2hr speedpainting, mostly ArtRage 3 Studio Pro w/a little Photoshop CS4 for cleanup.
Took a bit longer than intended, but much of that was playing around with a more refined method of the process that I used for “Francesca Gorgonatrix“. Working on getting a bit more comfortable with it.
With these, I’m using ArtRage’s pencil tool for the linework, at least for the moment, as I don’t want the lines to get so overt that the colors are muted. I may change that, but I’m not sure yet. Currently, I’m trying to re-build the settings that I had previously in ArtRage’s ink tool, as I accidentally reset it without thinking, and without saving it as a custom brush. Oops. Chalk another one up to learning experience.
Colors started off with the paint roller tool, eventually to be rounded out with various layer blend modes and opacities, many of which used selective erasing to make things “pop” more. It’s rather like sculpting, and/or painting models, really, in that you take that mindset, and apply it to a 2D environment.
I then added filtration into the mix via Photoshop, doing the same with a handful of filtered layers as I did with the initial coloring layers. This also helped bring the linework closer to an inked look. While some may prefer the linework to look more concise, I actually like the slightly rough look for this. Still, there were certain parts that I tackled with the smudge tool, to clean it up a bit.
Finally, I went back into ArtRage, and did a couple minor details for touch-up. One thing I really like about ArtRage, that Photoshop surprisingly doesn’t have, is the ability to “select layer contents”. This allows for the complete selection of layer contents, without the inaccuracies that can often come with the magic wand tool (which ArtRage has as well).
Time to round this entry out, and work up a few pared down x-posts of it for other places.
Tags: art, artrage 3, character, creature, monster, ork, photoshop, speedpaint