This is my very first speedpaint. I'm not sure how long a "speedpaint" is. I've seen some great work done in 20 minutes and I'm nowhere near that good. This took me 75 minutes.


Image is link to bigger version.

This is a departure from my usual style in many ways. I used MyPaint for most of it, then GIMP to add in the lighting, textures, and some more details. A lot of my digital paintings are somewhat similar to photomanipulations, in that I draw several parts separately, then combine them together. This was drawn in one shot.

I'll likely go back in and add some characters. My wife requested I add some ducks.

You are a very good artist Merrak. That is very nice.

You're an excellent artist Merrak. You seem to be able to express yourself freely. I find myself bogged down with form. I've got to loosen up somehow.

Thanks!



I've only recently been looking for ways to force myself to loosen up. It's hard because, as a mathematician, I'm a very detailed-oriented person. I think this is why my older works had hundreds of layers and took me forever to complete.

Often I would spend an hour drawing a little detail that, when I zoom out, becomes unrecognizable.

Here's an exercise that I found helpful: Try drawing something without using the zoom at all.

Thanks. I'll give that a go. My problem with detail is that I'm far too aware of what is there and feel a need to paint it. Like you, when I zoom out I find out there was no point.

At least neither of us are alone with that thought

You may enjoy this tutorial. I followed it before doing this drawing. You can see where I got the general, overall layout of the scene. (Although I added rocks, and a slightly different path).

http://fav.me/d4ud60c

Looks like an excellent tutorial. I've bookmarked it for ongoing viewing.

Wow, that is so very cool

The thing I like about your figure painting is you put a lot of expression into Mara's poses. I get scared that if I don't measure everything out, it'll look lousy. I usually end up with very static looking figures. I'm experimenting at the moment with using "skeleton" figures to get natural poses then fleshing them out afterwards.

For some reason, I always end up imagining Mara being in a musical when I am planning the scenes. It doesn't strike me as much with the other characters. Other characters I have posted here have had more "quiet" poses. The same thing happened when I wrote Mara's story back in 2007 (wow - that was a long time ago). Her dialogue is more sing-song. All the characters I've drawn have had stories written for quite some time - so they do have personalities and quirks that have been set.