CYBER SPEED PAINTING

"CYBER SPEED PAINTING" by STARR ALLEN SHAW

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The Shape Block In
This tutorial is not CG application specific, and can be easily applied to most painting applications.
I found that sketching a line drawing was taking a bit longer than I could afford. Shapes are much more labor intensive when they are defined by contour lines. My thought was that the brain would have an easier time creating simple shapes quickly rather than a combination of organized lines that form a shape. Also, with a simple silhouette shape I could add and subtract quickly to change its shape, with contour lines that becomes a complicated mess in no time.
1 – 2 : Starting with just a block-in of gray to create a form of a figure. I added some guides to indicate the underlining structure of the anatomy, this helps me when painting in value. The surfaces that face my imaginary light source are painted with light gray. Surfaces that receive less light are painted with dark gray. These value changes will make the brain understand the form and its depth quickly.
I wanted some wings, so I just threw down some framework. Details were added quickly with a custom brush.

The Colorize
The reason I paint in monochromatic values of gray for the initial block-in process is to limit the information the brain needs to observe, I can concentrate on form and composition and not worry about color schemes and strategies.
3 : I duplicate my grayscale layer and turn on lock transparency, or apply a mask. With the layer opacity around 50% I start the colorize process, adding tones, darks and lights. Rather quickly your grayscale will turned into full color. The Glaze is next, with an additional new layers added setting the Layer or Brush transparency somewhat transparent. Glaze in different or similar colors resulting in a hue with a painterly look of mixed colors.

4 : Custom brushes (if available in your application) will speed things up tremendously. I made my own for the hair, rocks, fire, tattoos and other objects that where too repetitious to paint more than once.

I know this is just my method and others of you may have far better ones. This is just for those of you that may need some help with a process of speed painting I found useful.
Thank You for your time – Starr
(c) STARR ALLEN SHAW, www.starrshaw.com