102

Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Embed Size (px)

DESCRIPTION

quieres dibujar rapido este es tu libro

Citation preview

Page 1: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1
Page 2: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Contents

Mike Corriero019

Carlos Cabrera015

Chapter 02: Scary animal emerging from a forest

Mikko Kinnunen010

Levente Peterffy004

Chapter 01: Forest Fire

Rich Tilbury029

Levente Peterffy024

Chapter 03: Ship hit by torpedo

Levente Peterffy041

Carlos Cabrera035

Chapter 04: Tornado moving towards farm

Andreas Rocha062

Levente Peterffy058

Chapter 06: City street devastated by war

Rich Tilbury051

Paul Davies046

Chapter 05: The room made the explorers feel sick with the

thoughts as to what had happened there in years gone by

Rich Tilbury072

Mark Muniz067

Chapter 07: Evolution had played its part on these

creatures as their world heated up, but the thousands of years of forced hard labor had more impact

Rich Tilbury081

Fred Augis077

Chapter 08: The party entertainers’ real twisted identities

were very far from their bright, colorful disguises

Emrah Elmasli 092

Mike Corriero087

Chapter 09: The citizens of the flooded city now resided in

the tallest buildings connected by makeshift bridges.

Mikko Kinnunen096

Page 3: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

chapter 1by Levente Peterffy & Mikko Kinnuen

“Forest fire”

Page 4: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 4www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 01 Speed Painting

Letting it burn!In this tutorial I will describe my methods for

painting in silhouette.

Lighting treeAfter some sketching and some testing with colours, this is the result

(Fig02). I used the same brush as before, during this first phase of the

painting. It’s a rough brush, suitable for sketching. When sketching in

silhouette, it’s always important to paint whilst always first considering

the light, and secondly the shapes created. For example I paint the light

around the tree, and not the tree itself, this is a fast way of painting when

both light and shape is established. I’m bearing in mind that I need a dark

background, and a lighter colour on the brush I’m using.

Choosing the right colourThe theme is ‘forest fire’. The first thing here is to choose the right colour

scheme, it can depend on a lot of things. The topic is a common one, so I

know I’m going to use a lot of red, yellow and orange tones, representing

the warmth and heat of the fire. After having this clear colour scheme in

mind, I started by selecting a background colour. I chose a red brown

tone. I find painting with silhouettes easier if I have a dark background

and paint with light colours onto it. Here, in this image, I scribbled with a

brighter colour on top of the dark background. I didn’t have an exact idea

of what I wanted to paint so I just scribbled (Fig01).

Page 5: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 5www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 01

Burning more!At this point of the painting, the basic colours have been laid down. So in

this next phase you can just reuse those colours to paint more objects as I

have (Fig03 & 04). The use of the ‘colour-dodge’ layer style in Photoshop

is pretty effective, but it’s very important to always use very low opacity

on it, I always have the opacity set between 5-15%. The lighter tones in

the fire were painted with the ‘dodge mode’ for the brush . I also used a

default PS soft edged brush here to add some of the smoke effects, which

had a low opacity on them too. I continued to paint more on the trees,

using same colours as before. (Fig 04a)

MultiplyThis step is simple. I duplicated the painted layer and changed the layer

mode to ‘multiply’, making the image a bit darker. I also adjusted the layer

opacity, to tone it down (Fig05).

Page 6: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 6www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 01 Speed Painting

LakeI felt that the bottom of the painting felt empty,

so I decided to add a small lake there. The

process of creating this lake is as follows. Draw

a ‘marquee’ around the painting. Press “ctrl+t”

to make a free transform. Flip the image upside

down, basically grabbing the top and pulling

it down. Then squeeze together the image

horizontally so it looks like narrow broad box,

and finish the free transform by hitting ‘Enter’.

The last thing is to erase the hard edges of

this flipped box so it ‘melts’ together with the

background painting. (Fig 05a)

Last minute considerationI wasn’t totally happy with the background

because I felt I still had some space to be

worked on, also because I wanted to create

more depth in the image. So, I decided to paint

in some more trees, I used a hard edged brush

for this. One of the default brushes in PS (Fig06)

TexturingIt’s time for texturing, which is good if you have

custom made brushes just for this purpose. And

Page 7: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 7www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 01

I have a custom made brush (Fig07a) that has

a sprinkled effect which I used to create fire

sparks (Fig07).

Final touches!Alright. The painting is nearly finished but I then

decided to play around by adding some more

highlights, enhancing the light even more. Lake

reflection, treetops, leaves etc. (Fig08). There is

also a pretty cool trick you can use to make the

illustration look rougher. It involves a flat texture,

basically any kind used for 3D purposes. So

here it’s and I changed the mode too overlay

Page 8: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1
Page 9: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

which was the last thing I did on this painting

(Fig 09 a, b & c). Over the page is the finished

work, which I’m very happy with.

Levente PeterffyFor more from this artist visit

www.leventep.com

Or contact

[email protected]

Page 10: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 10www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 01 Speed Painting

Forest FireWhen I start to think about doing a new speed

painting, my primary focus is to portray the

idea behind the image as well as possible. This

means that I try to tell something about the

story, mood and the emotion while minimizing

the actual painting effort. If you leave out a

lot of the rendering process and deal with the

problems of the painting on a more simplistic

level, you will learn how important it is to get

some of the basics right before going further

with the details. Doing a rough painting means

that most of it has to be well designed, or

otherwise people just won’t connect with the

picture. In this article I will explain the creation

process of a image called Forest Fire.

Grayscale sketch (Fig 01)

I usually start to lay down my idea in grayscale

to make the process as intuitive and simple as

possible. In this case, I already had a given

theme I was going to do the speed painting

of. To get a jump start to the process, I was

visualising the idea in my mind much before I

even sat down in front of the computer. Just

trying to nail some of the basic themes before

starting can be advantageous and you can

avoid being threatened by the empty canvas

staring at you. I start with simple brushes and

quickly sketch down the basics of my design. I’m

going for some kind of Ewok-style tree house

thing, with the fire surrounding it. There’s also

characters in there. One of them is about to fall

down from the tree and the other is desperately

trying to save him/her. I like to add small

suggestions of a story to my pieces. That also

activates the imagination of the viewer a bit.

Adding colour (Fig 02)

I start gradually adding washes of warm and

cool tones to the image. At this stage I’m not

concerned about the final look. I’m only trying

to get some basic tones in there to build the

palette from. In this image the biggest challenge

will probably be in depiction of the fire in an

interesting and convincing way. I put in some

warm oranges and cool greens, something

that would feel natural for a burning forest.

Without going to extremes at this stage, I add a

bit of highlight behind the characters to set up

the focal point in the piece. I also add a bit of

overlaid texture to the background to get some

interesting variation. I keep checking my image

as grayscale to find out how my values are

working.

Page 11: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 11www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 01

Defining the forms (Fig 03)

This is the stage where I start to add opaque

colours on top of the under painting. I get rid

of some of the greens and add a bit of blue to

enhance the mood. I want this to have some

kind of night setting to contrast the bright fires.

I put most of the saturation to the midtones,

making them intense orange. The shadows are

cooler, and the brightest highlights have a bit of

yellow in them. I define the second tree house

a bit along with the silhouettes of the trees.

I notice that the horizon is perhaps a bit too

tilted right now and that will be fixed for the final

stages. You can easily spot errors like this if you

flip your image horizontally every now and then.

Finishing the painting

Page 12: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1
Page 13: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

(Fig 04)

When I have most of the basic forms and

colours in place, I add a bit of random textures

on top of the surfaces. I use a mixture of custom

brushes and overlays to make some interesting

two dimensional variation. I also define the

ground plane a bit further by suggesting some

sort of vegetation. The most important addition

is the bright flames that really up the contrast of

the painting. I put in a few more tree branches

and define the forest in the distance a bit. The

last thing I do is add a couple more of those

bright windows to suggest that there’s some

kind of interiors within the trees. Time is up and

this speed painting is now finished!

Mikko KinnunenFor more from this artist visit

www.artbymikko.com

Or contact

[email protected]

Page 14: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

by Carlos Cabrera & Mike Corriero

chapter 2“A Scary Animal Emerges from a Forest...”

Page 15: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 15www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed PaintingChapter 02

Created In:Adobe Photoshop 7

Sketch and Base colourI opened a new document of 2000x3000 (yup,

that big) with zoom at 50%, and first of all tried

to find in this particular sketch some harmony

between the animal, background and the

spaceship above it. You can see how the clouds

and the mountains go together side by side

In the sketch. (fig 01). For the animal design I

combined a chameleon (you can see that on it’s

eyes) and a dinosaur. I also add some elements

in the scene such as the trees and birds to give

the animal (or creature, as you wish) a more

fixed sense of it’s real size. I did the sketch with

black on a white background with the brush tool

(fig.02) which I’m using a lot lately. To save time

at the sketch or painting stage I usually use

keyboard shortcuts to modify the opacity of the

brush (fib.02b). The next step was to create

a new layer set to multiply on the sketch with

a base color for the whole illustration which in

this case was a dark green in order to create a

different atmosphere as if we were looking at

an alien planet (fig.03). I added some projected

shadows to display the animal’s volume in more

detail and darkened the forest a little to focus

the attention onto the animal and ship.

Page 16: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 16www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 02 Speed Painting

Background

To create the background I ran a search on my image folders and found

a cloudy sky. Your best bet here would be to take your own photographs

and create a new folder on your hard disk saving your textures, or simply

use google to find them (always pay for copyrighted material but there

are some good sites that would let you download photos and textures

for free) ;). I created a new layer, pasted in the cloudy sky pictures and

then I changed the layer properties to Overlay 85% so the cloud sky

blended with the other layers. Then I just highlighted the green to create

new shades. (fig 04). Before painting the mountains I decided to give the

animal some highlights and volume. I added a dark red to the tongue

and a yellow-green for the body volume. At this stage you only have to

paint some areas leaving most of the background intact which is enough

to produce the volume effect on the illustration as you can see on the

animals jaw. (fig 05). Now we can paint the mountains. I used the same

method of adding volume as I mentioned above for the mountains. One of

the mountain faces recieves some light and the other one is in shadow but

we only need to paint the light areas here. (fig 06). I also painted some of

the forest areas with a more light green and started to add some texture

Page 17: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 17www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed PaintingChapter 02

with the result looking more like a forest than just plain ground. (fig 07).

At this stage (fig.08) I added a layer above everything and added a light

green over the clouds to add a more atmospheric perspective to the

illustration. The animal had way too many dark colours on its neck and

that created an undesirable effect on its scale - we want it to be really

big and not just a simple worm ;). Now with the top layer plus the opacity

changes, I am able to transform the black to a more grey-green kind of

colour and therefore giving it more depth and scale.

Time to clean the cloudsI duplicated the cloud layers and placed them on top of everything erasing

the areas where the animal and the mountains reside. Then with this new

layer I changed the cloud colour (CTRL+B) to a more yellow- green to

give the sky more variation. (fig.09). Having finished the background I then

drew the spaceship (fig.10). I decided that the spaceship needed to be

metallic so it became the only bright thing in the illustration and that way it

would become a focal point along with the animal. Obviously the darkest

color on the spaceship does not have to be the same as the mountain

shadows. Next thing was to develop some of the elements of the sketch

to help emphasize the animals scale. To help do this I painted some

birds in front of the animal, and also added some trees flying around as if

the worm had come from inside the forest. (fig.11). The last step was to

correct some of the color and details. I re-sized the spaceship and most

of the birds so the creature now looked more imposing over the rest of the

elements. I added a new layer set to overlay 20% and I painted it in yellow

over the animal’s neck, eye and over the mouth to highlight the parts a

little more and bring the animal forward from the background.

Page 18: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 18www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 02 Speed Painting

Fig.12

I then added a new layer with extra details and

increased the volume of the neck and eye. I

also played with another light; this time a blue-

green light that improved the creatures form and

volume even more (wow, you can almost touch

it!). (Fig12)

Carlos CabreraFor more from this artist visit

www.carloscabrera.com.ar

or contact

[email protected]

Page 19: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 19www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed PaintingChapter 02

IntroductionA trick to give your painting some texture in

order to get away from the flat colour laid down,

is to take a photo texture and overlay it with a

very low opacity, above the image.

PaintingSpeed painting is a process, concept artist

use a lot to convey a concept very quickly,

while still retaining the necessary elements to

communicate their idea clearly. There are a

few key factors in speed paintings you’ll notice,

which are often evident within the term “Speed

Painting”. These various factors consist of mood, lighting, texture, custom brushes, photo textures,

colour, depth, atmosphere and focal point. Custom brushes and Photo Textures play a big role in

the look and feel of a speed painting, it’s also one of the main factors, in painting quickly, while still

retaining a good deal of detail. I began thinking about the topic “A Scary Creature Emerges from

a Forest “, by producing some small thumbnail sized preliminary creature sketches and a few tree

designs. These don’t take very long, but in the end will help make the actual painting process go

a lot quicker. I also produced two rough compositions from which you’ll notice, I chose one for this

final painting (Fig.01). Now that I have an idea of what I’m about to paint (with both the preliminary

sketches by my side and the topic description in mind), I started the painting with a textured base

layer. This base layer consists of the primary colours, I plan on using for the background which will

be altered slightly as the painting progresses. (Fig.02). The base also consist of a couple of photo

textures of various plants, leaves and a custom brush, which you’ll see later on as the process

continues. This custom brush will be available for download as well as a few pattern files. (Fig.03).

After having established a quick base to work on top of the next process is to block in some

atmosphere, a horizontal line defining the ground plain using a couple other custom brushes for

grass and dirt. At this point it’s not all that important defining anything other than creating a space

to begin blocking in some of the main elements (Fig.04). One quick trick to give your painting some

Page 20: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 20www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 02 Speed Paintingtexture in order to get away from the flat colour

laid down in the beginning is to take a photo

texture and overlay it on a very low opacity

above the image. This will provide some texture

and break up the flat surfaces which supplies

a kind of quick painted brush effect. (Fig.05).

Now that I’ve basically finished the base layer

of this painting which took maybe a maximum

of fifteen minutes, I’m going to take that initial

compositional thumbnail, set it at a low opacity

multiply layer above my painting and use it

as a quick guide to drop in the main forest

elements. In the process of doing this I’ve used

a couple of my custom leaf brushes to block

in foliage and fill up the ground plain with my

custom grass brushes. (Fig.06). You’ll notice

in this line up that I’ve created an assortment

of Custom Brushes early on to help cut down

on the time of painting every leaf, every blade

of grass and surface texture in the painting.

There are 14 new brushes in total set into

groups of leaf clusters, falling leaves, ground

and dirt, and grass and weeds. These custom

brushes along with some photo textures and

custom patterns will all help speed up the

painting process while still retaining enough

variation from one leaf to the next. You can see

the custom brushes below (Fig.07). A quick

adjustment to the levels has been made to help

boost the values and define the elements as

well as a change in the Selective Colour and

Colour Variation. Considering the background

has been blocked in for the most part I’m now

dropping in one of my preliminary creature

sketches and applying a base colour to outline

the silhouette. (Fig.08). Going back to one of

the main key factors in a speed painting, this

next step is quick and simple. Using an overlay

Page 21: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 21www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed PaintingChapter 02

needed. In order to do this I’m using the stamp tool with an airbrush while

selecting areas of the photo texture and then painting it into my image.

When I have it painted into my image set to a new layer I’ll lower the

opacity, play with the overlay options and erase portions to help integrate

it better into my concept. (Fig.10). The painting is practically done; the

last step is the focal point and main element of the entire concept which

is the creature. More specifically it’s the creatures head and neck regions.

I want to keep a lot of the depth and atmosphere I’ve produced so I don’t

really want to render anything other than a small portion of the neck and

mostly direct the viewer’s attention toward the face. (Fig.11). Finalizing

the image - I’ve basically just rendered out the main focal point, producing

the creatures skin texture with a round scattered brush and some overlay

highlights and multiply shadows. At this point it’s about two or three

hours into the painting and it’s pretty much finished. In order to draw

more attention to the creatures head I’ve decided to give the interior of

and screen layer I’m just going to push back some of the elements with

a large soft airbrush while bringing in some local light colour into the

creature. Outlining portions of the anatomy, fading some of the spikes,

the rear legs and lighting the silhouette is all that’s really needed at this

point. To provide some atmosphere I just produced some floating particles

using the airbrush set to a sparse scatter and spacing between the brush

tip. (Fig.09). Again another main key factor in speed painting is using

high resolution texture photos from the Internet, I’m going to supply the

painting with additional colour, foliage and texture in areas where I feel it is

Page 22: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 22www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 02 Speed Painting

Fig.13

its mouth a cold blue saturated tone and I also

pop out the highlights on the structure of its face

and plated body. (Fig.12). And here is the final

image. (Fig.13) That’s all; I hope you found the

image interesting and the quick step by step

informative. You can download the custom

brushes and patterns used in this speed painting

for your own personal use.

Mike CorrieroFor more from this artist visit:

www.mikecorriero.com

or contact

[email protected]

Page 23: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

chapter 3“Ship hit by torpedo”

by Levente Peterffy & Rich Tilbury

Page 24: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 24www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 03 Speed Painting

Created In:Photoshop CS2

Build your confidence in just an hour: Levente

Peterffy shows you how to whip up a ship hit

by a torpedo with just a few digital strokes...

Speed painting is an effective painting practice

to achieve good composition, colour and light-

interaction with shapes and forms, and with

the use of brushes - both default and custom

- you can quickly create and simulate a realistic

environment with just a few strokes. The topic

‘’Ship Hit by Torpedo’’ reminds me of World

War II; I don’t really know why but I have always

been interested in World War II and I was

therefore quite taken with the topic set for this

challenge. There are probably a million stories

to tell about that period, which would all be very

interesting to illustrate, and in this case is a

ship being struck by a torpedo. In this tutorial,

the focus on this article is that realistic images,

or colours if you like, can be achieved with the

use of custom brushes and blending modes in

Photoshop. The software used to create this

speed painting were Photoshop CS 2 and a

Wacom Intuos 2. Let’s begin...

Background ColourI started off with a coloured background, as you

can see in Fig 01. On this background I started

to paint with custom soft-edged brushes (see

brush example in Fig 01), often with a very low

opacity of between 10-20%. I worked in this way

until I could see some shapes evolving (Fig 02).

Ship & Fog At this stage I started to develop more of the

shapes from the previous image which were

slowly forming. Already, at this stage, one

can see that it shows the shape of a ship in

Page 25: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 25www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 03

the foggy atmosphere. I used similar kinds of

colours to define the shape of the ship more

and more (Fig 03). When I first had my shapes

defined I started testing some new colours

out. I used a light blue in this case for the

sky, and also defined the horizontal sea-line.

I used a simple gradient to make the ocean.

The colours were all picked from the painting:

one light colour and one darker (Fig 04). I

cropped the image at this point, and at this

stage was able to start going into more detail.

I picked a small, hard-edged brush (see Fig

05) and started adding details on the ocean,

and some smoky clouds (Fig 06). I flipped my

painting horizontally a lot, helping to refresh

my eyes and so I could see if there were any

flaws (proportions, perspective, and so on). I

continue adding details and also building on

the background, trying and testing hues of blue

for the sky (Fig 07). There is one thing I usually

try a lot, which is duplicating the painting layer,

using a photo filter on the duplicated layer and

Page 26: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

increasing the density on the warming filter to

85, then choosing Multiply as the blending mode

for the duplicated layer on top. To finish it off I

took down the layer opacity to a fairly low level

until I felt that the colours were just right. If you

want more control you can erase parts of the

top-layer, as I have in Fig 08. At this stage I

added some more detail to the ship. There is an

open crack on the ship’s hull, just as if a torpedo

tore a hole into it (hence the topic for this speed

painting) (Fig 09).

DetailingI like adding details. Adding details is kind of

like adding more words to a story, and there are

those details that you just simply have to add

because they help the picture to make more

sense, for example breaking waves, reflections

in the water, and so on. I painted a silhouette

of a bird on the left, because I felt that the sky-

area in that section was a little empty. Another

detail which I realised would help was the use

Page 27: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

of a rusty texture - look at the ship’s lower part.

I wanted to create something rust-like, so I

painted with a custom-made brush which slightly

resembles rust (see brush example on previous

page) (Fig 10 -11). I continued adding more

strokes to the smoke (Fig 12).

Colour TestThese last stages of a speed painting are to

basically test the colours to see if you can

improve them and add more to the mood (Fig

13).

Final TweaksAdjusting the resolution and adding sharpness

are the last things that I do to my paintings. And

there we go: finished (Fig 14).

Artist Tips & SecretsI can’t stress this enough but ‘’practice and

practice more’’ is the key to success. Even

with cool custom brushes as assets, you still

need to train your eye to see shapes and

colours interacting with light, in order to evolve

a painting. Try not to get too dependent on

tutorials; dare to experiment a lot, even if you

don’t know where to start, just scribble around.

There are a lot of forums out there with speed

painting threads, so post your work a lot and

see what feedback you get. There are people

out there willing to help you so use their advice

wisely. However, do try to think of the problem

for yourself, and try to solve it as best as you

can. If you have a hard time starting to paint,

then make studies from master paintings or of

screen-shots from movies - that should help to

get you started at least.

Levente PeterffyFor more from this artist visit:

www.leventep.com

Or contact: [email protected]

Page 28: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 28www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 03 Speed Painting

span of time. In the following exercise I have

tried to limit myself to a couple of hours and

have chosen to focus on the moment at which a

torpedo slams into the side of a destroyer! ...

Blocking-InAs is my usual approach to any painting, I

firstly conduct a search for as many reference

images as I can find on the Internet. In this

case I gathered a number of photographs

of battleships in order for my image to look

convincing. As the ship was going to be the

main focal point I wanted to make sure it

resembled its real counterpart quite closely.

As I was looking through photographs I liked

the camera angle of one of the ships and

decided to use it in my painting. The first stage

involved roughly blocking-in the composition

in black and white, and experimenting with the

areas of light and dark (Fig 01). The reason I

chose this particular angle was because I felt

that the foreshortened size of the ship seemed

exaggerated, and as a result gave it a more

imposing quality, as well as adding a certain

dynamic. I predominantly used two brushes to

establish the tonal range, which can be seen in

Fig 02.

They are both hard-edged yet retain a painterly

quality. The top example (see Fig 02) is one of

my custom brushes, and the lower one is one

of Photoshop’s default hard, round airbrushes.

They both utilise opacity set to “pen pressure” to

enable more control and a level of transparency.

Building up the DetailsWith a medium grey I then began to tie the sky

and the sea together, and tidied up some of

the lines of the bow and refined some of the

structures above the deck (Fig 03). Having

made a reasonable start on the tonal ranges

it was then time to add some colour, which

was done on a separate layer set to Overlay

blending mode. In this way the light and dark

Introduction Speed painting is a very useful way of quickly

establishing aspects of an image such as the

composition, colour scheme and lighting, and

a method of clarifying the mood of a scene,

whether it be for a film, computer game or

simply a digital painting. Depending upon the

artist in question, the notion of a speed painting

can have different connotations. In some

peoples’ eyes the idea of a speed painting can

be 45 minutes or so, whilst others may consider

2 or 3 hours spent working on a piece as a short

Page 29: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 29www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 03

fading towards the edges (Fig 06). I added this

on a separate layer so that it could be moved

and altered with ease if need be, as it was

done very quickly. To add some extra drama I

wanted to add a torpedo wake passing just in

front of the ship, just narrowly missing the hull.

This was also done on a separate layer using

the same brush, but this time with scattering

applied so as to describe the tiny air bubbles

made by the propeller. The reason this was on

areas remained, even though colour was being

added (Fig 04). I began by using a subtle

blue/green and also painted in some random

horizontal strokes to help define the water a

little. As this painting was meant to depict a

torpedo collision it was about time we added

some action into the scene! For this I created

a custom brush, as seen in Fig 05, which is

illustrated in the bottom-right of the image.

When some scattering was applied it created an

effect similar to the top-most brush stroke, which

has the effect of appearing more broken and will

be suitable for something else later... Anyway,

I decided to have the torpedo hit towards the

back of the ship, and with my new brush I

painted in a splash with a bright white, making

sure that the centre was more opaque and

a new layer was because it needed to be set

to Overlay mode in order for it to appear darker

in the shadow of the ship (Fig 07). The way to

achieve a sense of perspective is to either paint

in a shape and then use the Edit > Transform

tools to Skew and Distort it so that it tapers off,

or alternatively one can simply use the Eraser

tool to do it manually. You may also notice that

I have painted in some evidence of a land mass

on the far left of the horizon

Page 30: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 30www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 03 Speed Paintingshadow was painted in below the larger ones to

add some volume, as well as a few elements at

the bow (Fig 09). You will also notice that I have

continually added areas on the ship and then

maybe erased them later down the line. Do not

be afraid to change things and experiment as

you work - it is good practice to keep things fluid

and to try alternatives as you work as this often

yields positive results that you could not have

predicted. In Fig 10 I have added a wave along

the bottom of the ship to show that it’s moving, as

well as adding some more density to the torpedo

splash. In Fig 11 I have put in some detail along

the hull of the ship to break up the consistency of

the hull and to give some indication of scale by

way of some metal panel. shapes.

Finishing OffThe picture is now essentially complete and

could be left, but a few quick enhancements

can improve things. Because I left the torpedo

wake on a separate layer I can now duplicate it

easily, and after a bit or re-adjustment create a

gap down the line of air bubbles which is more

realistic. Also, using a simple brush, I added

Refining the Image At this point I thought that the torpedo splash

was becoming somewhat lost amongst the very

bright area of sky behind it, and as a result was

subduing the impact - pardon the pun! Using

the Gradient tool I overlaid a grey/green (inset

square) from the top of the image towards the

horizon, and similarly from the bottom up to

reflect the sky. Being set to Multiply mode this

also served to create a more ominous mood to

the picture and also emphasised the splash (Fig

08).

I worked back into it with a soft edged eraser in

places to bring out some cloud formations, as

well as adding some further refinements to the

ship, together with a line of flags. I generally

cleaned up the edges and put in some simple

shadows and highlights to help describe the

scale, as well as shifting everything back a

little towards the rear of the boat, because the

perspective seemed wrong as it was. The next

step was to put the guns in, which were done in

single strokes using a hard-edged brush. A little

Page 31: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 31www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 03

a useful exercise. I may well attempt to paint

another image on the same theme, except next

time limit myself to one hour, just to see how

the result compares. The crucial lesson to bear

in mind with this type of painting is to acquaint

yourself with the subject matter beforehand

and have as clear an idea as possible about

composition and colour schemes before you

begin, as it will inevitably save you much time

during the painting process.

some random strokes around the splash to

widen the spray, as well as some swift random

marks to add more definition to the water. I put

in some evidence of railings and a few highlights

and finally used a large soft airbrush to lighten

the horizon and water and to paint in some

simple suggestion of clouds.

Conclusion

The finished picture can be seen in Fig 12. I

am happy with the final result but as with any

speed paintings the temptation is to get carried

away with unnecessary details. I spent just over

two hours on making this image and feel it was

Page 32: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Rich TilburyFor more from this artist visit:

www.3dtotal.com

Or contact

[email protected]

Page 33: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1
Page 34: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

“Tornado moving towards farm”by Carlos Cabrera & Levente Peterffy

chapter 4

Page 35: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 35www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 04

Created In:Photoshop 7.0

Sketch: I opened a new document of 2000 x 3000

and started the quick sketching phase with a

50% zoom over the whole document. In this

people to try this technique. You can see how

the twister and the farm house are there in the

first view with just a couple of strokes (Fig01).

Now it is time to add some grey colours to the

sky and to the ground (Fig02).

particular step, I don’t like to be held by the little

details, but rather work more on the harmony

of the illustration using quick and simple forms.

Drawing in black and white is the quickest way

that I know of for obtaining good compositional

details without wasting too much time; it almost

develops on it’s own and I always encourage

Page 36: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 36www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 04 Speed Painting

We can start to give the farm house a little bit

more detail now. For the twister I use black

with 50% opacity; this adds a cloud/smoke

effect, and allows you to accomplish the effect

in a short space of time. After we’ve finished

the grey colouring stage, we can start to add

more detail to the farm house. You can see the

chunks of wood on the house’s roof are just little

brush strokes, some of which are darker than

others. This creates the effect of small, flying

pieces of wood. At this stage, it’s pretty obvious

that you’ll need to work the details in 100%

zoom, to be more comfortable. We can then add

some grass and fences to the scene, and we

are then we’re done with the farm house - that

easy, that quick (Fig03).

If we compare this step with Fig02, we can see

how throwing some dark colour at the farm will

focus the viewer’s attention exactly where we

want it: on the farm house (Fig04).

Page 37: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 37www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 04

Now we just need to add some light and shade

to complete the drama of our scene. It isn’t

really that complicated; if you picture it in your

mind it will come out naturally. One thing I

added in the foreground was some extra detail

(the fence), as I felt there was an empty space

there to be filled. You just need to have fun

and play with your illustration! There are a lot

of rules of composition, but I think the best

one is the eye, imagination, and mind of each

artist. It’s better to be creative and have fun

working on your illustration, than working over a

preestablished grid (Fig05).

Now we need to make the twister something

scary, and to do this we add a layer on top of

everything and start adding some dust and

clouds around the body and base of that mean

twister - look how big it is! This particular part is

pretty fun, and I bet you will spend quite some

time on it (Fig06).

Page 38: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

After we’ve finished our twister, we need to go

to the next stage of the illustration, and to be

honest, this is the step I personally enjoyed the

most. By painting wood and dust flying around

the house in a mortal ballet, with just a few small

strokes we can easily create the path of horror

of this twister, and the fallen debris that it leaves

behind (Fig07).

Page 39: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 39www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 04

Finally, the Colour.Now we create a new layer and place it above

all the others. Press Ctrl + Shift + E on your

keyboard to merge all the layers in just one

single layer, and then rename this layer “colour”.

After this, we press Ctrl + U, and the HUE

window should come up. We need to check the

Colorize checkbox (it will be un-checked), and

then Hue: 54, Saturation: 25, and Lightness:

0 (zero) (Fig08). With these values we will get

a nice brown colour that we can use for this

illustration. We are almost there now! This first

grey-painting technique is used many times to

clear our mind from the colour of the subject,

and to cut straight to the chase. On the other

hand it’s good practice to upgrade our render

skills, and so it’s very useful either way.

We now create another layer, above all the

existing ones, and paint onto our piece the farm,

the floor and all the colours that we can now see

added in Fig09. We switch the layer to Overlay

and leave everything at 100%. By doing this we

change the floor tint, farm tint, and finally have

given our illustration a new variety of colour and

contrast. Lastly, we just need to have some fun

applying the last touches, and that’s all!

Page 41: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 41www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 04

you can gradually paint and read the image as

you go, which is a lot easier than using colours

of extreme value. Light blues and saturated

greens were used to paint the field and sky, as

you see in Fig02.

Whilst I was painting Fig02 I tried to block out

the shapes and composition at the same time.

I felt a diagonal composition would suffice for

creating the dynamic and destructive power of

the tornado, and so that’s what I went for (Fig03

- 05). What you can see in Fig03 - 05 is simply

a follow-up on Fig02 where I have added more

dynamic details to the tornado and to the green

grassed field.

Created In:Photoshop

Tearing things apartThe theme for this tutorial is “Tornado Moving

Towards Farm”. OK, so before we begin

painting, let’s think about the theme. The first

thing I thought about was the typical shape

of tornados, and the type of colour schemes

that they usually have. Another thing, which

is recommended, is to research the subject;

references, photographs, movies, and so on

- anything that lets you become more familiar

with your subject. First of all, I aim to pick out

a background colour which will fit as a base for

the sky and tornado (Fig01 - 02). I then start to

block out the sky and field with a lighter tone.

Painting Carefully But PreciselyWhen you are painting in new objects, try to

paint using low opacity of the colours. That way

Page 42: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 42www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 04 Speed PaintingWhen you paint sky, a soft-edged brush is

recommended. The shape of this brush can

look like anything basically - it’s totally up to

you when you make one, but just remember to

have soft edges. To give the tornado a more

destructive feeling I introduced some new

colours to it, using browns, oranges and reds to

create the dust clouds surrounding the tornado.

Here, as before, I used low opacity on the brush

strokes. An image crop was also done to put

more focus on the tornado.

Re-using to Create New Fig06 - 08 illustrate the process moving forward.

Since the basic colours and shapes of the

image were already settled in the initial phase,

the rest has just been a continuation of the very

Page 43: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 43www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 04

Curves (the most precise way if you really want

to be picky), and Colour Balance (I rarely use

this; I just try it out when I feel like experimenting

with colours). The best way of learning these

tools is to go into Photoshop and simply

experiment and learn how they work and what

same colours and shapes. I introduced a new

object in Fig08, as you can see. The colours for

the house/farm were picked from the sky. The

shapes of the wood were created with the lasso

tool which I duplicated a couple of times.

The Finish Not a lot new was done in Fig09-10; I

was basically just trying out some colour

adjustments. There are several ways to work

with colour adjustments. The easiest way for me

is by using the Variations function in Photoshop,

and this was basically how I created the bluish

tones in these final images. Other ways of

adjusting colours are using Hue/Saturation (a

good way to enhance the colours you already

have, but not so good for introducing new ones),

they do. Books, online tutorials, videos - the

choice is yours. Try to get dependent on these

resources though, as it’s more important that

you try things out for yourself.

Page 44: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Levente PeterffyFor more from this artist visit:

www.leventep.com

Or contact:

[email protected]

Page 45: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1
Page 46: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

“The room made the explorers feel sick with the thoughts as to what had happened there in years gone by”by Paul Davies & Rich Tilbury

chapter 5

Page 47: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 47www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 05

IntroductionUK based artist, Paul Davies, takes us on an

honest journey through the Speed Painting titled

“The room made the explorers feel sick with

the thoughts as to what had happened there in

years gone by!” ...

Speed painting can be used to accomplish many

tasks. It can be a way of quickly comparing a

series of designs based on the same theme,

or it can be used as an exercise to improve

an artist’s skills. The purpose of many speed

paintings is to quickly portray a desired mood

and atmosphere by focusing on lighting and

composition without worrying too much about

detail. This can be a difficult task for beginners;

you need to have a good understanding of

values, colour and composition to be able to

work quickly, so the key is to practice. The more

you do, the better you’ll get. When beginning

any illustration, whether it’s a speed painting

or a portfolio piece, it’s important to have a

reasonably good idea of what you are painting

in your mind’s eye before you begin. In this

case, after reading the brief, I spent ten minutes

looking through stock photographs of ruined

churches and temples until I had a good idea

of what I wanted to do. In the next few steps I’ll

take you through my process of creating a quick

sketch painting concentrating on mood and

atmosphere.

Step 1I start by laying down a range of basic shapes

using dark and light shades to quickly establish

my colour palette and some basic values. At this

point I’m not too concerned about design, I’m just concentrating on the general mood and feel of the

piece. I try to work as quickly as possible here, using a round custom brush to block in a large area

of dark grey and give myself an idea of where the main light source should be coming from. I enjoy

working with a lot of custom brushes, and one of the things I like to do at this early stage is use the

Photoshop’s Smudge tool with one of my scattered brushes. This gives a blending effect similar

to what can be achieved in Corel Painter and enables me to blend colours quickly and easily until

I’m happy with where my colour palette is going. Once I’ve established my basic values, I choose

a much smaller brush and start picking out small, linear highlights. These will suggest architectural

details and give the impression that we are looking at a man-made structure rather than a natural

rock face. Using the Eyedropper tool I grab colours from around the image and keep things very

loose and sketchy, again not focusing on design but on the mood and feel. Already we can start to

see some indication of the space and scale of the piece. At the top we have a glimpse of the sky

broken up by a dark, grey structure. In the mid ground we have a darker area which will be the focal

point of the illustration, and at the bottom we have the darkest area where the explorers will be.

Page 48: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 48www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 05 Speed Painting

Step 2The next thing I want to do is to start establishing what type of

environment our explorers are going to be in. I start by blocking in a large

archway which will serve as the focal point of the image. Using a small

round brush, I then clean up the sky area and add a few more linear

highlights to the surrounding areas. The piece of architecture jutting out at

the top of the structure acts as a mini focal point and also helps to remind

us that we are looking at a building rather than a natural formation. Finally,

I use another custom brush to add some areas of hanging vegetation to

the mid-ground. Another thing I like to do is to use layers to quickly add

texture to my work. I create a new layer and set it to Overlay with 50%

opacity. I then use a few of my custom brushes to instantly build up rough

areas of dark and light which give the impression of dirt and grime. Later

on, these areas of texture will help me find a rough design to suggest

architectural detail. I’m trying to keep things loose throughout the painting

so I don’t lose focus on the mood and feel, which is what I want this speed

painting to be about.

Step 3The next step is to block in our explorers and to flesh out

the focal point of the image, which in this case is the large

archway dominating the mid-ground. Using a small round

brush I add a hanging corpse and start to pick out areas of

light and shade, adding a strong highlight to the right hand

side of the arch and some more leafy areas around the

sides. I also add some rough lines to keep my perspective

consistent from left to right and also to suggest some detail

at the base of the arch. Once again I’m still not being too

specific about design, I’m just using highlights to suggest

areas of varying depth around the structure. I continue by

adding some more definition to the area behind the arch

and the background structure. Once this is done I choose

a large round brush and block in the explorers on a new

layer. By using varied pressure, my brush automatically

creates interesting shapes that I can work with later when

I add more definition to them. I use a very dark shade as

the characters are in the extreme foreground and are the

nearest thing to us. I then add a thin layer of mist between

them and the arch, adding some extra atmospheric depth

and helping to bring the characters forward.

Page 49: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 49www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 05

Step 4This step is mainly

about refining the

characters and adding

a few extra highlights

to the background. I

start by adding hats

to the two explorers

furthest away from us;

this helps to make the

closest explorer seem

more individual and

vulnerable. His pose

also suggests that he

is the least brave of

the three. Often, small

touches like that can

help tell a story within

an illustration and

make the characters

more believable.

Working very loosely,

I then block in

highlights to suggest

the type of clothing

they’re wearing and

add a backpack to one

of the explorers. I use

warmer colours for

their clothing and skin

to help separate them

from the background.

Finally, I add some

edge highlights.

Step 5By now we are almost

finished, all of the

detailing should be

complete, and we

are ready to make

any final colour

adjustments. Firstly,

I adjust the levels to

make the highlights slightly warmer, then I use the Colour Dodge tool to brighten up and add focus to a few of the key areas around the arch and the

explorers. So there we have it. Our finished speed painting now portrays a moody, atmospheric scene as our explorers venture into the unknown...

Page 50: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Paul DaviesFor more from this artist visit:

http://www.pdportraits.co.uk

Or contact:

[email protected]

Page 51: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 51www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 05

IntroductionFor this tutorial I initially imagined an image

of an abandoned laboratory wherein some

rather gruesome experiments had once taken

place. As the title suggested years since the

given events took place I decided to give the

explorer a flare so as to imply there was no

longer any power supply feeding the building. I

also liked the idea that the flare would provide

very strong shadows and a theatrical light that

would help add drama and give the scene an

intense unnerving quality. I chose to paint the

image at a moment just after the flare had been

ignited, with our explorer seeing for the first

time the figure of a giant humanoid partially

dismembered and strung up above some sort

of tank. Around him would be a suggestion of

some macabre machinery and tubes that were

used to experiment on him and preserve his

body .

Blocking InThe first thing I did was to quickly sketch

the explorer and corpse and establish the

spectators viewpoint. I wanted the eye level

to be quite low so that the scene looked

more imposing, with the focal point of the

picture ominously looming overhead (Fig01).

I concentrated on the two characters as they

were the key components and essentially the

most difficult aspects to draw. I added some

suggestion of pipework and shading around

them but would mainly leave this area to the

painting phase. After scanning the drawing

and importing it into Photoshop I made a new

layer and started to block in the light and dark

areas in greyscale. The two brushes I used for this initial layer are shown in Fig02; one is a custom

brush I made, which I often use to provide a textural quality for metals and stone, and the other is

a standard hard round brush which is perfect for denoting edges and details, such as the pipework.

The explorer is meant to be holding out a flare in his right hand and so the main highlights appear on

the tank directly in front of him (Fig03). I have now got a diagonal line of light running from the pipe

in the bottom left up to the top right where I have blocked in an arch. I shall eventually offset this with

the flare which will run opposite to this, but for now it’s time to refine the level of detail and tidy up

some of the edges.

In Fig04 you can see that I have painted in some pipework and cylinders on the left and along the

ceiling. I have also clarified the arch and put in some shading across the explorers clothing and

tank. I used the standard hard round brush to add this detail, but as this is supposed to be a speed

Page 52: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 52www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 05 Speed Painting

painting it is time to leave the detail and put

in some colour. I do this on a separate layer

which I set to Overlay and stick predominantly

to semi-dark red. In Fig05 you can see that this

now provides the main light from the flare with

the brightest highlight being on the tank. Overlay

is a useful blending mode as it maintains the

tonal relationships but allows a colour range to

be introduced. You can see when I set this layer

to Normal mode how the colour works and how

roughly I have blocked it in (Fig06).

Page 53: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 53www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 05

Finishing the DetailTo speed things up I am now going to flatten

the PSD and add the final details on a single

layer. As I was working on the image there

was something that just didn’t feel right and

I could not decide where the problem lay. In

the end, I tried increasing the canvas size and

making the room much higher to accentuate the

perspective. I don’t normally do this so far into

a painting, but as this was about speed I didn’t

consider the composition quite as carefully

to begin with but it only added on about ten

minutes or so to fill in around the image and

it solved the quandary. In Fig07 you can see

where I have extended the canvas. It is a little

wider but much higher now. I have intensified

the light from the flare on the right side of the

explorer and added a ceiling vent from which

the tubes emerge. You will also notice that

the shadows are more pronounced and the

pipework has more clarity, but more importantly

I have “fleshed out” the corpse (pardon the pun)

and given him some volume.

Page 54: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 54www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 05 Speed Painting

Final AdjustmentsThis is all the detail that I am going to add as I

have spent about two hours on the painting, so

far. The next thing to do is to add an adjustment

layer by clicking on Layer > New Adjustment

Layer > Colour Balance (Fig08). This will enable

me to alter the overall colour of the scene but

be able to edit it at a later date if need be. In this

case I have added a warmer hue by increasing

the sliders towards red and yellow to reflect

the flare (Fig09). This has helped the image

but there should be a greater intensity of red

light emanating from the source of the flare, so

to combat this I am going to add another layer

which I will call “Flare glow”. This is going to

comprise of a red Soft Airbrushed area around

50% opacity painted around the centre of the

picture and then set to Overlay mode (Fig10).

This does in fact destroy much of the subtle

colour variations but is necessary to intensify the

flare, as we will see. We are almost there but

barring one vital component: the flare!

Page 55: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 55www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 05

This will again be done on a new layer using a standard Hard Round

Airbrush and a Layer Style which can be found under the Layer menu. I

painted in some strokes in pure white and then used the Smudge tool. I

applied an Outer Glow layer style using the settings seen in Fig11. I added

just one last layer at 20% opacity and using the Gradient tool added in

some subtle shadows along the left edge (Fig12). My PSD file now looked

like Fig13 with four new layers above my main layer. This all sounds like

a lot of extra tweaks but it only took around 5-10 minutes to add all of

these as most of them simply involved altering parameters and the hand-

painted ones were straight forward.

ConclusionThe painting took around two and a quarter hours to do and was great

fun. It is always tempting to add more detail and spend too much time on

specific areas of an image during this kind of exercise, and I would like to

try and get to the final stages within an hour ideally, but with a bit more

practice… I prefer the range of hues visible on the corpse in Fig08 and the

fact that you can see the full extent of his injuries, but in a way, having the

flare obscuring the abdomen does leave more to the imagination as there

is a suggestion of a cavity in the final version. I may well go on to do a

more detailed version, but perhaps moving the explorer over somewhat to

fully show the gruesome nature of the subject!

Page 56: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Rich TilburyFor more from this artist visit:

www.3dtotal.com

Or contact:

[email protected]

Page 57: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

“City street devastated by war”by Levente Peterffy & andreas locha

chapter 6

Page 58: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 58www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 06 Speed Painting

Created In:Photoshop

To start with, let’s think about at the topic:

Destroyed City. The topic gives us a clue about

the type of colour scales to use. If you feel you

still can’t grasp what colours to start with, try

studying war movies and looking at imagery

from World War 2. I feel they always have

very saturated colours and a lot of dark tones.

You almost never see extreme values of reds

or yellows. Of course, this is a general way of

looking at it and there are examples where a

great variety of colours are used, but let’s stick

to the dark and rainy overcast moods that we

usually see in movies...

Study the example (Fig01) and see if you

recognise the colours that I used to start the

painting with.

You will notice from Fig01 that I have picked

dark saturated colours, using a soft edged brush

that has already given some vague hints of

smoke clouds. In Fig02 I blocked out the base of

the buildings. The very same colours from Fig01

were used in Fig02 to paint the buildings.

This tutorial is about focusing on certain areas,

and so I will concentrate on working on the

centre of the building and will not spend too

much time on the building to the right. From

my experience, when you gain more and more

experience with painting, you will notice that it

is very ineffective to paint everything in great

detail. The final image, especially for speed

paintings, only needs to have the most important

details. In this example, the details lie in the

destroyed central building, and even there the

details are not spread throughout the whole

building - where the light is stronger you can see

details more clearly. You will also notice that

in dark or contrasting shadows there can be a

great amount of detail, depending on the light.

The top of the building in Fig03 contains details

in its small textures. At the base of the building,

the details are larger. The main reason for

making them larger was because of the need to

covey the shapes of debris. I only painted the

top of the debris.

Page 59: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 59www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 06

Since painting debris requires more of a texture

than structure, we can use a custom brush to

paint the textured details. A good and easy way

is to use the dual brush setting in the brush

settings and combine a hard-edged brush with

a brush that has a “sprinkled” texture. Also try

experimenting with the scattering setting while

you are in brush settings. Above is an example

of such a brush.

To paint windows and doors, all you need to do

is to follow the structure lines and paint these

objects parallel to them. Paint in low opacity and

use the same type of colours you have already.

I enhanced the light to bring out the centre

building even more. Some new colours were

introduced on the building on the right, however

you will notice that these aren’t extremes

(Fig04).

I then decided to tear out a part of the building

on the right, in order to create more chaos

(Fig05).

Page 60: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1
Page 61: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Some silhouettes were created in back to add more buildings - this is a city after all (Fig06).

Colour adjustments in this examples were very minor, and after this step I was basically done. An

unsharpen mask can also be used if you want to make the image crisper.

And there we go: Destroyed City (Fig07).

Levente PeterffyFor more from this artist visit

www.leventep.com

or contact

[email protected]

Page 62: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 62www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 06 Speed Painting

Created In:Painter and Photoshop CS3

When I first heard about speed painting,

I thought that it would simply be a quickly

executed painting, but speed painting is so

much more than that! As soon as I grasped

the concept behind it, I understood its value

as practice for putting down the essential

ingredients of a painting in the least amount

of time, for example line, value, colour,

composition, light, theme, mood and so on.

Concentrating on the essential infuses the

painting with character. Digital speed painting

benefits from some really helpful tools that

software has to offer, like custom brush creation,

painting at different magnifications, ease in

picking colours, layers and their associated

blending modes, and (rather importantly)

keyboard short-cuts for almost every command.

Everything meets in a creation process where

the mind goes beyond the tools and focuses

only on content.

For this tutorial, the Destroyed City brief

was a theme quite to my liking, because I’ve

always had a fascination for ruined buildings

- there’s just something about them not being

represented in their natural state and having

been deconstructed to something abstract...

To get the juices flowing, I did a quick image

search on the Internet from where I collected

some photos and put them all into one

document. I kept it open next to the painting

most of the time so that I was able to quickly

draw inspiration from it.

I started out in Painter by creating a new 1000

x 600 pixel document and filling it with a brown

wash colour. I then took a Thick Acrylic Round

brush and quickly laid down some brush strokes

to define the bigger masses that would compose

the painting (Fig01).

The great thing about Painter’s “thick” brushes

is that their relief helps to add an interesting

underlying texture with a lot of character, since

it follows the brush strokes’ direction. I was

actually inspired by the artist Erik Tiemens who

does this extremely well in his conceptual art.

I had to apply these initial strokes with

some confidence, since I really didn’t know

where I was going. Speed painting is often a

subconsciousness-led process where you don’t

always have the time to be rational.

I then filled the canvas with a 30% opacity

magenta (from the “Effects” menu), to somewhat

unify the colours. Taking the magical glow brush

(found under the F-X brushes) I added a strong

light source to the painting (Fig02).

Page 63: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 63www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 06

Please be advised to use dark “not too

saturated” colours when painting with this brush

in order to achieve rich saturated effects. I then

took an Oil Pastel and a Blender brush and

started defining the actual scene (Fig03). It’s

interesting to see how Painter keeps the “relief”

information below, as if I had gessoed the

canvas previously.

I then brought the painting into Photoshop to

add more detail. (Why not use Painter all the

way? Well, for me, Photoshop is much more

intuitive when it comes to detail, adjustments

and custom brushes.) First of all, I doubled

the painting’s resolution, and then opened

a new document and painted a section of a

facade (Fig04). I brought this new object into

my painting as a new layer which I copied

and transformed several times to build up

my destroyed city - which is quite a paradox!

Keeping these copies as layers, I erased

Page 64: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

portions and painted some quick brush strokes

over them to add some variation.

In the final stages, I added some dead trees,

which I had seen in some reference photos.

Page 65: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Their branches broke up the rectangular look

of the built environment (Fig05). Then finally, to

add a bit of character and give the composition

a human scale, I added a small figure

silhouetted by strong reflections from the sun.

In the end, I applied the Smart Sharpen Filter,

which is something I always do to bring out all

the detail of the brushwork (Fig06).

Andreas RochaFor more from this artist visit:

www.andreasrocha.com

Or contact:

[email protected]

Page 66: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

“Evolution had played its part on these creatures as their world heated up, but the thousands of years of forced hard labor had had more impact”by Mark Muniz & Rich Tilbury

chapter 7

Page 67: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 67 Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 07

www.2dartistmag.com

I believe that a speed painting should convey

the essence of an idea. This month’s topic

was to create a creature that has undergone

evolutionary changes due to the world’s

increased temperature, as well as forced

labour. The idea of evolution is fascinating

and endless. We have seen that evolution can

be due to physical and social environmental

changes. I did some background research and

found that, in arid climates, creatures would

develop denser and coarser skin as well as

evidence to suggest that larger nasal cavities

would help humidify air. Longer limbs would also

help by giving more surface area to aid in the

efficiency of perspiration. As to the forced labour

environment that would affect the creature,

I used the premise of underground gem

mining. Underground could be a slightly cooler

environment than the surface’s temperature,

but it would still require adaptations to occur in

order for the creature to perform a specific duty

by hand only. I felt that forced labour would

also leave the creature with a sombre, almost

oppressed expression.

I started with a series of thumbnail drawings

(Fig01). These quick sketches had the primary

characteristics that I had in mind:

a) long and powerful front limbs for digging;

b) large eyes for improved visibility

underground;

c) large scoop like fused hands;

d) a posture suited for the job, eventually

making the rear legs almost useless;

e) thick, hairless, callused skin;

f) large nostrils to humidify air

I scanned the thumbnails into Photoshop at

300dpi. I then erased all of them, leaving only

the fifth pose that I had created (clockwise from

top left) (Fig02). I used the Lasso tool to re-size

and shift the position of the head and hand. This

layer was set to Multiply mode. I then created a

new layer below it and started blocking in some

basic greyscale values (Fig03).

The next step was to do some texture overlays

of rock and rough skin (Fig04). I specifically

used the skin texture of a hairless mole rat; I

felt it was the perfect fit for the creature I had

in mind. One layer was designated for the rock

texture and another was created for the skin

texture. I created the two separate overlay

layers for their independent editing options. On

the rock texture layer I erased the solid shape

of my creature. I then used the Magic Wand

Page 68: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 68 Speed Painting V1

Chapter 07 Speed Painting

www.2dartistmag.com

tool to select the erased area. I switched to my

skin texture layer, inversed my Magic Wand

selection (Ctrl + Shift + I), and deleted all of the

texture that I didn’t want outside of my creature’s

contour. Both layers were created above my

greyscale layers. Note: remember to hit (Ctrl +

D) to deselect once you’ve done editing.

At this point I adjusted the opacity of the texture

overlay layers to my desired liking, and then

merged them with my greyscale layer. On my

newly merged layer I decided to make some hue

and saturation adjustments (Fig05). To do this I

went to Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation.

When I got to that Hue/Saturation options, I was

given lots of room to make colour selections and

adjustments. I chose to go with warm tones that

lent themselves more to the theme of the topic.

I created a new layer above all of the others

and began the process of over painting. The

first evidence of this can be seen in (Fig06). My

intent was to mimic some of the textures that

existed in the earlier overlay layers, as well as

to establish a hint of a light source. I wanted

to render the form more by hand, rather than

distorting an existing texture.

I then moved on to work on the head and face

(Fig07); I felt that the face should really reflect

the emotional and physical changes that would

have taken place throughout this particular

evolutionary period. I wanted the face to be

able to tell a story simply on its own. I tried to

emphasise the large nostrils to help humidify the

air, the large eyes to gather what little light there

would be, and the rough skin formed from the

dry and harsh environment.

Next, I started detailing the skin of the body and

rendering the scoop-like hand (Fig08 - 09). I

started adding some details to the background:

small embedded gems and rock textures

(Fig10). Finally, I merged the top colour and

the bottom overlay layers. I did a little colour

dodging and burning, cropped the image, and

added my signature (Fig11).

Page 69: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 69 Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 07

www.2dartistmag.com

Note: I used a small airbrush and a custom

‘rock’ brush that I created to do the entire

painting, and the final document size came in at

1200 X 600 pixels. A fair amount of time went

into research for information for this piece, in

order that I met the criteria of this topic. Once

I had the textures and physical characteristics

established in my mind, it allowed me to paint

the whole piece in about two and half hours.

Having a good base of ideas will help speed

up any creation process. Keep them simple

and consistent. This concept was fun and

challenging and I hope that I managed to do it

some justice. Thanks for reading this tutorial -

now go set your stop-watch and start painting!

Mark MunizFor more from this artist contact:

[email protected]

Page 70: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1
Page 71: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1
Page 72: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 72 Speed Painting V1

Chapter 07 Speed Painting

www.2dartistmag.com

IntroductionThis month sees the exercise primarily

orientated around creature design. The

description conjures up an image of an animal

which has been exploited by another race or

species and used as a “pack horse”. For this

painting I started as usual with a quick sketch

to establish the overall shape and look of the

animal. I imagined something that was once

similar to a human and which walked upright

on two legs. Due to its strength it was adopted

by another humanoid race (surprise) and used

to carry large, weighted packs of supplies

and building materials on its back in order to

navigate the mountainous and rocky planet. Due

to the strenuous effort involved in transporting

ever increasing weight, it gradually forced the

creature onto its hands to help support itself,

and thus in time the shoulders and upper body

became exaggerated to cope with the lifestyle.

The feet also developed large, flattened toes

similar to hooves to help it balance and spread

the weight, as well as providing a larger surface

area to prevent it from slipping on steep, rocky

ground (Fig01). You can see that the design has

characteristics of a gorilla, but with more human-

like legs. The eyes are set deeper in the head

and I have made the nasal cavity bigger to allow

more air intake as it carries heavy loads.

Blocking InThis sketch was enough to get started, so

after having scanned it into the computer and

importing it into Photoshop I began work on it. I

set this layer to Multiply and then created a new

layer underneath on which to start the painting.

This meant I could use the drawing as a guide

whilst adding colour. As the title implied a hot

environment, I naturally went for a warm colour

scheme. I chose yellows and pinks for the sky

and warm browns for the shadow areas (Fig02).

To add some interest I added a wall on the

left hand side which would contrast with the

mountains I will add later in the background.

The next stage involves blocking the creature in

and deepening the shadows. I used a custom

Page 73: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 73 Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 07

www.2dartistmag.com

brush to create the background, which can

be seen in Fig03, but the creature itself was

painted using a standard Hard Round brush.

You will notice that I have used a few different

colours which will help break up the skin

tones eventually and add some much needed

randomness - which always appears more

natural. On the same layer I now used a warm

brown/red hue and darkened the foreground.

Using the Lasso tool I then created a quick

mountain shape in the background and blocked

in some shadow areas and blended them with

the foreground (Fig04). Using the custom brush

and a lighter pink colour, I then roughed in

some highlights and cloud formations, quickly

establishing the light source in the upper-left

area above the wall.

Adding New LayersSo far everything has been painted on one

layer, but as this exercise was intended as a

tutorial I added new layers to help separate the

stages and allow quick changes to be made to

the image. The next step is to increase the tonal

range in the image by adding a cooler grey/blue

colour overlay (R126, G148, B169) across the

creature, set to Multiply at 50% opacity to keep

him within the shadow of the wall (Fig05). You

will also notice that I have added some evidence

of stones and rocks across the ground and

darkened the base of the wall (set to Soft Light).

If you look at the Layers palette (inset), you will

notice that I have also included some shading

across certain parts of the creature on this layer.

At this stage, I flattened the file and then added

a new layer set to Screen in order to increase

the intensity of light. Using a pale yellow, as

seen in Fig06, I brushed in some lighter areas

and clouds across the sky and had some light

filter over the wall, making this upper-left corner

the brightest section. One more touch added on

this layer was the molten rock and lava which

can be seen in the middle distance across the

ground on the right. On the base layer I put in

some eyes quickly as a test, and added some

warm highlights across the arms and right leg.

At this point I had been working on the image

for about an hour and a quarter and could have

called it a day so to speak, but wanted to make

a few more tweaks, yet...

Page 74: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Final TouchesThe creature is almost complete, but in order to

make the skin more resistant to the increasing

heat I decided to add some sign that it was

evolving scales, similar to a reptile or lizard. For

this I made a quick custom brush using four

ellipses, as seen in Fig07 - 08. You can see

from Fig08 that the Spacing slider has been

moved about half way to create a tiling pattern.

To align the brush with the various parts of the

body, change the angle by rotating the arrow

highlighted in red. You can see how these

revised settings appear in the brushes palette

in Fig07. Now it’s simply a case of painting in

some areas around the highlights on a separate

layer. I did this using an off-white and then set

the blending mode to Overlay, which means

they will not affect the base skin colour too

much. You can see the final version in Fig09.

I painted in some extra highlights across the

shoulders and arm, as the new scaly skin would

be more reflective. I also changed the shape of

the nostril to closer resemble a camel’s, which

can close up in the event of a sandstorm.

Page 75: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

ConclusionWithout doubt the most difficult (and most

interesting) aspect of this particular topic was

trying to conceive a design that looked at once

“fantastic”, but also physically correct. Not being

a zoologist, I cannot say how successful I have

been, but it was good fun to invent a new life

form. As with most of these exercises, they

do inspire me to consider the subject matter

in more depth and in this case design another

variation. The whole piece took about one and

three quarter hours, barring a few minor tweaks.

As speed painting is essentially about the

structuring of an image, i.e. the colour scheme,

lighting, form, shape and composition and so on,

I believe it is not necessary to create complex

customised brushes. In this case however, my

main brush already existed and certainly helped

add atmosphere to the background scenery,

but I would not normally spend time making one

especially. Unless you have a set of customised

brushes already, the standard set should prove

ample enough to achieving the desired aim with

this type of painting.

Rich TilburyFor more from this artist contact:

[email protected]

Page 76: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

The party entertainers’ real twisted identities were very far from their bright, colorful disguises

Chapter 8by Fred Augis & Rich Tilbury

Page 77: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 77www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 08

To evoke this subject I chose to settle my work

in the middle of a Baroque scene, where we

discover guests who are fascinated by the

dexterity of the juggling acts carried out by an

entertainer. In spite of the good mood evoked

by this aristocrat clown, he acts on a tormented

heart which carries the blood of his victims on

his hands...

Picture 01 Using Photoshop, the first

stage in the construction of this speed painting

was to establish the composition of the scene;

to pose the masses of each element in order

to obtain their silhouettes and to benefit from

them in order to deposit smaller subjects at

the bottom. To detach the elements from one

another, I contrasted many levels of grey, in

particular for the main subject.

Picture 02 I then had to integrate

the light from the candles, as this was to be my

principal source of light. I was therefore able

to pose ‘volumes’ for each silhouette. Whilst

placing the three characters in the lower part of

the lit scene, very close to the source of light, I

was obliged to hide certain zones of their body,

adding mystery to their characters.

Page 78: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 78www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 08 Speed Painting

Picture 03 I continued this work by

detailing the characters - always in black and

white - until achieving a satisfactory quality. I

concentrated on the masked man and added

elements such as the cigarette smoke in the

foreground. I then started to add colour to my

composition...

Picture 04 I selected a sepia colour

which I applied to the whole of the painting in

order to evoke an environment reminiscent

of the past. I then gilded the masks in gold to

slightly detach them from the other elements.

I then integrated the most conspicuous colour:

red – the blood that the three men around the

subject have on their hands. I benefited from

posing a halo of light around each of the burning

lights.

Page 79: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 79www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 08

Picture 05 - 06 For the final

phase I contrasted certain zones using the

Overlay filter, by concentrating the light on top

of the image and adding some textures at the

same time. Using the Smudge tool, I sought to

apply movement to the three tormented men.

To finish off, I refined the proportions using the

Fluidity tool.

Page 80: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Fred AugisFor more from this artist contact:

[email protected]

Page 81: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 81www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 08

IntroductionFor this month’s exercise I decided to situate my

scene in a traditional theatre setting and imagine

it was set at some point during the Victorian era.

I chose to use somewhat traditional costumes

as a result, such as a court jester and man

wearing a variation of a Napoleonic hat, which

I believe is known as a Tricorne. Anyway, the

idea was that it gave the picture a historical feel

and hopefully established it in at some point in

the past. The idea behind the image is that a

man is seated on a stage and is about to take

part in some form of illusion or trickery, but what is in fact going to happen

is that he is about to have his throat cut!

Blocking InAs is usual for me during these speed painting exercises, I start on paper

with a quick sketch as I find it easier to draw on paper than I do using

a Wacom. Fig01 shows my initial starting point, which shows a portly

gentleman sitting with his head tilted back and a masked entertainer

behind him. I like to begin with some form of template even if it does not

fully describe the final composition. Once the drawing was scanned into

the computer I started by laying down a brown/grey background and set

the drawing to Multiply above this layer so I could see the line work over

the blocking in. I chose a warm grey because the scene is set in a theatre

under bright light and will help add warm undertones to the final image. I

then added a new layer on top of this, on which I will begin establishing

the highlights and shadows. Fig02 shows the drawing above the tonal

layer which was done in black and white, with the brown background

showing through underneath.

Page 82: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 82www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 08 Speed Painting

Adding Colour. The next stage involves adding colour, which I will do on a separate

layer to begin with. It is not necessary to keep adding new layers each

time you add more detail, but when you have to break the process

down into a step-by-step tutorial it is very useful! The first colour layer

is set to Overlay, which means that it can be painted over the tonal

layer but still adhere to the black and white values. This is a technique

I have begun using lately but sometimes only as a starting point. It

does have a tendency to subdue colour somewhat even though it is an

effective approach, and I often flatten the image after experimenting

with a colour scheme and then paint entirely on one layer to refine

things. Fig03 shows the early stages of a colour layer being added,

which was done in two ways in this case. The green arm of the left

entertainer was done on an Overlay layer, and you can see how the

green has remained faithful to the tones underneath when compared

Page 83: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 83www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 08

to the previous illustration. The jester character on the right has been

painted on a separate layer set to Normal mode, and so the colour is

opaque by comparison. I find it helpful to always experiment and mix

things up a bit as you never know what you may learn from exploring

different avenues. The tonal range has established the light source in

the top left and with the colour layers added I now have a clearer idea

about how the painting is going. It is now a question of tidying up what

we have so far and then putting in the final details. Fig04 shows the

picture at a further stage with some additional colour and modulation,

particularly across the seated man and jester. Perhaps more importantly

the razor which helps to unlock the sinister aspect behind the image has

been hinted at in the lower left.

Page 84: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 84www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 08 Speed Painting

Finishing the PictureThe picture is coming together now but there are a still a few problems

with the overall feel of the image. The characters are satisfyingly

colourful and contrast nicely with the hapless victim, and the red curtains

add a theatrical and symbolic streak of red in the background. However,

one thing that looks wrong is the light, which does not seem very intense

seeing that the scene is set under a bright spotlight. To counter this I

add a new layer set to Soft Light, and add a gradient blending from a

pale orange through to transparent, from the top down. In Fig05 you

can see, compared to the last stage, how this adds a warmer value to

the colour scheme, particularly the red curtain which now looks far more

vibrant. To mirror the brighter light, the floor also needs some highlights

cast across the wooden boards, so I put in some reflections. Perhaps,

more importantly, I add a glint of light across the razor to emphasise the

sharp blade and to make it stand out against the dark background. The

last thing to do is make the final refinements and changes that will help

improve the image.

Page 85: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Fig06 shows the final picture with all the

cumulative tweaks, which includes a Curves

adjustment layer. This helped add just a

bit more intensity to the spotlight, which I

felt was still a little weak. I toned down the

floor highlights to hide the chair and also to

emphasise the characters, as well as warming

up the backdrop with a grey/brown showing

some evidence of stage scaffolding. One small

aspect I added was a blindfold, which I felt made

the man feel even more vulnerable and unaware

of his impending doom!

ConclusionThe image is complete and, as usual, has been

an interesting challenge. I could have made the

faces of the two entertainers look more twisted

and evil perhaps, but I actually quite liked the

fact that their intent is hidden. I thought in the

end that the blindfold and razor injected the

picture with an unnerving aspect which did not

necessarily need to be portrayed by the faces

themselves. I may however do another version

with more stylised and darker characters, in

the future. I decided that the jester should be

holding a shallow bowl in a rather ambiguous

manner to help keep the viewer guessing.

Maybe I could have blindfolded the guy with the

razor? ...

Richard Tilbury For more from this artist contact:

[email protected]

Page 86: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

chapter 9“The citizens of the flooded city now resided in the tallest buildings connected by makeshift bridges.”by Mike Corriero , Emrah Elmasli & Mikko Kinnunen

Page 87: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 87www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 09

IntroductionTouching on a subject that involves some

architecture for a speed painting can either

be extremely simple or extremely difficult;

it all depends on how you handle it. If the

architecture is meant to be abstract it’s likely you

may more easily get away with a lot of technical

details. If you choose to produce a more modern

or less complex style of architecture you can

make it easier on yourself with creating a few

quick custom brushes.

As a first step you can see I have just set up my

canvas with the horizon line, a couple of simple

perspective lines and a base for the water and

sky. To the right is a reference image that,

although won’t set the basis for my designs,

will just help keep me on track when working

quicker than usual. Then I have just set up a

small colour palette to sample some hues from,

instead of going back and forth to the Colour

Picker window (Fig01).

Under the brush presets you can adjust a lot of

the settings to get endless effects. This is just

a simple brush I use a lot, called an “Airbrush

Pen Opacity Flow” brush; with the brush shape

flattened and the scatter option applied it will

Page 88: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 88www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 09 Speed Painting

Quickly laying in the large main elements in

the foreground, I’m using a custom brush from

a set of construction boxed brushes I made

for this very purpose. A quick and easy way to

produce a speed painting involving architectural

designs such as buildings is by laying down

a perspective grid and using custom brushes.

I’ve set the Brush Presets so that the spacing

of my brush is far enough apart to produce a

kind of pattern effect. Just click one spot on the

canvas then hold shift and click where you want

your brush stroke to head. You’ll get a perfectly

straight line, and with the spaced brush it will

give you an interesting design effect (Fig04a).

The brush list is a quickly created group of

boxed brushes. They were not all used but it’s

nice to have them handy so that when you begin

painting you have most elements and shapes

already set up . The presets have been kept

off because with all of these brush shapes I am

playing around a lot with the angles, the spacing

and the sizes to produce my buildings and

bridges (Fig04b).

On a new layer some small buildings and

minimal detail are added to the far background;

notice as the buildings are pushed back further

the value has become lighter and details are

serve as water ripples. You can also apply

Colour Dynamics and play around with the

brightness and contrast and the two colour

boxes, so you’ll get a nice mixture of values

and colour shifts without switching your settings

(Fig02).

Only a few minutes in and I’ve laid down a quick

base for the water, light for the sky and some

clouds. This will be worked on top of and always

kept as the background layer with the simplest

of details and the main base. As I laid the water

lines down I made sure just to keep a couple of

layers and size variation in perspective and in

line with my grid (Fig03a).

The colour palette can be seen in Fig03b.

Producing a colour palette like this is sometimes

much more affective than randomly choosing

colours off of the Colour Picker window. All I did

was take a photo that had a nice colour scheme

that I wanted to apply to my painting, added a

quick smart blur and the pinch filter.

Page 89: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 89www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 09

lessened. I’m keeping each plane of buildings

on their own layer for when I produce the

reflective effects in the water (Fig05).

I’ve started to beef up some of the details on

the buildings, mainly in the background first of

all, as I start to produce reflections and water

ripples. A very quick and easy way to produce

a reflection is to simply copy the layer and flip it

vertically, then just lower the opacity, darken the

colours and overlay a few water ripples. Usually

keeping the base lighter around the object

where it connects and meets the water will help

distinguish the reflection from its origin (Fig 06).

Here you can see how I’ve copy-flipped the

buildings after their details; the bridges and

windows were added and then set the reflective

layer to a lower opacity. Checking out the

painting at 100 percent resolution you would

see how choppy and simple the water effect

is, as shown in Fig02. Increasing the size and

lining the base of the buildings with a more

scattered version will help provide a splashed

look (Fig07).

At this point I have flipped the painting to check

the composition and decided it would be more

interesting to cut down the second foremost

building so that we can see the base swallowed

up by the flooding waters (Fig08).

Here I have just utilised one of my custom

brushes to lay in some foreground bridges.

All throughout the painting process I’ve been

Page 90: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 90www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 09 Speed Paintingkeeping most of this monochromatic and will

apply a touch of additional colour towards the

next few final stages (Fig09).

Once most of the painting has been completed

I’m just going to do a quick level adjustment. It

doesn’t always work, but using the Auto Levels

option can quickly adjust the values and might

produce an affective change. In this case I

like what it has done and will keep most of the

changes it made (Fig10).

Coming down to the final stage here, what

you’re seeing is just some colour applied on a

new layer set to Colour, then using my colour

palette I’ve just painted some warm lighting in

the background and pumped up the saturation

in a few key areas. The entire painting was

widened on the edges so as not to lose some

elements when I decided to give a tilt to the

composition, adding a bit more dynamic to the

perspective (Fig11).

Final TouchesFinal steps taken to bring this speed painting

to a final image included the addition of some

Page 91: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

important details for scale. I’ve added railings

and stairs to the bridges, touched up some

of the rooftop textures and lighting, added a

few figures in the foreground, some satellites

for communication, as well as a billboard.

Last minute adjustments to the values and

saturation are made specifically to the sun,

and this painting of a flooded, high, sky-rise

city connected by makeshift bridges, in what

has become a near future disaster scene, is

complete (Fig12).

Mike CorrieroFor more from this artist visit:

www.mikecorriero.com

Or contact:

[email protected]

Page 92: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 92www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 09 Speed Painting

Step 1As the first step, I open up a new canvas in

Photoshop CS3 and select the Gradient Tool (G)

to create a sky colour gradient to achieve a feel

for the painting. Starting to paint on a full canvas

is better then painting on an empty canvas. I

preferred a purple and grey combination for this

painting, but it would be nice as blue and pink, as

well. It’s your choice really (Fig01).

Step 2Then I start blocking the colours in with a bold

brush. I paint in the silhouettes of the buildings

very roughly. I add some tall buildings to the far

distance to achieve a nice depth of field feel, as

well. I never zoom in at the first step. I always

paint at 25% or 50% percent. I also need to get

Page 93: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 93www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 09

the composition right in this step. It’s not easy to

fix it later on (Fig02).

Step 3I start to add some colours to increase the

saturation and I also apply the main light

source from the left hand side. This is a speed

painting so the time is important. The aim is

to get satisfactory results in a short amount of

time. So, my brush strokes are very fast. I was

planning to finish the painting in an hour, but I

decided to put some more details on it (Fig03).

Step 4Now the rest is just adding the details and

adjusting the colours. I need some contrast

and colour richness in my painting, so I create

some adjustment layers like Curves and Colour

Balance to adjust the brightness, contrast and

colours (Ctrl + M; Ctrl + B). Then I paint in some

dramatic clouds. A mixture of purple, orange

and yellow would be good for this. I used some

custom brushes that I created whilst painting

them. The rest of the painting needs a lot of

Page 94: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

detail, so I just paint in a lot of minor details on

the building. Any brush of your choice would do

(Fig04a & b).

FinalAs the final step, I zoom in and add little lights

and details of the flood verses the city. To make

the lights glow, I create a new layer and change

the layer properties to Colour Dodge. Then I

select a dark orange-ish colour and paint them

in with a default brush.

That’s it: 90 minutes work in total.

Emrah ElmasliFor more from this artist visit:

www.partycule.com

Or contact:

[email protected]

Page 95: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1
Page 96: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 96www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Chapter 09 Speed Painting

IntroductionIn this Speed Painting tutorial I’m going to

explain a little about the use of 3D tools in

the process of designing an image. Most of

the best 2D artists I’ve met do not like to use

3D that much. Many won’t even touch these

applications for whatever reasons. I was one of

those guys, until I was forced to move into the

3D world when I got my first, proper job in the

games industry. I’m going to show a process

that is almost invisible in the actual finished

image, yet helped me a lot when nailing down

the composition of this speed painting.

Quick CompositionIn a matter of minutes (or seconds, depending) I

create a quick sketch which includes most of the

relevant compositional information regarding my

painting. I start off with a long, cubic shape on

the left, which will eventually become my major

makeshift bridge, as suggested by the title. I’m

not worrying at all about screwing things up at

this point. It’s always better to work intuitively

in the beginning, unless you’re working under

the very specific constraints of a professional

assignment (Fig01).

The Dreadful 3D PartHaving envisioned the basic premise of the

composition in my mind, I start putting together

a scene of very simple box geometry in 3ds

Max. I’m not going into specifics of any 3D

application here, as there are better tutorials for

that. I basically just create a flat ground plane,

a few repeated box shapes, and a camera

setup with a wide-angle lens which suits my

needs the best. Then I put in two light sources

from opposing directions, with the sun being

the stronger one. The other would be the fill

Page 97: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

page 97www.2dartistmag.com Speed Painting V1

Speed Painting Chapter 09

the image as a .tif file, and open it in Painter

Essentials 2. It’s a free app. that came with my

Wacom tablet. Basically, any version of Painter

has this great brush engine which is good for

blending. I start using the Palette Knife brushes

to soften my rather straightfoward and edgy

Photoshop colouring. There isn’t really one

way to do this; you could achieve the same

result without any 3D, by using more traditional

perspective drawing, and you might do the

blending with some custom smudge brushes in

Photoshop. I just like to shuffle my software a bit

and use everything I can to the full extent. It’s

all about getting your creative vision across, and

you shouldn’t let the sometimes clumsy digital

tools hold you down!

light from the sky. I don’t use any heavy global

illumination-type settings which would make the

image take a while to render. I hit the render

button and make sure I have enough resolution

so that I won’t get too much pixelation (aliasing)

around the edges (Fig02).

Blocking in the ColoursAfter my 3D layout is finished, I start glazing

colours on top of it in Photoshop. I use a mixture

of opaque and transparent layers whilst trying

to find the kind of colours I’m intending to use

in this piece. My approach is very experimental,

and I’m not afraid to use tools like the Selective

Colour adjustment layer to find the right tones.

This time I’m going for a very stylised red and

blue palette. I proceed with the colouring,

always thinking in warms and cools (Fig03).

Wrapping it UpThis is the most defining stage in terms of

the final style of the image. I go for this rather

graphic and painterly style, with strong shadows

and a lot of saturation. I save a version of

Mikko KinnunenFor more from this artist visit:

www.artbymikko.com

Or contact:

[email protected]

Page 98: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Introduction: The ‘elements’ series is a 70 page guide to 2D

Digital painting and can be followed in most software packages supporting paintbrushes

and layers. With in this downloadable PDF E-Book we have choosen some of the most used

aspects of digital painting and asked 2 or 3 professional artists to cover a specific theme or ‘element’, resulting in 2 or 3 different styles and

techniques which can be viewed side by side.

for more products in our range visit http://www.3dtotal.com/shop

Volume 1: Chapter 1: Painting Eyes Chapter 2: Painting Fabric Chapter 3: Painting Fire & Smoke Chapter 4: Painting Flesh Wounds Chapter 5: Painting Fur & Hair

Digital Painting Downloadable Tutorial Series

Volume 2: Chapter 1: Painting Rock & Stone Chapter 2: Painting Sky Chapter 3: Painting Skin Chapter 4: Painting Trees Chapter 5: Painting Water

Imag

e by

Chr

is T

huni

gIm

age

by R

icha

rd T

ilbur

y

Page 99: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

for more products in our range visit http://www.3dtotal.com/shop

: volume 2

Philip Straub

Jonny Duddle

Alessandro Baldasseroni

Benita Winckler

Fred Bastide

James Busby

Marek Denco

Patrick Beaulieu

Jonathan Simard

Buy the book to see just how they create their

incredible imagery!Hardback 21.6cm x 27.9cm in size

288 Full Colour premium paper pages

Features 58 of the finest digital 2d and 3d artists working in the indusrty today, from the

likes of:

Available Now Only!UK - £32 USD - $64 EUR - €49

Page 100: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Introduction:A Collection of the finest independent animated movies and commercial trailers. The DVD includes work from a whole number or different sources, such as students, independents animators and commercial studios. We want people to be able to view this wealth of elite animation in one conve-nient high resolution package whilst generating much exposure for these talented artists at the same time.

for more products in our range visit http://www.3dtotal.com/shop

- Running Time: 3hrs 8 mins- 27 Shorts movies- 3 Trailiers- Region Free, NTSC & PAL versions- Shorts & trailers from studios such as: Blur Studios Keytoon Animations Studios Redrover Studios & Platige Image

- Loads of extra including images and storyboards

- Running Time: 3hrs 8 mins- 27 Shorts movies- 6 Clips & Trailers- Region Free, NTSC & PAL versions- Shorts & trailers from artist and studio like: Blur Studios Brian Taylor Marco Spitoni Patrick Beaulieu & Alex Mateo

Page 101: Speed Painting - Digital Painting Tutorial Series Vol.1

Introduction: Michel Roger’s famous ‘Joan of Arc’ tutorial re-written for Maya by Taylor Kingston, Cinema 4D by Giuseppe

Guglielmucci & Nikki Bartucci, Lightwave by Vojislav Milanovich and

Softimage by Luciano Iurino and 3DCreative Magazine.com.

If there has been one single tutorial that has educated and inspired more

budding 3d artists than anything else, this complete step by step project by

Michel’s must be it. The community is in debt to him.

for more products in our range visit http://www.3dtotal.com/shop

These 120 plus page, Downloadable PDF’s are designed for ease of use to help beginners and intermediate level of artist alike in the creation of a female character. The tutorial takes you through the process of modelling, texturing and mapping to finally adding bones.Chapter 1: Modeling of the Body - BodyChapter 2: Modeling of the Head - Head, Ear & AssemblyChapter 3: Modeling of the Accessories - The Sword & Armour Legs Chapter 4: Modeling of the Accessories - Armour Bust, Hair & Glove Chapter 5: Modeling of the Accessories - Accessories & UVW MappingChapter 6: UVW Mapping - Sword, Clothing, Armour & Body Chapter 7: Texturing & Hair - Eyes, Skin & Hair Chapter 8: Bones & Skinning - Bases, Hierarchy & Skinning

Imag

e by

Mic

hel R

oger