(click for DA link)

The Jester, one of my regular characters, looks at us!

A test of light. I wanted to avoid solid blacks and I also set out to use Krita's sketch-brush for as much of the work as I could get away with (so no smoothing).

Krita, some 6 hours. Used some reference to get the position of the head and the planes of the face right.
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Griatch

Very nice as always Griatch. Her eyes look perfect.

I like it. The look is almost one of trepidation or curious fear of what might be coming. Then again, it could be seen as curious sensuality.

It could be interpreted in various ways, all in the eye of the beholder. It's very impressive.

excellent!
your "paintings" are always so full of fascination, particularly this one!
I didn't resist, downloaded it and -for my own sake- played with the colours (simply using gimp filters) to get other interesting variations.
(I don't post them here: a piece of real great art cannot be ... manipulated by a gimp-er)

I adore your Jester as well as your trolls and this is an excellent painting. Her eyes are spot on! I haven't yet dared to attempt a low angle light source but I ought to try it one day.

Thanks Wallace!


Glad you like it! Yes, "the curious look" could mean that she is curious or that the look it self is curious in some way - it's a deliberately chosen title.

"Curious sensuality" - I like the sound of that but I'm not fully sure what it means, care to elaborate?

No worries - as long as you just link to the original, you and others are welcome to experiment and show the result of doing the 'gimper' thing with my images. Would be interesting to see what changes you'd do and the effects you can achieve! This one would get a quite different look if one were to increase the saturation, for example.


We as humans are not used to low-angle light so it's rather tricky to make a face look ok (we are accustomed to light coming from above). 'Tis good training though. And I like the Jester too, she makes for a good subject to experiment with and making recognizable across different images. I think this is one of the few images I've done of her when you don't see her teeth.
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Griatch

Very nice. I can't fault it at all. Wonderful work.

It would be a look of sensuality and longing but with an curious uncertainty about what your partner had in mind.

@Griatch
because you gave me the permission ("...No worries - as long as you just link to the original, you and others are welcome to experiment and show the result of doing the 'gimper' thing with my images..."), I post here my personal gimp variations of your fantastic image.







(continues)

(continues from previous post)





(end....so far)

@dinasset

Cool! I'm glad you like it enough to play around with.

You should tell us what you did with each too! Lemme see if I can guess.

In your first image you have changed the values, made the dark parts of the image actually black. This looks rather close to my usual image style actually. Nice.

The second variation lowers saturation I think, removes a lot of red from the image at any rate. A bit cold maybe.

Third: Super-red! I like this variation, it's almost as if it was greyscale except it's well, red. She could be lit by a bright sign or something I guess.

Fourth. More contrasts, maybe burn? A little too dark I think, one's starting to loose details. On the other hand it's very dramatic.

Fifth is all blue! This is actually really cool, if the blue was a little less saturated it could look like moonlight maybe.

Fun to see these variations!
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Griatch

Thanks Griatch for your positive comments!
Yes, I like a lot your painting, for this reason I wanted to play with Gimp filters.
Unfortunately I didn't take note of my steps (do, undo, modify parms, evaluate result...), because I thought the outcomes would have been remained only in my folder.
If I do other variations, I will note the steps made.
Thanks again for sharing your great pieces of real art!

...for the fourth variation I was thinking at a completely dark room, with just one single weak red light
yes, details are lost, but warm charm is in...

For me her right eye is a bit bigger than it should be (after factoring in perspective of course)... Mask one eye and she changes: if you mask her right eye, she looks like an adult Asian, if you mask the left one, she becomes a much younger European. It could be that the right iris is a bit bigger compared to the eyelids than on the left eye.

Hm, I admit I didn't spend all that much time considering the relative sizes of the irises. I'll go back and take a look at that. You could be right that her left eye's iris (our right) is a little wider by comparison. I guess one could attribute that to one iris being in light (and thus shrinking more) but while it would be awesome if I could claim to have thought of that, I didn't.

I'll get back to you on that one, thanks!
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Griatch

PS: it's not so strange that you would see two different ages when you split the face along the nose by the way. With this perspective her left side (our right) has a much more round and compressed face, remniscent of youthful proportions.

I think you nailed the expression.

as promised with detail of steps
new variation



four layers:
from top to bottom:
- GEGL FATTAL 1.4 0.7 1 overlay mode
- GEGL REINHARD -2 0 1 then Auto-Equalize overlay mode
- GEGL REINHARD -2 0 1 hard-light
- original

@dinasset

Wow, that variation sure shows off every little brush-stroke! I like the nice contrasts of extreme color - it takes on an almost expressionistic quality this way I think. Neat!
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Griatch

Awww our little Jester friend. Hi Jester!!
I love this image, she's so cute! Like always. xD
She looks a bit more Asian in this image, which is interesting.
The colors seem a bit dull but maybe that's because it's at night without the moon shining!
Blending is nice. I love the little Jester girl.

Thanks moko!

This is an experiment with no solid blacks, which is why the colors come across a little more dull. I usually have stronger contrasts in my images. It's interesting that you like the blending considering that I didn't use any smoothing-brushes but only many, many overlapping hard-edged brush strokes. Thanks for the rose.
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Griatch