Vaguely Recognisable Faces

I´m loving the hendrix.

Mr. Sabrosito wrote: I´m loving the hendrix.

Me too! It's like a photo except caricaturish

you sure have improved a ton, now that you´re nailing it with photo studies you need to step out to the next level of dificulty, get a table top mirror and start doing self portraits , this will be brutal....... getting proportions and likeness right when you are constantly moving and changing expressions is as hard as it gets , also you wont be able to color pick, you will have to mix your own colors and define the mood of your painting. Make it part of your routine.




You should to start doing studies from classical painters, in my case it helped a TON, you will understand how they simplify color and value , you will be able to see in depth how they mix skin colors , and how hightlights in skin are almost never pure white,neither shadows pure black, how color bounces and reflecs , etc

i strongly recomend this painters
-john singer sargent
-jean leon gerome
-Rembrandt
-Caravaggio

Thank you, all.
Strangely, the Hendrix took less time than any other painting on this thread. Sometimes you just get lucky and something goes right for once. (But zooming in does break the illusion and betray its sketchiness.)

It's funny you mention that, Mr S, because the last acrylic painting I finished was indeed a little, crappy Rembrandt copy. (Mine was crappy, not his.)
And you've mentioned quite a few of my fave painters there, although I'd have to add Velazquez (absolutely love his stuff, especially that terrifying Pope!) and Waterhouse with a bit of Vermeer thrown in, and Bouguereau does terrific skin tones too even though I can never spell his name right the first time. Yes, that's an edit right there.
(And as an aside let me digress and add that Jason Seiler is probably my favourite digital painter. I would gladly steal his talent but not his hipster facial hair! and yes, I have used that gag before. )
In fact the most I've ever learnt from a single painting was when I foolishly tried to copy a Velazquez (that Rokeby Venus with the great backside!) It forces you to think not only about the techniques involved but also the thought processes behind the composition. Sadly knowing about something and being able to reproduce it are very different things so all progress remains tediously slow.

You're right to mention colour. I think it is the one area where I've made some improvement digitally (thanks to Sycra videos) and yet skills with the lovely photoshop style colour wheel don't always translate as easily to the traditional world and the physical act of actually mixing the paint, and that is definitely my biggest frustration there.
So if anyone wants to invent a real-life colour wheel that provides pre-mixed tones (or a traditional "undo button") then I'm sure the world will be a better place.

Another quickish, time-killing sketch of a random pretty face plucked from the interweb...



I wanted to try and do something just using the oil brush from beginning to end (instead of my usual tactic of switching to the airbrush after the initial colour application.) I even threw in some juicy, impasto brush strokes!
Actually I may have got carried away and overdone that a bit.

I think it looks lovely. An excellent use of Art Rage's canvas texture and oil brushes And I like how you left most of the background "unpainted".

That looks great! love the colours (the cool highlights and warm shadows) and the "paint" application.

More like this!

Gorgeous stuff Val. I do find some of the fringe a little flat but the texture in this and that warm shadow beneath her chin are just fantastic.

More like this!

Seconded!

Thank you, all.

Yes, Atto, that bit of hair was the hardest to do. It's difficult to be delicate with that brush and a voice in my brain kept saying "Switch to the airbrush, you fool!" but it was interesting to persevere and I learned a few new things so it was worthwhile.
I can't take credit for the colour scheme though as the ref had that lighting but my version turned out a bit more vivid and I kind of liked it that way.

Valence wrote: It's difficult to be delicate with that brush and a voice in my brain kept saying "Switch to the airbrush, you fool!"

See, two pieces of advice I'd give to anyone drawing digitally, if they want to achieve something "painterly" are - 1) Use as big a brush as you can get away with for everything, and 2) Don't use the airbrush if at all avoidable.
Personally, I only use it for the occasional light bleed/glow effect.