I do the first step on a smaller scale -- I try to loosely map out the shape of the books with the dark, and then sketch in essential details. You don't need to actually paint a book, just imply one. yk.
I've always struggled with over-rendering when painting, and I rarely ever like the look of that in the end, so a lot of my process is just trying to avoid doing more than I need to. You can see in these steps that I initially went really in on that random wall on the bottom, and then I went in and removed the detail. It's just not necessary and I think it looks bad. Something that's helped me identify what's "necessary" in these cases is squinting at whatever it is im studying (or just removing my glasses lol) (or looking at it from further away). Then you simply can't see the details -- only the most notable values & colors!
theartofmadeline
janainaart
vaporwave
kianamaiart
