Dave's Digitals

Sat down and pulled out PSS again tonight. Mainly still trying out brushes, settings, etc. Spent a couple hours working with it...

Taking the wife to get her 2nd set of lower back injections done tomorrow, so was able to stay up a little later tonight. Worked on it a bit more.

Did a little more...

You seem to be enjoying the new software, Dave. I like the skin tones and the hair.
One minor anatomy quibble is the way you've merged the upper eyelids with the bony arch of the eye socket which results in the brows being a little too close to the eyes at the outer edge.
The eyes themselves are beautiful though, with those deep reflections and intricate, spoke-like details in the iris.

Thanks, Valence. Had some rare free time the past couple days, so been enjoying some artwork.

And you're correct, I've had a fit working on her eyes. Can't tell ya how many times I've adjusted them, moving them here and there. And while looking at them last night before bed, I too noticed I wasn't given them enough room for the upper lid, so I see what you're saying. .... I also just placed the brows in too which may be too low, so will have to make some adjustments on all that to hopefully get it closer to being correct.

I've had to take the image into PS to make the adjustments, since I'm not that familiar with Paintstorm yet and the transform tool and editability in PS is way better too. But for the most part, the overall image has been done with just a couple of brushes in Paintstorm. So far, the program seems to be doing well, and with just a few more additions would make it quite nice indeed.

Thanks again.

Hey Dave, good seeing you still at work How's your wife doing? Or was it just 'routine' type stuff you had to take her in for with the injections?

Hey back Thomgirl, good to see you out and about as well. Hope you and yours all are doing well! Bet that little one, isn't so little anymore, huh?

As for the wife, nah, her back has been bothering her throughout summer and after getting 3 MRI's done on her back a few weeks ago, they are trying these injections to hopefully help give her some relief. They say the second set usually helps the most, which is just what she had done Tuesday, but we still won't know for a few days. Says it takes 3 to 7 days before any affects take place. ... She's pretty sure it's related to her injury she had to her neck and back, so this is just something they are trying to help out. She's also picking up a back brace to try, for those mornings she wakes where it bothers her most.

She's been dealing with some of these issues for quite a while now, since she got hurt back in 1996. It's just this past summer was pretty hard on her, and she wanted to make sure there wasn't something else at play.

Thanks again, and here's a small update. Didn't have much time tonight, but did add a little more, mostly values.

Ah, sorry to hear that My husband has been having a lot of back troubles too as of late. I broke mine 2 years ago and I remember how painful that was. I hope you all find a means of getting through it!

The little one is growing fast. She'll be a year old in Oct! She forced me to build a special art station to keep her from grabbing all my cords, my wacom pen and such... BUT it's a good thing. The table is much nicer to work at and it's like my own little art haven now that I'm finding more time to actually use it while she disassembles the rest of my house

The portrait is looking good. I like how you're handling the gold. I'm working on a similar thing with the weapon in my current portrait for the challenge this month, but I'm not handling it as gracefully as you seem to be with yours. I ended up having to wipe out all the layers I built up in color for it because it just got to looking like such a mess.

A couple things I'm picking up on your portrait is the eyebrows and the underpart of the tip of the nose. The eye closest to us, the eyebrow there is shorter than the opposite, which shouldn't be since it's closer to us and more 'face on' than it's opposite. The opposing one (farther from us) comes down onto her nose a bit too far, in my opinion. I don't think it needs much taken back, just a bit. That may actually correct the entire issue as a whole, but if not, I think the other (closest to us) could use to have the 'tail end' lengthened just a bit. As for the nose, right now in shading it looks like the tip is very nearly just blending into the upper lip. I'm not sure if that's intentional or not, but a bit of defined shading there would probably correct that fast.

Keep up the good work and I'll keep you and yours in my prayers!

Hey, Dave I hope you don't mind I did a quick paint over to show a couple of things I saw. It looks like there is only one light source so I'd think the shadows would be a lot darker than you have them here and also there would be a lot of cast shadow from the direction of light. Also I added a bit of subsurface scattering in the nose and cheeks and along the edges of the cast shadow. (Just use a darker, warmer, more saturated color from the skin tone and let it go a little bit into the shadow terminator and it brightens the image up a bit.) Also I don't think the specular highlight or the shadow in the eyes was quite right from the angle you have the key light coming so I just did a few adjustments there. I think if you did just those three things in the whole image it would really give it that extra punch. You could also bounce some light up into the shadows into a few areas to get some nice areas of saturated color in the shadows as well.

Ouch! Ya know, just the thought of someone breaking their back bothers me! ... I can only image how much that would hurt, and the troubles that could bring. I hope it's not something that's bothered you since and you got it corrected properly?

But yeah, the back is nothing to play with, and she's sure had her share of issues with hers. But we're doing what we can to try and get her some relief. She's also scheduled to get fitted for a back brace sometime next week, but her doctor also already informed her she doesn't really like her patients using them, since some become accustomed to them and they become more of a crutch then anything else. - But my wife told her she understands that and would make sure only to use it when really needed, mostly in the mornings when she first gets up. Which is when her back really gives her fits sometimes. Which can also be related to how one sleeps?

As for the eyebrows.. I agree completely! Funny thing is, I worked on the eyes for a while, trying out different stuff and actually forgot to add any! If you notice, in the first two wips she doesn't have any! After I realized it, I simply threw some in without much thought to their placement for now. - I will definitely look to correct them here soon. Oh! and you're correct about the nose as well. Appreciate the fresh eyes!

Thanks, Evil. And no problem, paint-over-away anytime! Always good to see how others would handle colors or values. - Good suggestions, and will keep them in mind. ... I usually build up values slowly while I work, so you should notice the values getting deeper as it progresses. Don't ask me why I do this? Just something I've always done since starting out in digital. I think when I add it too fast, it doesn't look right to me or I'm just not used to that approach? Either way, it will deepen more. And though this is more just playing around getting to know a new program, there are still things I don't how to do with it. Like adding some texture to her as you suggested. I was thinking the same around the eyes, nose, etc. but planned to do that at the end, even if I have to take it into PS. Thanks again for the advise!

One weird thing though, and maybe others are more familiar? But I had set up like 3 brushes in Paintstorm Studio, and got them to a point where I liked the results. And then yesterday there was an update for the program. So after I did the update, and cooked dinner , all my brushes were still there, but all the settings were different!! They were nothing like I had them setup, and of course, I don't recall exactly how I had them. So I'm in the process of trying to reset them up, but is this normal? ... I don't recall even having my brush settings change with an update? If so I might start taking some screenshots in advance, but I find this not only annoying, but strange.