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Friday, January 06, 2012

The Forest Troll Part IV: Color Comp and Drawing

The color comp is done as fast as possible. I don't want to get bogged down in the details here. This is all about the mood and atmosphere.


Color Comp

The main goals of the color comp are:

#1 Nail down the lighting.
(Sources, direction, strength. etc.)

#2 Nail down the value relations.
For instance, the tree behind the dwarves: is it more attractive as darker than the background or lighter? By exploring and solving this in the color comp I will be more confident when I tackle it in the final image.

 #3 Nail down the color theory.
This image will be confined to a warmer spectrum, one that you might find at midday in an old growth forest with patches of sunlight breaking through the canopy. I wanted to make most of the tones fall in a rather narrow color gamut, and then choose a bright color outside this gamut as an accent. In this case, it was mostly golds and browns accented with a bright green.
In the color comp I just want to make sure this theme will work for my image. I go through this on almost all of my pieces because my brain is incapable of solving value/color mixtures on the fly, so I need a cheat sheet. The color comp helps me idiot-proof my image so I don't bungle it in the final.



Tight Drawing

10 comments:

  1. This is great to see--I am happily stunned. Thanks for the post

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  2. There's always something so delightfully comfortable about your trolls and dwarves.

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  3. I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of your process on this one, and I love the way you came up with the idea! If I were the one lost on Paris Mtn. I don't think I would have been dreaming of dwarves and trolls. Thanks for showing all the wip's.

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  4. Hi Justin!

    I hope you don't mind, but I have a lot of questions about this one. First I'll say it looks like it's coming along famously!
    Question 1: On the color comp, are you working directly over the thumbnail, and if so, are you watercoloring?

    Question 2: What type of pencils are you using for the final drawing? I'm sure you've posted that a million times, but I've been trying to find a pencil that has that brownish tone that you're getting in the final.

    Question 3: And finally, what media will you be working in for the painting?

    I know that's a lot in one comment, but I've really been searching for some tried & true methods for painting that I can begin exploring. And you're blog is a pretty good place to start!
    Thanks,
    -Will

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  5. Thanks for the feedback everyone!
    Will, in answer to your questions:

    #1 I'm working digitally in CS5 directly over a pencil thumbnail.

    #2 I believe I was using a Prismacolor col-erase pencils for this one. Though I will often also use Caran d'Ache Pablo pencils as well for drawings that I will be watercoloring over.

    #3 I will be working in watercolor and pencil on strathmore 500 bristol. There will likely be a little gouache and/or acrylic in the highlights.

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  6. Thanks Justin! Good luck on the final painting!
    -Will

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  7. Excited to see how this will come to an (awesome) end! :-)

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  8. Absolutely gorgeous. Great to see every step documented like this, from concept to finish. Have fun painting, I look forward to the result.

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