exile2k4

Heya, thanks for the comments.

The entire project (although I've not gone back to finish it yet) took about 10 hours to the last stage I posted here. Pictures like this tend to take me longer the further I get into them - I got to stage 2 in about 30-40 minutes, stage 7 in about 2 hours, stage 10 in about 4 hours then another 6 hours or so to stage 11. Even though there don't look to be so many changes between 10 and 11, that's what really takes the longest for me - deciding what I've done wrong, and changing it subtly.

I find the hardest things to draw are skin and hair. Hair is hard to draw accurately due to its detail, but you've got a lot of leeway about what you do with it because people's hair moves. I find skin hard to paint because it's built up of a huge patchwork of hues/shades, which you need to pay close attention to in order to get the texture right (so the person doesn't look like they're made of plastic). In addition to this though, it also has crucially important broader tonal variations that create the shape of the face/expression. Getting them both working together in a "realistic" painting is something I find difficult.

I'm 25, I have a B.A. hons. in illustration, and I've been drawing/painting as long as I can really remember. When I was younger I tended to do much more "realistic" work. Over the past 5 years or so I've wanted to get away from that, and experimented with a lot of different ways of working. Over the last 3 years I've been working on developing a style which incorporates the things I love (painting/drawing/textures/photography/layering), and I tend to find bringing things together in photoshop the best way of doing this.

I'm not really used to using a tablet. I bought one 8 months ago to try and make the work I do in photoshop less seperate from the physical work I do. I did this picture to practice my technical skills using a tablet, so that I've (hopefully) got more control over the work I produce (and as an excuse to look at Samaire Armstrong for a few hours...).

I've done some work for magazines/exhibitions over the last few years, but recently I've just wanted to focus on trying to improve my style/technique. Right now I'm putting the finishing touches to a website, and also scouring around for a good cheap way of getting my work printed on to canvas, because as much as I love photoshop I think it's important to have work as a physical artifact in some ways. I will start sending my work off to various people again later on this year.

Phew, sorry, that ended up being longer than I expected.