Caelum [Process]
dunkel as Artz
Jul|27|2008
Background: I was part of some club at dA, because a friend asked me to join. Ended up not participating in anything at all (as I tend to do in all clubs I join), so decided to participate this once. The contest theme was Roman Gods. I chose Caelum, the God of the Sky (the God of Death, I predicted correctly, would be too popular).
Further, the last time I drew a city scene was close to 3 years ago, so thought I’d try again, to see if I’ve improved any.
Tools: ArtWeaver 0.5, tablet, 2 layers total (sketch + piece), PSP
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Sketch; trying to get some proportions right. Seeing if the composition works; wanted all lines to lead back to the subject. Actually, I wasn’t aware of that at the time of making, but it’s a good habit to have. Never lead the eye out of the canvas. |
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Something I picked up recently, after your sketch, always put in the general tone of colour before starting on anything else. This is so that the colours you use later on will be relative to whatever you slop down in this step (ie if you started with a white background, your finished piece may not look unified). |
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Lowered opacity of the sketch even more, to block in colours. Worked on the face too, which was a mistake, as seen in the next step.
Colour theme of piece determined to be a dull orange/yellow + grayish-blue. Blue, to reflect Caelum’s eyes (so it will fit the description that goes with the piece). Dull orange/yellow, pretty self-explanatory. |
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Put in way too much detail in Caelum’s suit at this stage of the painting. I still have to practice working equally around the piece, and not concentrating on one spot too early. :\
The head in the last stage was not placed correctly, and seemed too big to me. So I blocked it out and corrected it. Began putting in windows on the buildings. I hate architecture. Became so dissatisfied with them that I was quite ready to give up, finish up his head, and submit as is. But, decided to keep going, as I’d been meaning to draw this for a couple of weeks now. So, looked up a reference Still felt somewhat unmotivated to keep going; I have to paint those friggen buildings /again/?! |
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Started painting over the buildings on the left. Realized that every time I painted cities (including this one), I had always gotten lazy with buildings and ended up with boring rectangular, kiddy-type skyscrapers. So, using the same reference as before (can you see some parallels?), I tried to make my buildings distinct from each other, and at least somewhat interesting to look at. Also because at that moment, Caelum didn’t fit into the painting because he was so detailed, and the buildings were so plain. Realized that if all the buildings were yellow, Caelum will again not fit into the painting because he was blue. So, still inspired by my reference, I decided to put in bill-boards and ads, with blue content. Buildings aren’t actually /right/ beside the sidewalk, so I added a road and more cement before a building actually started. The road was also to help stick Caelum into the painting, thus it is blue. |
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Painted over the other side of buildings. My painting has been flipped twice to check for mistakes. I can’t stop mentioning that. It has been the most useful tip I picked up.The bill-board was fun to do. : D
Also discovered this tool called “Artist Brush”, which basically tries to imitate Seurat, Van-Gogh, etc. I found it nice as a texture sort of brush. Tried it first on the top-left building to make it not so plain (as I was starting to get lazy again), then used it on the sidewalk. |
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Painted his face, defined the clouds more. |
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The sun was looking quite rectangular, so I rounded it off. Added a jet plane to balance out the sun… and to enforce the pollution. 8D
Darkened/Browned the entrance to the building at the bottom left, since the blue wasn’t really fitting and was too eye-catching. Finally, altered the contrast a bit in Paint Shop Pro, put on a border, done. :D |
It used to be that the colour of the sky matched the colour
of Caelum’s eyes. As time passes, the God of the Heavens
finds that gradually, the sky he loves is drifting away from
him, slowly engulfed by a murky brown haze. He and the
sky are not together anymore, he has lost his territory, his
home, himself.
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