„The beginning of the image”

Starting new image is rarely an easy task, but unfortunately its also most important one. What you do in this initial stage will often determinate how good finished piece will be

In this tutorial ill tell you how my initial stages of creating new image looks like. For some, painting is like going from point A to point B and their initial sketches looks almost exactly like final piece, down to dead on colour palette. I, on the other hand, like to experiment a bit, do some searching while painting, try out some new things. Its not always straight road and you have to turn back couple of times but as long as you have your head in the game you will be fine.

Truth is that you can start good painting not even knowing what you want to paint, just few random brush strokes can sparkle your imagination into creating wonderful image. That's why those first few steps on a road to finished picture are very individual for every artist. And like all of them you have to find your own way, that will suit you best and make your creativity flow.

For starters white canvas can be pretty scary thing as its just staring at you, asking “What do you think you doing? You think you can paint on me? Seriously?” so first thing you should do is to get rid of that annoying white colour. I use a gradient tool and apply 2-3 colour mixes that will set up overall mood of the picture. If you prefer to do initial sketches in grey scale do the same thing just wit different shades of grey.

1.Some people are instantly working with colours, I usually start with very simple shapes and shades. Subject of the image is giant robot chasing some action hungry couple on a jet bike. Whole thing should have distinct adventures feeling, so I use retro-future style for the robot and the jet bike. I'm also gonna use armada of old fashion blimps in the background, just to add hint of some story line to this setting

2.

As you can see my initial sketch is rather rough, in fact its usually even rougher as I spent few more minutes on it just to make it more readable. Point of those sketches is to give a client idea what they should expect from the image. As you will see further on, it doesn't contain any design elements and pretty much everything gonna change its place, even light sources, yet its obviously the same picture client approved.

3.For me its "stage one" of painting new image. At this point i see what elements are looking good and witch need to be fixed in order to make image more appealing. For this particular

sketch my main issue is with jet bike. It should be show from more interesting angle. Right now its looking just isometric instead of full 3d. Also robot looks too heavy for something that should be able to fly, those wings attached to its back didn't help much.

4.

Second stage of working with a sketch is playing with a colour. I start by painting clouds that will fill whole canvas. I'm avoiding easy way of painting just white clouds, and by combining warm and cool tones I create sens of depth that will come in handy later on. I increase that depth even more by adding couple of dark clouds in the foreground, hinting that they are in shadow of even bigger cloud

5.

At this point I do couple of fast sketches of the jet bike. I want to make it bit similar in style to old American cars, nothing too futuristic and high tech. I pick sketch number one as it looks nice and sleek, with big front, pretty standard wings and fighter like windshield. Issue with sketch number two is that it looks to heavy, more like a miner tractor. Sketch number three in the other hand is too futuristic and wouldn't fit the style of the whole image

6.

I paint the jet bike with few modification to the concept sketch. By tilting it a bit and painting it from low angle I create sens of movement and gliding through the air . Also I paint nose of the jet bike in shadow while casting strong directional sunlight on its back. This will be helpful to cut out jet bikes shape from the robot just behind him. Always try to set up the light so it works to your advantage it terms of creating volumes and isolating planes

7.

Now with few broad brushstrokes I paint initial shape of a robot . No details yet as I still didn't figure out its design, there will be time for it later. I do however create basic volumes by applying correct shading. This will show if the light I choose for this setting will do its job. I also apply some texture on overlay mode, not to create surface details but to add more colour variations to metallic body.

8.At this point I'm quite happy with the results so I'm flattering whole thing and start experimenting withs some stronger colour choices and shading solutions. Its not necessary to flatten the image, but it came to my attention that when I'm not thinking about layer

arrangements my brain can focus more on the image itself. I use broad variety ob texture brushes and mixing modes to create rich colour palette that will be used later on. Those are still initial stages of the painting so don't be afraid to really let yourself go, who know, maybe you will came up with something you didn't plan at all, and yet it will go greater with your image. If you afraid of ruining your previous work apply experimental thing on new layer and the flatter it when you happy wit the changes

9.

I increased colour saturation on the clouds and made shading on robot more bold and sharp, this way its in the same directional light source as the back of the jet bike, emphasising the feeling that its just behind it. This experimental phase often gives you the chance to put some initial surface detail that you will be able to work on later. Just look at nose of the jet bike, it gain grainy metallic surface and some sky dome reelections.

10.

Next thing I do is to finally figure out robot design. As I said before I want to make it look lighter, a bit more like an insect. So I paint thinner wrist line and make it look like under tough green exoskeleton is fragile black machinery. Also I do some sketches for the head as it will represent “personality” of a robot.

Head no5 looks cool but its too unusual, and I want to create image that is somehow familiar to a viewer. We already have strange elements on the image, flying robot, jet bike, blimps. Too much of the weird stuff and viewers got lost. Number 4 and 5 on the other hand looks to generic and usual, you seen that stuff hundreds of time. Nubbier two seemed cool at the time being but then I saw design of main character helmet in Dead Space and it was way too similar. So I went with number one, it has not so usual vertical “eyes” alignment that I liked and it looked kinda cold menacing, like Hall 9000 from Space Odyssey

11.

All I do now is to add some more design elements, not too detailed since they can be change at any time. I do some more light work, some blimps in the background to put all the elements on the canvas and I check if everything is coming along together. When you think you finished its good to check on your composition.

12.Look at bold blue and red lines on the image below.

One representing orientation of a jet bike second the robot. You can paint those lines to represent every major surface and object on the canvas. Intersection of those lines are main focus point of your image. Our first focus point is of course the jet bike, and its emphasised even more by adding strong contrast between dark cool metal body of a bike and light warm cloud in the background. Also elements like sun glare on a windshield or red scarf in contrast with withe shirt are suppose to catch eye of a viewer and drag it in desired direction . Another, less significant focus point is created by green lines of wings geometry. Robot is also important part of this picture and I don't want viewers to miss him

13.When you happy with your sketch its time to put important parts of the image on separate layers. I do some final checkups to see if everything is on its place, if perspective is OK.

If tones are also all right, and after that I start working on some details.

If your sketch is done right and thought through (don't be afraid to put some more time in the sketching phase, its the most important phase of all) this should be fairly easy task, just be careful not to destroy all the good work you did.