Thread: Darkmatters' Art Gallery

Wow - nice flurry of activity on this thread!! Thank you everybody! I dusted off the painting tentatively called Bemused and brought it a good ways closer to its finished state:


Been a while since I've posted the whole thing in here, hasn't it?

There's a lot about it I don't care for - obviously the composition itself is pretty bad, and I'm not going to rework that. But the main point of this one is to get a lot of experience at working in digital paint and to lay the groundwork on which to keep improving - somewhere down the road Ill be a lot better because I pushed myself through all this work. And let me tell you, this one is a LOT of work!! Such a big canvas, with so much depth visible in the landscape. It's not a very heroic fantasy looking landscape, but I'm mostly just learning how to render landscape since I've hardly done any before - you first have to just learn how to do it period before you can push for learning how to do it well.

But it's starting to transform into a much better piece - I've been firming up Fafhrd's anatomy in the midsection area and I like the way it's looking - that big pool of shadow is starting to define form much better now that I'm defining the edges of it where needed. Also starting to do a little detailing in the background - man, that's rough!! Bushes are much different from human bodies - I've never studied the anatomy of vegetation!! One thing that's bugging me that I need to work on (probably in future paintings) is the lack of strongly defined light and shade in the landscape. Its there on Fafhrd, not so much yet on his little buddy the Grey Mouser. I'm also not very happy yet with the Mouser's face - his head looks too generic, basically a simple egg shape with some features slapped on. Fafhrd's face has character - his head has strong bony forms. I need to do a lot of sketches to figure out how the Mouser's head needs to be shaped.

But damn! It's good to be back at it again after too long of a break!! Thanks again everybody for the ego boost!

Working out the little guy's look, as well as working out a way of drawing in PS.

Beginning to convert it to color - this is actually going incredibly well (and fast!)

Using big hard-edged brushes, painting opaquely.


Switching to thin, soft-edged brushes to soften the transitions.


finally going semi-transparent, and covering the lines.

'Bemused' is looking gorgeous, man! I love the storybook feel to it. And screw the composition; I think it looks rather natural.

Keep going! You're definitely getting the hang of it all!

Incredible work man, honestly the composition is fine for now. Your piece has quite a low colour spectrum and the positioning is quite unusual so no surprise that the composition isn't perfect. It's probably been a great learning piece for you, I hop we get to see some new stuff soon

Thanks guys!

OZ - Yeah, composition wasn't really quite what I meant, it's not so bad really. I was referring more to the odd pose of the main character and the weird narrative... the fish was supposed to be horribly ugly like some kind of mutant, and they're wondering if it's safe to even eat. But it didn't come out that way lol! If I do get back to it I'll probably do a new creature on the end of the stick (though if I do I'll save the red fish as a separate painting because I like it).

Dutchraptor - good to hear from you! It has indeed been a great learning experience. What's emerged from it is the new techniques I'm using on the new piece, the portrait. And now that I have these techniques I look back at Bemused and it looks all splotchy and scribbly all over, with no hard edges anywhere. Everything on it took so ridiculously long to do because I had to keep matching that scribbly splotchy look (well, that was because of the random scribbly techniques I was using). The way I feel about it right now, I probably won't finish it any farther than it is, and let it sit as a learning experience, an early piece. Because now I'm excited about the much more sensible and precise techniques I've developed, and it would look weird to finish it that way, and I don't think I can go back to the earlier way I worked. Even if I could, working that way would take forever! It's so nice that this last one, which I just tentatively finished, only took - what? 3 days? Need to check on when I posted the first images.

Here's the latest (possibly final?) version of the Mouser portrait, showcasing the new techniques:



Wow, I started this one yesterday actually! Well, a little before midnight so technically 2 days ago, but did the majority of the work on it all in one long session yesterday, then today I just fixed the eyes (I know, they're still pretty weird). The whole thing took less than 24 hours, and that includes 6 or 7 hours of sleep!

There's a lot about it I don't care for - obviously the composition itself is pretty bad, and I'm not going to rework that. But the main point of this one is to get a lot of experience at working in digital paint and to lay the groundwork on which to keep improving - somewhere down the road Ill be a lot better because I pushed myself through all this work

WOW, when I first saw this I thought it was hand-drawn/painted; this was DIGITAL? Very nice, Darkmatters! If that's what you can do w/little practice, I look forward to seeing what you can manage once you get the hang of the program your working with.

~SilverWolf~

Thank you!! I have been trying to avoid the clean, 'airbrushy' digital look, so I really appreciate your comment! And I also look forward to seeing what my work will look like when I get through this awkward learning stage. I suspect it's not so much a matter of just getting the hang of Photoshop as actually learning to paint better. And hopefully that knowledge (if I can develop it) will translate over to oil painting as well.

Wow, you are doing this via Photoshop? I've never messed around with the painting parts of the program, mostly the photo-manipulation. Huh, just shows me I have a lot to learn about this wonderful program and what it's capable of.

Then again, when you pay 500+ dollars for something, it had better perform admirably!

So you paint IRL too? Not just digitally I mean, but with brush/canvas? Maybe you can post some pictures

Wow, that's really good!!!

Originally Posted by TheSilverWolf

Wow, you are doing this via Photoshop? I've never messed around with the painting parts of the program, mostly the photo-manipulation. Huh, just shows me I have a lot to learn about this wonderful program and what it's capable of.

Then again, when you pay 500+ dollars for something, it had better perform admirably!

So you paint IRL too? Not just digitally I mean, but with brush/canvas? Maybe you can post some pictures

I do work with some traditional media, in fact most of what's posted on this thread was done with oil pastels using the wash techniques I demo'd on the last page. And I have tried my hand at painting, but I wouldn't say I've done anything successful. I always felt like I was floundering around, mostly because I couldn't get used to handling a brush or mixing paints. So I started using aquarelle pencils and then oil pastels as a sort of transition, they're drawing media that can end up looking like painting media. The few oil paintings I have done suffered from some really weird oversaturated colors and various other problems. I found that photoshop lets me work just like drawing but in full color, and thankfully it has an Undo button!! So, after developing my skills at just making full color pictures this way then I'll try my hand at painting again. Oh, and I just have PS Elements, so well under $500, and I also started out using it for photos. Then one day I realized I could import my paintings and rework them the same way I was doing for photos, and thus I began digital painting. In fact the painting a couple pages back called Longbow started life as an oil painting.

Originally Posted by Angelpotter

Wow, that's really good!!!

Thank you kind sir!

Originally Posted by TheSilverWolf

Wow, you are doing this via Photoshop? I've never messed around with the painting parts of the program, mostly the photo-manipulation. Huh, just shows me I have a lot to learn about this wonderful program and what it's capable of.

Then again, when you pay 500+ dollars for something, it had better perform admirably!

So you paint IRL too? Not just digitally I mean, but with brush/canvas? Maybe you can post some pictures

I do work with some traditional media, in fact most of what's posted on this thread was done with oil pastels using the wash techniques I demo'd on the last page. And I have tried my hand at painting, but I wouldn't say I've done anything successful. I always felt like I was floundering around, mostly because I couldn't get used to handling a brush or mixing paints. So I started using aquarelle pencils and then oil pastels as a sort of transition, they're drawing media that can end up looking like painting media. The few oil paintings I have done suffered from some really weird oversaturated colors and various other problems. I found that photoshop lets me work just like drawing but in full color, and thankfully it has an Undo button!! So, after developing my skills at just making full color pictures this way then I'll try my hand at painting again. Oh, and I just have PS Elements, so well under $500, and I also started out using it for photos. Then one day I realized I could import my paintings and rework them the same way I was doing for photos, and thus I began digital painting. In fact the painting on page 1 called Longbow started life as an oil painting.

Originally Posted by Angelpotter

Wow, that's really good!!!

Thank you kind sir!

Red Fish (formerly Bemused) is nearing completion rapidly now. Still have a lot to do mostly in the right half, but I like the way the big shadows draw everything together.

Got him a personal trainer and a fashion coordinator.

I'm really learning how important it is to create a strong pattern of lights and darks - the interplay between them is what creates a sense of solid form. I was too afraid to put any real darks in before. Once you do it makes all the difference in the world. Obviously still got a lot of cleanup to do after the surgery.

I'm really loving that fish above all else. I think you have a knack for it, and think you should elaborate on some more organic "creature" studies. I picture a concoction of snails, more fish, coral, and jellyfish, as well as abstract concepts driven from the elements of those things.

Just something I really see shining in your work, it's all really nice to see. There's emotion, story, and a surreal sense of place, slightly mythical, in your style. It's really nice to see

^Lol!! I can see it now that you've made the suggestion - it already looks a bit like the bottom of the ocean. I could add lots of seaweed, shoals of fish everywhere, maybe an octopus or 2, and paint scuba gear on the 2 guys, or just eliminate them altogether...

I do like the way the fish looks, but this is about learning some techniques that I understand and can repeat, and I really have no idea what made the fish work. The way it's painted is what I call illusionistic, no visible brushmarks, and the emphasis is on the surface treatment, the spots and markings that give it a polished sleek surface. In comparison the rest of the painting is rough and unfinished-looking. Though I really like the vigorous, more robust techniques I'm starting to develop, which give a lot of life to the surfaces. Of course right now it's too rough, and like I said needs a lot of cleaning up.

Thank you especially for the second paragraph!! Very much appreciated!

The Fafhrd saga continues

Those textures are really coming along, man. (Especially with the fish, as was stated.) Excellent work, and massive, massive improvement!

Made some big overall changes especially to the terrain, as well as figuring out how to paint on the Mouser so he starts to look more 3 dimensional and solid rather than like a flat drawing.

I decided I had too much contrast going on, the light areas were too bright and the darks too dark, and that made it hard to see it properly. It's like when you're looking at the light areas your eyes get adjusted to the brightness and you can't really see the darks anymore, then when you look at the darks they need to re-adjust and you can't see the lights anymore. Fafhrd was the main problem for this, too much contrast between his lighted planes and the shadows. I've been working the contrast down but now looking back at the last version of him I see in some ways he looked batter before. Ah well, that's the nature of art - as you keep working you're screwing some things up while (hopefully) fixing others.

Nooo, not the fish! I want the fish back, please. It's such a nice fish, and I like fish.

^^ Lol - like I'm a lounge singer, and I take requests!

Ok, here's a nice closeup of the fish for my fish fans:

It does look really nice, but it was becoming a case of "which of these things is not like the others, which of these things just doesn't belong.."


I'll be replacing sad droopy red fish with something that actually fulfills its narrative function (which this one did not), looks more like it belongs in the same painting, and has some verve and action to it. Hey look at it this way Joanna - now there'll be another fish!!

Couldn't you do an homage to Salvador Dali's The Persistence of Memory, and instead of the melted clocks all over the landscape, add a few more droopy fish?