Digital Painting - Progress Update 1 (~20 hours)

I had about a week off between my internship and returning to Austin for school, and I decided that now would be the best time to begin working on a hobby that would take up a lot of hours.

I had no idea.

I had no idea how meditative the act of painting something could be. Focusing on the tiny details. Considering the big picture. Adjusting. Adjusting. Get the colors, the lines, the shading, just right.

Here's what I have at the end of approximately 20 hours:

When I started this whole project, I roughly sketched in color the general shape of things (with my apparently terrible sense of proportions). Then I started playing with brush types and pressure sensitivity and came up with a setting that worked for hair, so I started drawing that in. I shaded the neck line. I was most proud of the hair at this point in time, but I was so embarrassed by the face that I didn't want to show anyone.

But I showed some close friends anyway because they are so supportive of my new hobby. They were kind to only point out the stuff that was cool about it (namely, the hair), knowing this was my first try and that the rest would come in time.

Here's my first checkpoint:

It still gives me chills.

The hair was a base layer of brown, a layer of rough highlights and lowlights, a layer with three different shades of a darker colored base, a layer of "specular reflection" where the light would illuminate the hair, and a layer of shine, the lightest color.

I liked the hair so far, so I thought the best way to motivate myself would be to thicken it up and add more texture. I turned off the layer with the horrible facial features and just started filling in the hair.

After a total of about 5 hours working on the painting, this is what I had:

Not that much different, but the hair is fuller and that made me happy. I took a break for a few days because I had to move from Seattle back to Texas.

I needed to do something about the face.

I watched some YouTube videos, most notably this one about painting a realistic eye, and took some knowledge that I happened to retain from watching friends draw faces, and came up with some
line art to replace my grotesque, childish drawing of facial features.

Maybe the proportions aren't quite right yet, but it's getting there. It's certainly a huge step up. That took probably about an hour to really feel right.

The next step was the hardest. Actually filling in the eyes. I wanted to do shading on the sclera, iris, pupil, and get them looking like an eye. I'm hiding the line art in all checkpoints past this. After about 7 hours, I finally had this:

I was amazed when I zoomed out and looked at the whole thing how much better it looked. I only added enough shading around the face to bring out the outlines of the features but it already looks so much more real.

Close up:

Next: the shadow and highlight around the eyes (about 1 hour):

The tears (about 1 hour):

The shadow on the iris (30 minutes):

The reflection on the iris (2 hours):

I'm especially proud of that last step. I made a layer in white and dropped opacity to about 20%. Then I used the eraser tool to shape the light that's coming in so that it seems like it's coming from objects. Then I erased even more completely the places where the incoming light is obscured by the hair and eyelashes, and the eyelids and bridge of the nose. The effect from the bridge of the nose is more noticeable in the other eye:

Finally, I added the eyebrows and some shadows to contour the edges of the face and give the hair an appearance of depth (about 3 hours).

At the end of all that work: here's what I've got:

I probably underestimated the times. I figure I've spent about 15-20 hours on this already. Maybe I stopped a lot to admire what I had accomplished.

It's amazing to look back at checkpoint 1 and where I am now, and it's like watching the development of my artistic skill in a single painting. I can't even believe that I have exactly as much experience with doing digital painting as it has taken me to get to this point.

I think I'm going to like this hobby.