2D Portrait Work Project: Part 4 (+ Extras)

 I am still working on this biggest artpiece yet as I have been continuing my posts about it. Though, I think I am very much nearly finished and only need to paint a few more things.

Something I wished to discuss on here is how I've become quite, I would say, efficient in aquiring my references and pushing these references even further to aid in my workflow. 

I don't really know what to call the technique I have gotten myself using within the latter half of my art piece, but I feel like it was definitely inspired by the accumulation of Ross Draws art tutorial videos I've watched over the years on Youtube. There's one that really stuck in my head both now when writing this and when actually painting my piece, which is this one:

This video is based around how to paint landscapes, which might not really apply to my portraiture project at first glance. I don't know when I even first watched it - at least 4 years ago now - but this is the video that introduced me to the concept of photobashing. 

Though, while I write the word 'photobashing', it leaves me with some negative connotations in my mind. One part of me feels like I should feel somewhat guilty, but the other part of me is trying to tell myself that it's fine because this is literally a tried and tested and professional technique that I know many industry artists utilise for their own work. 

I googled a bit more about the term photobashing anyway, and was led to this: 

Photobashing is a technique where artists merge & blend photographs or 3D assets together while painting and compositing them into one finished piece.

This is used by concept artists to speed up their workflow and achieve a realistic style.

Some people think of photobashing as ‘cheating,’ but to use this technique successfully you have to have a functional understanding of lighting, composition, and form. Artists do not ignore fundamentals with photobashing. Instead they use their knowledge and skillset to speed up project work and achieve a finished result faster.

Credit: https://conceptartempire.com/photobashing/#:~:text=Photobashing%20is%20a%20technique%20where,and%20achieve%20a%20realistic%20style.

Which, reading this definition, I would like to say I believe this is what I have done. 

Too, I think this also emphasises my frequent point within my Masters Project of following the advice that industry practitioners gave to me during my interviews with them and also during all of my research: you still need to hone your fundamentals. If you wouldn't know how to paint the thing in question in the first place, you probably wouldn't do a good job photobashing it together.

It is still a skill to identify what you as an artist need and to pick a good reference for you, and then know what to do with said reference in my opinion. Again, similarly to what I talk about throughout the whole of this MA project, a lot of skillsets that make a 'good artist' don't necessarily just come solely from painting. Which is what was told to me numerous times via interviews and research.

Here I took a clip from my aforementioned Ross Draws video I posted at the top of this blog post. This was the most applicable to me I think and is probably the best example of what I mean.

Above, this is an example of how I believe I am pushing the references I find to another level that helps me even further. I'm not too sure why I never did this before, but I don't know, it felt like something just clicked. 

I was able to find some good references that helped me to paint the clothing I wanted, but, I was struggling to get the values right with my colours. I decided to apply gradient maps over these references with a clipping mask to give it the same red hue that I (and of course my client) wanted. This ended up speeding up my process a ton.

Too, I was able to combine my main pose reference with this method to further elevate the piece, applying that colour gradient map on top of this reference image to help me understand further. 

Here too, you can see how I've been able to combine loads of different parts of references in order to (hopefully) create a brand new unique piece of my own. Above, I was able to colour pick from my own drawing's face in order to keep the character looking the same in multiple areas of skin, but with the reference I found on the side via Pinterest I was able to use that as a loose guideline for where and how I should be painting the chest area. 

Although the style I am exploring of course tries to emulate realism to a greater extent than most styles, I ended up finding that it still became a better endeavour to reference other art pieces rather than, let's say, photography of women. 

When I try to break down the style I am trying to emulate and deepen my knowledge into, it feels like the best parts about this style is the very human things that are added or even excluded from a painting. It inherently has a level of stylisation even when trying to perfectly emulate real life. 

Maybe this is intentional or not, I don't know - but these old masters paintings that I end up referencing a lot, I think, have great visual communication on par with many philosophies in things like graphic design today.

What limited colour palette did they decide to use to convey just enough for the human brain to perceive this as another human's skin or chest area, as opposed to the literally unfathomable and unlimited amount of colours present in our skin in real life? 

I think it's also kind of a similar philosophy to things like photobashing, too. 

It is a balance of making external decisions outside of just putting paintbrush to canvas (or in my case, stylus to drawing tablet) that ends up making something perceived as "good" art in the end. 

As we know... And as I keep saying... This is frequently what was echoed from all the industry pracitioners I spoke to and researched, too. 

Anyway.

Here you can compare how I was able to take the shapes present in the reference on the left and apply it to my painting on the right with different colours. 

Perhaps I could've pushed mine a lot further, but, like I tried to convey in the previous paragraphs -  I think it is more about finding a balance between "good" art and trying to be a "successful" artist that can balance my time well by knowing whether I should or shouldn't keep pushing further and further on elements in a piece. 

Ultimately, I don't think I could be regarded as "successful" or very marketable if I take up to 4-6 months to finish a commission like this. Even worse, too, two to four years:

Here, for the woman's hair, I quite heavily referenced this piece on the left. 

I really liked the forms and flow of the hair that this image had and wanted to apply that to my own piece.

This image, though, is unfortunately AI-generated. Not by me, but I found it on Pinterest. 

I don't really like to use AI in many forms because of all of the controversies surrounding it. And I have many conflicting thoughts on the subject as a whole.

My main consensus, alike many others I have seen online in art communities, is that AI art cannot 'belong' to anyone, for no human made it. And I do agree with this wholeheartedly.

But to take this idea a step further, I've seen people often say that YOU, anyone, can just say an AI-generated image is your own and do whatever you like with it or to it just because of this "why not?" philosophy. 

I don't know if I can say I wholeheartedly agree with that. But I can see a lot of merit in it.

My main counterpoint to that idea is that none of us know where these AI images came from - how these models were 'trained', and of what unconsenting artist. At the end of the day, I feel there isn't anyone that comes out of this with their hands clean. 

But...

I am someone who identifies with having 'aphantasia' - something I only found out a couple of years ago was actually a thing with a term. 

I've never been able to 'visualise' any sort of image in my mind - it is like it is always just black in my brain. Or, I don't know, not even black. 

I heard some analogy a while ago similar to this:

It's like if you tried to see something from a different area of your body other than your eyes. If you tried to look at something from your elbow. Would you 'see' black?

Well, no. You wouldn't see just black because the concept of 'seeing' from your elbow is just physically impossible. It cannot be described nor fathomed. 

...

My point is to say, though, while I really understand and agree with majority of the issues raised against AI-generated "art"...

It has also made my process of collecting references incredibly faster and easier. Of course, I always heavily relied upon references in the first place because of my aphantasia. 

I also think this allowed me to develop a greater understanding and ability to 'break down' references, too. Combining this with AI that makes it immediately easier to find any references I need, I can't deny the use that this has had for me. 

I just think that one needs to be intentionally careful about taking too much from a reference. But hasn't this always been a thing any artist knows even before AI, too?

Here is where I am currently at with this piece of mine. I need to finish up a few things on the girl, which then I can go into painting the background and adding the overall lighting to tie the piece together.

I also figured why not include these videos that I made for a member of this art community Discord I am in. Someone was asking for help on overall the rendering of their pieces because she wanted to achieve a more painted finished look and she asked me for help. 

These videos are probably quite all over the place and a bit ramble-y and most certainly informal, but, still. 

It seemed to  help some people.

As some extra practises I've done to explore other art styles while creating my big portrait piece, I've been doing some explorations.

Here, I wanted to create a piece completely unlike any style I work in, and also with a different subject matter entirely. I thought that it'd be good to further get out of my comfort zone and push boundaries.

I designed this sea serpent monster based purely off a narrative event my character in-game in that DND-like game I've previously spoken about in other posts experienced. (which is why it has my character's name at the bottom left, instead of mine!)

I was really inspired by this above art I found on Google. 

It feels like it has a unique mix of sort of old medieval aesthetics and techniques but also with a modern flair of bold graphic shapes and colours. 

Similarly, this is another piece I created from just text of another person's character. 

I challenged myself to see the extent I could or would paint within an hour, and this was the result. 

I quite like it how it is and all its messy self. I came to wonder that if I did continue on with this piece, it may ruin the overall vibe and feeling it has right now. 

It communicates just the base of what it needs to for it to register as having feeling, I think. Which is a unique place I'd like to explore more - seeing with fewest steps as possible, how can I get to a point in a piece that manages to read or invoke similar feelings and perception to a piece I might've spent months working on.