What’s Missing, WIP by Helen E. H. Madden, 6 Feb 2011
The latest issue of Digital Artist magazine had a lovely article on using the metallic paint settings in ArtRage. I’ve been reading everything I can find on ArtRage lately, since I’ve been enjoying using the program on my iPad, and I decided to see if I could replicate the results of the Digital Artist article in some of my own artwork.
I decided to follow the same process outlined in the article, starting with a detailed sketch of what I wanted to paint. This is a big departure from my previous ArtRage drawings, which have pretty much been created on the fly rather than planned out. Thus this image is going to be here on WIP Wednesday rather than showing up on Freaky Friday, because it’s going to take longer to produce.
The sketch is heavily influenced by the artwork in the DA article, which was also of a robot. I like robots, so I’m more than happy to try and paint a few. I’m still working out the details of the sketch, especially the background. I have a hard time creating environments for my artwork, thus my preference for doing portraits. But I think it’s time I stretched my wings a bit, so I’m going to create as detailed a background as I can here. I’ve borrowed other elements from the DA painting as well, including the windows with a strong light source and the idea of a robot painting something. However, the theme is a bit different, as you’ll see if you check out this month’s issue of DA.
Next week I hope to have the sketch finalized. Then I can start the underpainting stage, something else I don’t normally do with my ArtRage doodles. We’ll see how this works!
