Gravity Falls is awesome

Tags

animation, background, brushes, cartoon, coloring, dipper, episode, fanart, gravity falls, lighting, living room, mabel, screenshot, study, textured

I had been whining for a while (like every other young adult) that the era of extramegasuperduperawesome cartoons has ended. That nothing will beat 2 Stupid Dogs, Dexter’s Lab or Scooby Doo. However, something caught my attention in a very unlikely place. Disney Channel !!! This show is called Gravity Falls and it’s funny and tells great stories in each episode. And it actually makes me hope my kids will not lower their IQ by watching the cartoons they make today.

But what is even more awesome about it, as far as i am concerned, is the background art for this. I can tell they are spending a loooot of time on them. But it’s worth it. The show gets a very cool feeling. I love the way they use slightly textured brushes, but still maintain a clean look to it. So I did what I never thought I would…FANART…

But hey, ever thought that students a few hundred years ago, sitting in the master’s workshop,  doing studies and learning to paint exactly like him, was after all fanart? Yes, what I did was actually a study…I wanted to learn how to use textured brushes more effectively, study the coloring and lighting. So I basically took a screenshot and redid the image with my own two little hands. Shaky lines, admit to a bit of tracing (since inking was not my focus on the study). But I tried to eye the color and it’s saturation without color picking. Totally helps.

So here it is:

Now go watch the show!

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Painting skin in Photoshop

Tags

beginner, brushes, color, painting, palette, photoshop, portrait, skin, swatches, texture, tutorials

The effect of a massive amount of reference available ends up making me overwhelmed. And by the time I am starting something, I almost give up trying to learn from others and just do it on my own. Well, that’s wrong. I guess students weren’t hanging out in Rembrandt’s workshop for nothing. You need to learn from the masters. And while the digital world and techniques may allow you to learn a lot without even leaving the house…I guess you should find your masters. I am trying now to perfect my portrait painting skills. And here are some pretty neat things I found:

Lauren has a longer tutorial that I found to be less amateur than a lot of things on deviantart.

This is from brazilian artist Amelia Woo. Click the picture to check out her tutorial. I prefer going a different way, but I think I will steal a bit from here too. I like that her palette is going to some crazy hues like blue, which I know is usually a good idea, but I tend to be too chicken to try. 

This is from a website I just discovered through deviantArt. It is a group of artists under the name of ConceptCookie. Even though most of their best resources come for a paid membership, I did find some useful free images (like closeups of how to paint face details). Actually considering to try out their membership. Here, it was useful to realize you can add details also with a more concentrated speckled brush (first one) 

I would follow this one only to pick some swatches and maybe the texturing part. I detest using the Smudge tool for skin and think it’s the amateur way out.