This is probably my favorite piece to date - I gave this one away to a friend but I'm thinking of doing it again just so I can have one :)
At the time I gave it away I wasn't even watching Game of Thrones, I actually thought the first season was pretty boring! But, I will admit that it is now one of my favorite tv shows ever!
The technique I use is called "Dry Brush"; it's called this because the brush is literally as "dry" as it can possibly be. You take just a little oil paint and put it onto your brush, then you brush over the same area on the paper building up the value. As soon as I get my "Learn art with me" video series going this technique will be on of the main things I focus on! It has a lot of advantages in terms of "speed", in that you can cover so much in such a small amount of time compared to using a graphite pencil/charcoal. The other great thing about it is that you get a much deeper black *and* there is no glare like graphite gives off.
Also, Sorry that the photo quality is so bad...it was a really bad phone and it was all I had at the time for pictures.
I'll be posting more in depth wip's and tutorials in the future so be sure to follow if that is something you'd be interested in :)
The end before we go to the beginning:
The first thing you need to do is the contour drawing, if your proportions are incorrect on the contour drawing then most likely the finished piece will be off too.
Personally I like to start on the eyes and move outward, but I know others like to go top left corner down to bottom right; it really doesn't matter but whatever you prefer.
Try to pick out the darkest shadows and fill those in(this entire piece is almost all one dark shadow...)
I continue to outline some of the darker spots
I've mostly finished the face and begin to work on the hair
Hair is usually the number one thing I hear people struggle with (as do I still at times), but the main thing to keep in mind is that it is all about values (shadows and highlights), so find the darkest spots and fill those in, then work your way toward the highlights. I'll go into more detail on a future tutorial, with better pictures.
Continued working on the hair
Other side of the hair
Finished! As I said, I'll have more in depth tutorials and better pictures in the future.
Thanks for checking this out!
At some point I need to come up with a good "signature" for my posts....but today is not that day.
That came out nice! :D When I drew and stuff on actual paper I always started from the eyes too. Well literally started from the eyes, they were the first thing I would draw and then I kind of grew everything else from there. I love the dark bit on the left side to make the lit up white hair really stand out.
thank you :) I just think the eyes are usually the focal point of a portrait and so if the eyes don't look good then you might as well give up right there lol
So original. Well done
thank you :)
Nice, looks great
Thanks man!
This is awesome - firstly I LOVE G.O.T.. secondly this is just an incredible process display as you built your values. The hyper-realism is extremely well done and you have achieved this gorgeous light quality which is reminiscent of Tenebrism or Chiaroscuro. Following, upvoted and resteemed :) Thanks for sharing your work!
thank you; playing with light is probably my favorite thing - or at least trying to!
Incredible! You make it look so easy. I've been more and more curious about this dry brush technique because the end result is really nice, I can only imagine how endless the black looks in person. Lucky friend you have!
I'm also looking forward to your equipment upgrades and what's next !! ☺
thanks for all your support! Sure glad I came across your profile on here :) It turns out my sister might have a DSLR camera I can use, which would be great; so hopefully I can get my hands on that.
I really like dry brush a lot, it doesn't work for detail type stuff (at least i haven't been able to use it effectly in that way) but it is so useful in many other ways. I can't wait to start making videos on it and doing very simple tutorials with it. Thanks for the resteem :)
Your talent with hair is what caught my eye and brought me to your blog. You paint hair very well.
I love to use dry brushing for my painting projects - furniture and the like. I'm not an artist like you - you are very talented.
thanks; I used to struggle so much with hair; for some reason my mind just couldn't grasp how to render it properly, I was always too focused on the details and it would end up looking pretty bad; finally it "clicked" that I only need to focus on the shadows and highlights and then put in the detail and things started to get much better for me!
Yeah, dry brushing is quite fun and can look really good!
I genuinely believe that you could be doing what I'm doing with enough practice in this area; I am self taught. I plan on making a video series where I can go much more in depth with all my techniques and the things I have learned over the years.
Maybe. I've tried painting and I suck....seriously. I have a brand new set of acrylic paints, brushes and good paper. I just can't do anything with it. I tried some youtube videos. I want to paint bc I like to think I think like an artist. Maybe that's why I use my camera. That's art too.
I'll watch your videos. :)
Photography certainly is art too!
I feel very confident that before you can paint you have to be really good at drawing (and when I say really good I am actually referring to drawing theory - proportions, perspective, value, etc - because those are the requirements to making great art no matter the medium). In general, using a pencil is easier than using a paintbrush in the sense that graphite is easier to control than paint and so mastering those foundations is easier to do with graphite. Once you have reached a solid understanding of those things - and have put the practice into each of them - then moving onto paint is surprisingly easy. Of course, there are still a lot of nuanced things you have to learn for each medium. But I was surprised how "easy" it was to move to watercolor even though I had never painted - but it was very clear to me that my years of drawing was what enabled me to jump right into watercolor and still have stuff at least look half way decent lol I am far from a master at watercolor and I have a long way to go still!
Anyway, I think you'd be surprised to find that if you focused on improving your drawing skills your painting skills would also immediately increase. Lastly, something that I learned with watercolor and I imagine would apply also to acrylic is to limit the number of colors you are using. Do some monochromatic paintings and then limit yourself to just 2 or 3 colors and stick to those colors until you see the progress you want to see. When I did this for watercolor it immediately paid dividends.
Absolutely amazing!
thank you!
A masterpiece!
thanks!
This is stunning.. Amazing work :)
Thanks! I also really like our watercolor, followed to see your future work!
Great done my friend. Thanks for sharing.
thanks!
My God, what beauty ... I love the final result and I love the character of Daenerys.
thank you
Ahh shoot, I've been amazed at your high contrast pieces but this one... Oh man, this one's my favorite as well! I wasn't too fond of Season One as well, but it's one of those shows that picks up momentum with every passing season. I think I even nodded off during the first episode! I'm glad I stuck with it, as it's a juggernaut of a show now.
Dany isn't a particular favorite of mine, but this piece... man, oh man. This really took her to a whole new level. It really worked well because of her white hair, and this looks like a B&W photo. Gorgeous! I really need to practice that contour drawing so that I would be able to come close to this. Looking forward to learning this in your video series! It couldn't come any sooner!
I was super pumped at the end of the first season for the snow walkers......glad I didn't know then that I wouldn't see them for 6 more years! But, thankfully the characters did eventually win me over so even without the snow walkers I enjoyed it. But man am I looking forward to the next season...
Those whitewalkers have got to be the biggest tease in all of TV! They did a good job making us hang on though. It feels like the anticipation for them only made us even more psyched. Great marketing technique if you ask me.
they are lucky that the rest of the show was so entertaining or I would have quit on it like I did the Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead.. man that's one of the first TV shows that I quit on. I liked the comic, but the series was too much of a drag.
Love love love <3
I can understand why it's your favorite :)
Thank you :)
holy shit, this is so cool!
Thanks! I keep meaning to do more GoT art, but just haven't gotten around to it yet
Wow! That is a beautiful piece. :)