In September 2016 I wanted to experiment with a new artistic style which I can only describe as colorful and a bit messy. I also wanted to try working with both digital oil pant as well as digital watercolor within Artrage. Choosing a reference photo of Megan Fox from the transformers movie, this is what I came up with.
I created the painting using the following equipment:
- Artrage – Digital painting program for Windows, Mac and tablet. I used the Windows desktop version of the software for this piece.
- Wacom Intuos 4 Graphics Tablet – A graphics tablet is a “must have” item for desktop based digital art and Wacom has always been my weapon of choice.
- Adobe Photoshop – Creating the reference image followed by some minor adjustments to lighting and sizing with Photoshop.
Progress Photos
Building Color
Spending as much time as needed on the outline, I never move on to coloring until I am happy with the outline – I am sure there are lots of more talented people who can do this quickly but this is where I spend the majority of time when drawing. The base color was applied using the watercolor brush in Artrage
Still using the watercolor brush, I added a darker base color as well as adding high and low lights to the painting. I wanted this to be colorful and tried lots of different ways to introduce a colorful spectrum to the painting before deciding that the right cheek (Megan’s Left) was the best spot
Carrying on with the color theme, I added color in the same order as on the cheek. I could not get the required vibrancy with the watercolor brush so opted for the oil brush.
Adding more color and creating that messy look with the pencil tool before marking this one as done.
I am really happy with how this one came out and the “colorful messy” style was something that I would definitely do again in future paintings