My latest project is a commission piece for a friend; a portrait of Terra Branford from Final Fantasy VI. I'm keeping a step by step account (as best I can) of the progress here, so head past the break to see the progress. I'll update this periodically, so be sure to check back. And I'll put the final piece here before the break when it's complete.
Initial sketch for Terra's Esperkin form. The pose is meant to give her a feral look, especially in the face, but I wanted to soften her expression to give the sense of an animal both frightened and ready to strike. Time: About 1 hour.
Initial sketch for Terra's human form. I just wanted her kind of floating in midair. Her costume is based on Nomura's work for Dissidia, which was based on Amano's origianl character designs. Time: About 90 mintues.
Here is the color scheme/composition layout mockup I made in Photoshop. I played around with landscape and portrait layouts, and decided this gave the best arrangement of the elements.
The layout transferred to a 22x28 canvas.The image is a little cut off on the side. Funny story; I scanned the two sketches and slapped them in photoshop to work out the layout, and only when I projected it on the canvas realized I used the wrong ratio for the jpeg. Time: about 30 minutes.
The cloud background laid in around the figures. Since purple will be a dominant color in the piece, I had thought that a yellow background would work well. The clouds should look familiar to anyone who's fought the final boss in FFVI. Fist I laid down an alla prima wash of yellow, titanium white, and just a tiny bit of dioxazine purple, to create some depth. Then, taking a flat brush ('cause I don't have a fan brush), I loaded it with straight Titanium white, and using only the corner, did layers of clouds starting from the top by working the brush in small circles. Then, taking a stiffer round brush, I fluffed out the bottom of the white portions, finally using a large brush to soften the whole effect. Time: 2 hours.
This pic illustrates the problem I have documenting my process; while I'm IN the process all I'm thinking about is what I'm doing. I used a straight mix of quinacridone violet and titanium white for most of the body. I dulled it with cadmium yellow to create the shadow tones. Her eyes and lips are both lined with cadmium red.
Here I laid the base color of the hair in dioxizine purple, with just a hint of white for opacity.
More white to pick out the shapes and the flow of the hair.
Here the color is now a mix of diox purple and quin violet, lightened with even more white.
This gives most of the hair it's darker highs and lows. If I were doing a normally lit portrait, this is where I'd start picking out the highlights.
Lots of white now with just a bit of the quin violet to really lay the foundation of the lighter areas.
This is straight up titanium white now to really give the hair a brightness. The idea is not highlights in the front, but rather that purple hair has shocks of white throughout. At this point, I've stopped counting hours of work, but I'd estimate about 20-22 hours at this point.
I went on another painting marathon, working almost nonstop for about 11 hours. Managed to get some serious progress done. I started her cloak, which was a challenge to emulate the fade from purple to yellow just right. I used various combinations of diox purple and white for the bottom and faded it up to mixes of cadmium yellow and quin violet at the top.
Then, with her legs, doing the tights with some cad yellow and ultramarine blue, cut with white for some de-saturization, using cad yellow and white for the highlights.
Next came the tunic, sleeves and boots; cadmium red and quin violet for the shadows, then layering in cad red with some cad yellow and white for the highlights.
To be honest, the sashes were about the 6 hour mark, and a bit of a blue. I didn't use any color that I had not already used thus far.
Then the floral patterns. I used some acrylic medium to give some translucency to the various shapes, to let the forms come through at first. The only new color I used was a bit of phthalo green with white to create the highlights of the vine patterns; everything else is a mix of the existing palette. Last came the underpainting for the metal parts of the boots. Since cad yellow is very translucent, I had to build several layers of color to get the color even. Now I have a flat surface to build the forms in.
I went on another painting marathon, working almost nonstop for about 11 hours. Managed to get some serious progress done. I started her cloak, which was a challenge to emulate the fade from purple to yellow just right. I used various combinations of diox purple and white for the bottom and faded it up to mixes of cadmium yellow and quin violet at the top.
Then, with her legs, doing the tights with some cad yellow and ultramarine blue, cut with white for some de-saturization, using cad yellow and white for the highlights.
Next came the tunic, sleeves and boots; cadmium red and quin violet for the shadows, then layering in cad red with some cad yellow and white for the highlights.
To be honest, the sashes were about the 6 hour mark, and a bit of a blue. I didn't use any color that I had not already used thus far.
Then the floral patterns. I used some acrylic medium to give some translucency to the various shapes, to let the forms come through at first. The only new color I used was a bit of phthalo green with white to create the highlights of the vine patterns; everything else is a mix of the existing palette. Last came the underpainting for the metal parts of the boots. Since cad yellow is very translucent, I had to build several layers of color to get the color even. Now I have a flat surface to build the forms in.
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