Dipping my toes back into Digital art.

Exercise 1: Building grey-scale forms on pre-rendered spheres.

    I followed the excellent 'Figure Painting Workshop: Part 1 - Techniques and Principles' tutorial from Christophe Y, where he gave viewers the chance to get acquainted with the process of making brush marks and shaping forms in Photoshop.

Whilst the video is just over an hour long, you can probably find yourself spending 2 hours or longer after pausing and attempting the activities yourself, as well as taking in Christophe's words.

The original collection of spheres.

My attempts.

 

 Exercise 2: Tone study from photographic reference.

    Well, after feeling fairly confident and happy with the work on the spheres the previous day, I moved onto Christophe's second video; Figure Painting Workshop: part 2 - Demo

Firstly, we used photo references from the talented Anton Belovodchenko, Insta @belovodchenko_anton. However since I'm not an Instagram user (I can't get back into my account due to geo-politics), I used the following service to browse his collection freely (NSFW) 

The original Image from Belovodchenko.

I found that there are many striking black/white images in his collection, with many models possessing an aesthetic that really allows the light to work magic on the forms of the skin, bones, muscle etc.

From a purely aesthetic standpoint, it's an incredible resource for practicing toning techniques.

My initial line/shading work vs. Christophe's work.

Now, here are where my troubles started... I was half-watching the tutorial, half-focused on doing my own work, and when compared with Christophe's project, I later realised that I'd gone way too dark on my outline, as well as lacking texture and finesse in my shading. 

I stubbornly decided to push on and see if it could be rescued... 

Me 1 hour / C's 1 hour / C's 2 hour.

 

At this point I knew that it would be better to start over- whilst my work could pass as a stylized first-pass for a comic or manga, it strayed away from the realistic lighting and tone that I was supposed to be aiming for. 

I'll come back to the tutorial and make a second, third, fourth attempt until I can feel satisfied enough with the end result.