Nick- You always make me smile. Widely.
Hey thanks for all the kind comments, chaps. You are always so supportive and it's really appreciated.
Talking about lighting, which some of you mentioned.
It's a bit of an old illustrator's 'trick' to use 'rim lighting' to crisp things up sometimes to make it read better.
By rim lighting I mean use of a slightly exaggerated, secondary light source that picks out the edge of an object or character to help describe the form. When you have a strong colour behind the characters as you do in the beer labels, it just made sense to go with that and use a light tone of that colour to indicate reflected light around the some of the edges.
For me it works best when used sparingly, but if you have a strong secondary light source, or if indeed the back-lighting is the main light source then go bolder and go to town with it.
Meanwhile here are a couple of sketches starting to work out a character for one of my own project thingies (that has been simmering away on the back-burner for so long it's nearly boiled completely dry). I've over cooked how far I've taken the last Wip and will likely take a step back and go in a different direction with it.
EDIT -
I knocked back the blue shadow a bit (by reducing the layer opacity) so that everything isn't filling in and looking so dirty - although grubbiness is one of the attributes this chap is going to have.
To bring the blue back in again with the potential for more subtlety and control, I duplicate the relevant layer (both set to multiply blend mode) - with a view to being able to work on both with a light yellow colour (using the chalk tool) and develop a more patchy shadow/lighting pattern.
Last edited by Nickillus; 04-24-2012 at 07:54 AM.
Nick Harris Artwork
http://nickillus.com
New system as of April 2011
i5 quad core - Asus P7P55LX
Windows 7 Home Premium
8gig DDR3 RAM
Wacom intuos 3 A5
Radeon 512mb graphics card
Nick great display of talent, technique and imagination. Beautiful work.
Thanks Lima. You are very kind.
I'm chasing my tail like mad on a deadline at the moment and so can only snatch minutes to spend on this while files are saving and such - or I just need to get my head away from the grind for five minutes to relax.
Here is where it's at for now. Going down a darker path again. Mostly built up with watercolour washes on layers set to multiply - but with odd bits of tidying done using body-colour on another layer (chalk and pencil).
EDIT - 2 more WIP's - Really going darker again with a deep greenish layer over the top set to multiply - then cutting light areas back in with an orange/pink chalk. Then chucking some sticker brush foliage into the foreground to explain the shadows a bit. Need to lose the centre parting in that I think . . .
Last edited by Nickillus; 05-09-2012 at 11:24 AM.
Nick Harris Artwork
http://nickillus.com
New system as of April 2011
i5 quad core - Asus P7P55LX
Windows 7 Home Premium
8gig DDR3 RAM
Wacom intuos 3 A5
Radeon 512mb graphics card
I love your dark side!
Great respect for your talent Nick, amazing and awe inspiring work.
website www.maykit.co.uk
Thank You for this further great lesson, dear Nick!
Panta rei (everything flows)!
Such skill and attention to detail. The charcters on the bottle labels are stunning. Don't ’spect I'll see those down south very often. To think, you'll get a mini master piece with every purchase. Hope they gave you a complimentary crate or three and paid you more than just beer money.
The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing!
Mac mini (M1, 2020), macOS Sonoma 14.4.1, ArtRage Vitae v7.1.4
Thanks for the support chaps. Sorry it's taken a while to reply. Have my head down chasing deadlines all over the place and so my goblin has stalled. I'll get back to him. Meanwhile here are a couple more little pieces just done to support editorials. One is about candlelight, the other about becalmed seas.
Last edited by Nickillus; 06-02-2012 at 05:21 AM.
Nick Harris Artwork
http://nickillus.com
New system as of April 2011
i5 quad core - Asus P7P55LX
Windows 7 Home Premium
8gig DDR3 RAM
Wacom intuos 3 A5
Radeon 512mb graphics card
Nick,
In the candelight scene, I see that your shadows seem sort of warm. I'm used to doing mine rather cool. Am I seeing your color choice wrong? Or, if it is warm, what's guiding you to that? Your use of light and contrast is one of my favorite things in your drawings, and it would be interesting to get inside your head a little bit on that aspect.
Check out and submit to the thread on Watercolor WIPs in Artrage-- lots of good tips and conversation
My YouTube video tutorial series- How to Paint with Watercolors in Artrage
Try out the free Artrage Pen-Only Toolbar to improve your workflow and reduce clutter
List of other good tutorials on using watercolors in Artrage
List of good sticker sprays for watercolor effects in Artrage
My blog- art, poetry and picture books- http://www.seamlessexpression.blogspot.com/