Creative Portraits: Blondie

[Neve]

Photo courtesy...http://gal.mvc.ru/

[cardmnal]

Another pattern stamp work using oil brushes.

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[byRo]

First: Such a pretty young lady - thought I'd put up a straight image enhancement (later, used as base for the art stuff) before ruining her face with my painting.

Second: Followed (well, almost) Trimoon's tutorial.
Then...
Painted details with Stamp-Impressionist, USM 400%, lighting effects, overlaid outlines.

Rô

[toodaloo toody]

what a cutie pie

i used Buzz

simplified one--9
emboss---359
9

then in Jasc paintshop9
i used textured paper
usm
radius 31.69
115
5

[DannyRaphael]

Ro... Very nice interpretation. The background color really sets it off.

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cardmnal: Are you using the Wow technique / brushes? That turned out pretty neat.

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Tood: Glad you fixed your post.

Share some details on your method, would ya?

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I was fortunate to be able to borrow Helen Yancy's Oil Painting tutorial DVDs (loaned to me by James Geddas), so I thought I'd give them a spin on this one. (Note: So I could work on a larger version I went out to http://gal.mvc.ru/ and found the original:
http://gal.mvc.ru/gallery/pictures/peoples/41.html)

Helen's approach is MUCH different than those taken by Marilyn Sholan and Jeremy Sutton -- and I mean different in a good way. For example unlike Marilyn, who prefers to do all of her work on a single layer, Helen starts with a clone of a touched up base image and applies Painter effects to layers above the Canvas.

Here's one place they're on the same page: Helen, like Marilyn, goes out of her way to NOT mess up facial detail... But it still looks weird to me to have visible brushstrokes just about everywhere EXCEPT in the face. Is it just me?

A couple generic things I learned:
* To convert a regular brush into a Blender, set the Resat value to 0
* There are some brush variants in Painter that are setup to paint 3D-like strokes that really emphasize "depth," one of which is Oil > Thick Oil Bristle. There are many others.

Note: As much as I'd LIKE to share the specific details of Helen's method with you, ethically I can't do that. (Note: Don't judge her method by my attached interpretation. Mine is based on her method, but I deviated from it considerably for good or bad. In all fairness Helen creates some wonderful paintings, otherwise she would not be held in such high esteem by the digital art community.)

I can tell you that if you're waffling over which DVD set to get, Jeremy's or Helen's, in my opinion Jeremy's set is the better value:
* Jeremy: Multiple techniques presented over about 6-hours - $179 U.S. His includes a comprehensive presentation on Introduction to Painter and WACOM tablet setup for those new to Painter.
* Helen: Oil painting technique only presented in about an hour - $129 U.S.

Anyway, so much for a mini-review. Thanks, Neve, for starting this one.

~Danny~

[byRo]

You did a beautiful job there, Danny.
Those background strokes look so real!

Rô

[cardmnal]

Danny, that is some great work.

cardmnal: Are you using the Wow technique / brushes? That turned out pretty neat.

Good eye there. The Photoshop 7 WOW Book did provide the barebones technique for this work. There are some good tutorials for painting in Photoshop in that book. Seeing as this concept of "photoart" is new to me it seem a good place to start.

The real challenge for me came in trying to get the work look more like a painting than a photo run through a filter. Starting with WOW and then deviating to my own methods, including multiple layers, I seem to be having some success.

[jaykita]

Trimoon's art history paper (thanks, it is really nice), used it as a layer with overlay blend. Various other blends, layers of render clouds, vp, impressionist, color range layers to enhance colors, and lighting effects.

[Legacy~Art]

I would love my hair to be that shiny wouldnt you?

[Neve]

Wonderful creative results folks -

I did this originally in colour in Painter (posted and removed as it wasn't to my liking at all), couldn't think what else to do with it except turn it into Black and White. Done in Painter.

p.s. I don't like Painter submissions compressed for posting. They need to be viewed in a larger size. Time to move on to a photo sharing site (I've selected one already).

[jaykita]

Elle, well done. Neve, interesting effect.
Here's one more from me...i've included the layer palette.
One final touch, not incl in layer palette, filter- render- difference clouds layer, lowered opacity, erased parts overlapping blondie.

[LQQKER]

Cropped image.
Knocked out subject.
Contrast adj.
Hue & Sat adj.
Simplified portions.
Xero Clairity.
Virtual painter for bg.
Adapt.eq
Nik filters (brilliance, skylight)
Color balance.
Added some highlights and shadows.
additional simplification.

[PamSav]

Lots of varied looks for this pretty girl. She somehow got stunning green eyes in my version. I created a new background for her and altered hue/sat etc. Increased size and resolution and cloned in Painter with Jeremy's Mish Mash (background), Soft Wet Acrylic (skin, clothing), Captured Bristle (hair). painted in some extra detail and colour for her hair, side of face and top of arm to fill in the blown out highlights. Textured in PS.

Larger version here: http://www.pbase.com/pamsav/image/43979552/original

[Neve]

Fabulous Pam, I'm thoroughly enjoying what you're doing with portraits. Keep up the great work whatever you do. Jeremy Sutton's Mish Mash ?, is this a one of tute or part of book, CD? I like it heaps. I have probs with bg's.

[PamSav]

Thanks Neve - Jeremy's Mish Mash comes with his book Painter IX Creativity. It's a great book and I love the goodies you get with it too