Guzik – speed painting

28 February 2009

If you’re a regular visitor, you should see that I didn’t write any new post for a long time… It’s time to change things. Last days I had an idea that was compiled with my free time and here it is- the speed painting process. I made this for my friend as a keepsake. The idea of this kind of art is to sketch, doodle and not erase too much. You can draw something carefully or pretty airily- it doesn’t matter. Just free your imagination. Don’t care so much about details and lines that doesn’t fit. Show what you wanted to. Whole image takes me about 30 minutes. So launch the player with your favourite music and DIY. I would admit that this isn’t a tutorial at all, I am explaining just basic things without details, however you could drink from this river pretty much.

Step 1
Place the light source. I have two light sources, but the second is in fact almost invisible. Then draw the main object. Doodle, doodle and again… doodle. You can begin your painting from the color without lines, but i prefer to do them. I am starting with medium gray color in a background.

Step 2
Finish the sketch. I didn’t erase anything… almost. Sometimes you just have to, but avoid that, ’cause speed painting has in name “speed” that says everything for itself. I used hard brush in size of 8px, without any brush effects like opacity or size controlled by pressure of my tablet.

Step 3
It’s time for shadows. Remember where you placed your light source. I am using- as always in speed painting- only hard-edged brushes. Do not care if you will paint outside the line.

Step 4
Make the shadows and lines harder. I am not using pure black color, but a kind of pretty dark gray that looks better with light shadows. Keep eye on background. I used some texture brush to hide it’s flatness. Also you can see there a big, hard-edged brush around- it gives a soul to the painting by showing its simplicity. Do not care about background too much if it doesn’t play main role in your picture. Just do it fast and leave. As my favourite writer, Gombrowicz said “the better, the worse”.

Step 5
Now take care about lights. As with shadows, I’m not using purely white color, but a very light tone of gray in red hue. I’ve added some effect to my brush- opacity and size control. It’s better if the shine is hard in its beggining and then slowly fade.

Step 6
Skin isn’t perfectly smooth, it has a texture. Here i added some, mainly on the head. It isn’t as seenable as below, but I wanted to expand it on this preview to show you what I mean. I also mixed some colors to choose the right one for nose.

Step 7
I’ve putted the gradient (pink -> purple) with overlay blending mode and medium opacity on whole image to give it the main color. The color makes image more interesting. It also hid a bit very dark parts.

Step 8
The last touch of colors. In a last coloring I am using, as always, hard round brush. I can’t explain that, but I’m just avoiding soft-edged brushes. On the head, in a shadow you can see some blue tones. It’s the effect of second light source. I also added more orange and red tones to the skin and made teeth more bright. Now it’s all about the details like chain with $, blue eyes, yellow hair, earrings and red heart. Everything takes me less than 30 minutes, including coffee break. Speed painting is a very good training for both- pros and beginners.
Keep practicing before you will sit with something very big.
Here is my final image, isn’t that poar sweet?

❧