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Tuesday, January 17, 2012

The Forest Troll Part VII: Watercolor


13" x 21" 
Watercolor and Pencil on Heavyweight Bristol




Next: Digital Trickery

15 comments:

  1. Wow!!amazing!! especially the face...waiting for your next..!!

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  2. What decisions are you making when you add colors and values with watercolor, knowing full well that you are going to go over it digitally?

    Do you view it more as an under-painting, then a finished watercolor piece? Are the colors you add, ones that will interact well with your digital colors? Or is it just wandering as far as you dare go with watercolors, scanning it into the computer and then pushing it as far as you can go digitally?

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  3. Hello, I love your work and am very bummed I missed your lecture out here in Utah. I had a question and I hope I'm not being to nit-picky, but I was wondering what was happening to the head of the dwarf in the middle? It looks like it was his helmet that was lost, but his head seems to disappear into the tree trunk.

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  4. The Birds laughing and enjoying what's to come is my favorite part. Love the characters, emotions and storytelling. Just awesome.

    BTW - love the sketchbook and the amazing sketch! Thanks so much.

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  5. Mike,
    The thing I am most concerned with in the watercolor is nailing the value relations. If that is correct here, I can heighten it in the final digital if necessary. So that is always the first thing in my head.
    The colors are more exploratory and are me trying to get a feel for the warms and cools in the piece.

    As for where I am choosing to stop, I never like my watercolors if I push them too much further than this. I always really like the subtleties when they are this light. If I really need the original to go darker, I usually supplement the watercolor with acrylic ink. But I wanted to stick to just watercolor and pencil in this one.

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  6. Uglymuffin,
    I'm not sure I see what you see there. I do however plan to make his head in a bit of a dim spotlight, so maybe that is playing into it.

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  7. This is great. Your style looks similar to the great Romanian artist Tanko Gabriel. Perhaps you've seen his work?

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  8. wow, great amezing. fantastic!!!

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  9. Ok, I see it now. After looking at it closer, I see that his whole head is there and not cut off. When I first looked at him, the head looked like it was sliced off just above the ears, but looking comparing him to the others, I see it's how they were stylized. So nevermind my earlier comment, I see what is going on now. Keep up the posts, I really find them fun. Thanks for always sharing.

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  10. Oh wow! I'm so glad I was linked to your blog! Yout technique and vision is amazing, and so many Tolkien illustrations too! I've just ordered your sketchbook as well. Absolutely wonderful stuff all around.

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  11. I love how the troll's war-mace is so big--those poor dwarves woul;dn't stand a chance if he found them!

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  12. Thanks Justin! Your answer really helps understand your process. I look forward to the next update!

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  13. uglymuffin, I'm actually having the same problem you did. I love this piece, but where is the poor dwarf's head?! If the other dwarfs' heads are shaped the same way, then their helmets are empty because there would be nothing above their eyebrows. sigh...regardless of my troubles, I have loved watching this piece evolve.

    Brit

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