Digital Painting - alter ego character created/ Alien Design Sheets

After looking at an online tutorial on how to digitally paint, it seemed less daunting. However in the tutorial the person drew on Photo-shop which to me is very difficult and i don't not have access to a tablet. So, i decided to draw an illustration from looking at a Sugar pill cosmetic image and incorporating the cigarette which features in Brian Viveros work. I scanned it into photoshop and started by working on the lips by painting then and using the dodge tool to add highlights.

After a while i got to this stage where i used a combination of paint, the burn tool to add shadows, the dodge tool to add highlights and the grass effect to get the furry looking bits for the mask and cigarette.

I was not pleased with the hair so i decided to change the effect of the brush to a linear dodge and difference which created easier hair texture.

I then decided to add some dar shadow to the hair to make it look less cartoony.

I asked some of my peers on which looked better the one with cartoony hair or this one and different people liked either one...so i shall print out both version as final pieces.

Alien Design Sheets.

A few days ago I had decided to create an abstract alien based around a lava lamp( rather the floaty things in the lava lamp)....However some of my peers and friends said it looked nothing like an alien... meaning it did not have what we know as an alien something with big eyes and antenas...So i decided to create alien looking things from looking at an animal skull in a Drawing lesson...and i drew parts of it whilst changing its form to look alien like.

My drawing teacher thought it looked squid-like so i looked at some images of some squid and other sea creatures and began creating an alien out of what I looked at.

I first looked at a squid which i altered slightly to look more like an alien head, then looked at a jelly fish because i liked the way it reflected light...i then created an alien face which looks like the squid which has the blue reflective head of the jelly fish and the red colour of the alien i made above.

I still have some annotation to do to this... but i think i will look further into some more alien design sheets...I have not yet decided what i actually want the alien to look like.

The alien with horn looking antennas was made with conte, charcoal and chalk pastel.

The Squids are made from conte, charcoal, chalk pastel and oil pastel.

The jellyfish is made from blue ink and white ink....i really liked the way the white ink created a luminous outline which a jelly fish has.

Alien Character (digital painting sort of)

Today i had a go at making a digitally painted piece and i decided to create an alien character that i might use in my Superhero vs. Villains project in a few weeks...( Over half term I created a summarized plot idea for what might happen in the comic book i want to create, and i came up with an alien character which changes form- from alien to human...or something else..that is its alter ego) I based the character around the looks of a crystal ball and a lava lamp (it just popped in my head). This is one of the possible designs for this alien character i shall put up the others when i work on them in the near future. I think painting on photoshop is much quicker that doing it but hand and the advantage is you can click undo for any mistakes made but its very difficult to get used to using the mouse as a paint brush. I asked a peer if it looked like an alien and they said it looked like Mary... thats good enough for me as long at it looks like some type of form/figure thing. I started by sketching on paper the alien shape, scanned it onto my Mac then started using the paint brush tool and fill in tool to do the rest and i finished it off by posterizing it...and going over it with a tree/grass shaped dodge tool to make it look more life like.... I like the outcome very much.... it looks abstract...like a lava lamp.

I named the alien form REVESARA  as a way of just saying an alien that can change shape from alien to human back to alien... so i made up a name for it that describes what the alien does. I had some feed back from a friend who i gave my blog to have a look at and they said that i should give the alien some antenas so it looks like an alien and other people have seen different things like its a person within a person or something else which in a way is good...that is the function of the alien to change form...However i shall create some design sheets of more alien looking aliens...what people are used to big eyes and so forth....I had planned to make the alien abstract because i didn't want it to be the same old thing you see everywhere and something more interesting....but maybe i could incorporate what we are used to as aliens and my abstract ideas.

Edits done to the first few sketches i ever did for this project

The basic edits i done to most of my sketched was to change the contrast and brightness to make bold pieces with the occasional use of the burning tool on Photoshop to make parts of a piece darker to add shadow or the dodge tool to add highlights and sometimes the smudge tool to distort my work so it looks like something. I used some stylizations mainly texturize, posterize, fresco or water paint. The processes of each piece is more detailed in my sketchbook. I think editing the sketches in photoshop really brings them to life and they look more finished and professional than they are just left as they are in my sketchbook. The combination of drawing and computer editing can really complement  a piece and its message.

 ( The Nicki Minaj piece most likely not going in my portfolio...haven't decided yet)

The necessity of type

I am usually encouraged to place type in all my Pieces or crate my own type e.g. the Alter Ego collage where was advised to redo the type on the computer... but i like the hand written look.

The collage piece is a mix of images looked at but mainly me altering what i see and creating a character out of it - i thought a picture collage would be boring....everyone does that.

Some of my pieces don't really suit text - I wouldn't want to add text on my work just for the sake of doing it - I would end up placing text which is not relevant to my pieces - making my pieces weaker.

Digital Painting

Digital painting is something I have always wanted to do and after looking at the work by the artists I have looked at, and now interpreted them - i have noticed i have been creating characters more than what i initially planned to to( illustrations of people in different alter egos...which would look realistic/photographic). Digital painting to me straight away makes me think of fantasy characters - I think the superhero/ villain idea is still at the back of my mind. For now I have had a go at editing some images on Photoshop to get the hang of using Photo-shop again. All the processes don't to get to the final point are in my sketchbook in the form of screen prints.

Naoto Hattori : his work and mine

Naoto Hattori's Work

Naoto Hattori's work is more of creating things which come out of his head- his thoughts... his pieces are mostly womens heads with things around them, which to me looks like their ego/ alter ego/ thoughts/ desires/ other side of them.

I decided to create pieces focusing on heads.

                    CAT CREATURE

The first piece - a cat woman who at first I was going to make into a bear - my friends usually call me me Tessy bear - so i was going to make it into a character of myself but let my thoughts work on it, and it turned into a half cat woman thing/ person.

I used acrylic and poster paint which are quite heavy/thick paints which is probably why the cat piece looks dark/gloomy/creepy - the more layers - the more creepy (for me anyway).

My work usually ends up looking creepy, this maybe because of the medium i use - 

Jazz and Rain

I decided to use a lighter paint ( water colour) on another piece related to Naoto's work, which looks much more fluffy/cute - friendly and not creepy.... The eyes are still big and odd but it looks light. I think it shows the characters feelings/ persona very well = A jazzy Character expected to be happy all the time but he/she is surrounded by sadness.

Minjae Lee : his work and mine

Minjae Lee's Work

Minjae Lee's technique of using more than one primary medium on one piece creates dramatic and bold work, which i had a go at.


I am terrified of using colour because it is harder for me to crate shading if using different all together... However I took on Minjae Lee's technique in my own was and i am really please colours d by the work  I created. It looks really colourful and bright/vivid. It looks very different in terms of style compared to what i usually produce. It still looks like something I would make but its very different from my norm - which is good - I will experiment with different medium more in the future.

MY WORK

It is a slight shame that the work is in my sketchbook, but i find it easier to work in my sketchbook fully - creating rough sketches for me does not work - i have to create something which is finished...not saying i am not capable of rough sketches... The only downside of using different medium was the pastels and chalks especially - they go everywhere ruining the piece to an extent (It looks messy).

I want my work to look polished, I will have to photograph my work as there is not a big enough scanner and tidy them up on the computers but still trying to keep the look of different medium used - print them out in A3 - work for portfolio.

Stages to final pieces

Second Piece in process and final