[ceenda]

About 30 mins for this one.

[Darkmoon]

ok, i was convinced to try this... now, im not happy really with it cause i screwed up on the angles and porportions, among other things you can totaly point out to me please, im used to spending alot longer on a picture, being a perfectionist and i tried to let that all go in this picture... 24 minutes and 32 seconds... yeah see.. perfectionist...



-Lisa

[Sumaleth]

Picture 5;



A fraction over 20 minutes. I don't think the squiggles around the leaves worked, I would have liked to have taken the time to cutout the sky see-through more carefully.

Again, it's come up quite blurry which I don't like.

--

Great pic Darkmoon, told ya you could do it .

Sumaleth

[AliasMoze]

I gotta do more of these. Sorry, I've been busy.

Fred, if you could, it would be nice for you to talk about the "approach" to a speed pic. I think some people tend to copy the photo, instead of studying the shapes. I remember the first two I did a while back; I blew a vessel trying to nail the colors in the places that were in the photo. Before long, I realized what I was SUPPOSED to be doing.

Looking at your pics in this thread, I can see that your analyzing the pic, looking at it as if it's real, and modeling the shapes. You've also pushing some values here and there.

Anyway, lend us your thoughts here.

[yoszi]

I do this to improve my color matching and realism in my own stuff . I don't use color picker. There are better ways to study shape, like drawing, I think. As to approach, different things work for different ppl.

[Fred Flick Stone]

Alias-hello, you know, I see you post late at night west coast time, and early, and mid afternoon, do you ever sleep? I think you have posted when I was up late a few nights in a row, and you are four hours ahead...
Must be something about Florida, just about everyone I know from there can go all night...
Speed Pics, the way I approach them is different for each subject matter, but for the most part, I do what I was taught in blocking in a large oil painting.
1. find the biggest shapes, their value and hue, and block those in. Big and flat, no tonal changes yet. These are your lights, darks, positive sha[es and negative shapes. At this stage, the image should look finished, put in a posterized way. I did the adobe building in about 14 minutes, I will try to find it, can't remember what I called the file...With that image, it was very easy to recognize all the shapes very quickly. Squint at the image, the details go away, and all you are left with is big shapes of color and/or value...
2. Next, I gradiate the shapes. Gradation, Ithink is how it is written, I wish this forum had a spell check so I wouldn't keep assing out with all the misspells...The gradation is done to get the volume, the atmosphere, the bounce lighting, reflective lighting etc established.
3. Finally, get your edges in place and the image is done. This is a tricky thing to explain, because you really need to see them to understand what they are all about. This is one of the things that makes Sargent and Zorn and Sorolla stand out over so many of the others. Knowing where to hold a crisp edge, where to lose an edge into the dark, into the light, etc. Where to build a firm edge, but not make it crisp. This is a very big thing and takes years to understand the concept. I am still learning so much about edges. They are the key to a great image. Well, that and convincing modelling of form, i.e. a brilliant handle of light and shadow. Spooge is the best I have ever seen with this concept. He really has a great eye for judging the correct color, value, etc. A great example is the Halo image that was rejected...It kicked ass. the lighting is perfectly convincing, almost makes you wonder if he didn't go out and shoot models in that sort of lighting condition.

These are the things I do to knock out the speed pics. Now, sometimes I will just block in raw blobs of color, other times I will paint with the lasoo tool first to get crisp shapes, then freehand paint over them to blend them together. After Spooge gave me a whippin about lose brush work with the wacom, I went back and analized the approach I was using. I really thank him for speeding my desicion time up, way up...
Not sure if that helped at all, if you have any other questions, I will be in tomorrow morning again, I'll leave answers then. I have to go now to an art show, it sounds very interesting. I will tell you more about it manana...Good night...

[spooge demon]

62 minutes, 48 seconds.

I needed that long to try what I wanted. The log sucks.

I like Fred's idea: lasso big areas and fill with color or grad. Paint away. If there is a lesson in these quickies, it is to get away from the problem we all see over and over of rendering before big shapes are in, or god forbid, the white of the canvas is still showing. That will do it.

Also, in a 1000*1000 image, start with a 200 pixel brush, see how far you can get.

Also, blur the image a lot, what do you see? Sharpen up a few edges that look sharp in your original. Just an idea, never done it.

MORE LOOKING, MORE THINKING, LESS PAINTING

[Kenzo Tanaka]

Fred: What do you mean by "Spooge giving you a whippin about loose brush work with the wacom"? Is that why you are doing the lasso fills?

[AliasMoze]

Thanks, Fred. That's the info I was looking to get written down in here. I tend to block things out the same way, but I sometimes shade the dark side of an object if the value is important, and then I use the value as a base. As I've said before, these quickies have been invaluable to me. I started out at four per day but haven't been able to keep that pace going

I've never painted traditionally, except screwing around with watercolors in High School. Since then, I've been what Spooge refers to as a "line drawer." Hey, that's what I do. I took up painting as a hobby the day I saw Craig's site and what he was doing with Photoshop. Since then painting occupies much of my spare thoughts. It's difficult not to get caught up in the tools. I have had a mental block when doing Photoshop paintings; can't explain it.

To answer your question about my sleep pattern, no, I don't sleep much. If you see me post late, it's often because my mind is swimming with painting-related info I've just read in a book or somewhere, and I can't sleep. A year from now, I hope I'll have reached a decent level and can relax. But I'm having fun learning day to day. The other reason is that I'm working on a project we just got bombed with. I work odd hours.

Spooge, your painting is so organic. I'm amazed at how you get all those value and color changes in such broad areas. It's also interesting to see places in your painting where you seem to have put down a color and had second thoughts. I think that digital painting will get more and more popular, and you are certainly a pioneer in my eyes. The first "master" of digital painting maybe. Inspiring stuff, as usual.

Sorry to drone on, fellers...

------------------
AliasMoze

"That activates my hilarity unit."

[This message has been edited by AliasMoze (edited August 05, 2000).]

[Fred Flick Stone]

If theres one thing I learned, it's that, any image in here is gonna get smoked sonn as sheriff spooge come to town. I wanna give up my wacom tablet now...

[yoszi]

I quit.

[Fred Flick Stone]

This one took 40 minutes. Not much of a speed pick I guess, but I did it at 2000 x1200 to start with so I think I might have gone a bit big for a speed pick. Plus the log had me going for a minute. Damn thing... These are really helping me out in getting quick representation down, I am liking these...

[Sumaleth]

Series two, day one;



I thought about what AliasMoze said in an earlier post, about painting the shapes instead of copying the photo, and realized that it applied to me. So now I'm going to be trying to apply more of an "artistic" approach (whatever that means) to the images instead of just trying to get a copy of the photo inside 20 mins.

This one actually took a bit over 30mins but I didn't really rush it like I had been previously.

--

Fred;

Thats a damn nice rendition of the pond (I think I might go back and tackle the pond again sometime now!), but 40mins...

--

Spooge;

Phew, I mentioned your "rough" approach in another thread but this one takes the cake . It's certainly a fascinating interpretation of the original photo. Crazy stuff.

60 minutes? What exactly where your aims that you mentioned for the image?

It made a really nice Overlay image for my bottle picture anyway .

Sumaleth

[ScoobyDoo]

Heres one that I did.
Took a little longer than I had wanted too though, about 35 min.


and the reference photo:


is it ok?

[Anthony]

You know, as impressive as Spooge's is, and as real as it looks...that's one ugle ass swamp! Personally I think I'll swim in someone else's, even if it looks more like a cartoon!

------------------
-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[laps]

first attempt doing something like this..fence..among other things is off..but..still fun.
spent about 20 minutes.

[Sumaleth]

I had enough fun painting the bottlethat I decided to do another one in this style before bed;



A bit over 45 minutes for that one. The overlay added quite a lot to it again (Craig's lillies again, sorry dude ) but right at the end I ran a PS 'sharpen' filter over it and suddenly it looked almost real! (in a watercolor kinda way)

Fun fun!

Sumaleth.

[Frost]

This is the first time I repaint something... damn... I have practice a lot more... some 45 mins or so.

[AdezJ]

Hello New try about 30 mins not done yet though!

[AdezJ]

Hello New try about 30 mins not done yet though!

[CapnPyro]

damn, frost and sumaleth your guys pictures look eerily real. nice work. with that joystick picture im still trying to figure out which one is the reference..

i want to do some of these quickies, ugh i havnt touhed my tablet in a month. where do you find the reference pictures at, i didnt see any links to them.

-Capn-

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http://home1.gte.net/capnpyro

[Binke]

aHHHHHHHHHHHHH well, heh, I'm posting this speedie, 15-20min one, that I was not intended to post, but I am bored now at this late hour, so I'll post it anyway nyah! Some people might recognise the reference photo I used hehe.



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http://binke.gamesquad.net

[Rinaldo]

The links are mentiond in the first post. but to save time. heres another link:
http://www.sijun.com/dhabih/ubb/Forum2/HTML/003393.html


I really must do some more of these

[ceenda]

about 15mins more on this one.