Oil paint VS Photoshop

Gonna try a new experiment:
Will be painting 16 different still lives with the traditional technique versus the digital technique.

What technique did you start with today?
Painted with oil first and moved over to PS 

Oil paint:

How long did the painting take?
It took me about an hour to whip this cup into shape.
The setup was tedious I guess~

Did you find anything interesting with this technique?
I love the way you can twist and turn your brushes freely without any limitations, you get more personal in relationship with your materials: The mediums, oils, brushes, palette knife, newspaper and the canvas.

Did you learn anything new about yourself in this technique?
It has been a while since I scraped and cleaned my palette board, sorting out the colors one by one from warm to cold. And smelling the linseed oil that sort of could suffocate you entirely in a closed environment :P. I did feel I have less fear and reduced the hesitation of finding the perfect color to start and finish this painting. What was nice, I timed myself for this project, so with this in mind I think it made me care less about thinking too hard on what colors I should use, instead to just pick the colors with my gut feelings.

Is there something you wish you could do differently?
 I wish there was a Ctrl + Alt+Z function in traditional technique :P, damn it all goes back to the scrape knife to get a clean slate for new and cleaner paint to be applied.

How do you feel about this project right now?
I feel good about it at this moment. I finally stepped in to start it (Since I started thinking about this three days ago).

PS paint:

How long did the painting take?
It took me about 30 min, I timed it 

Did you find anything interesting with this technique?
I find it more structured with the layers, I could plan the way the cup is painted in different layers (Shadow, dark shades, mid tone, highlights, and patterns) without destroying the other worked upon layers. And the eraser tool is really useful to get that nice crisp edges and finishes, or acts as a blending tool between light and dark. 

Did you learn anything new about yourself in this technique?
I do feel much more comfortable using PS now, as compared with my first encounter with PS back in the days, where it was so unfamiliar and ridiculously hard to navigate with the layers.
I do find it easier to pick my colors in advance and sort out a layer just for color palette. The brushes I have come to be accustomed to use with some tweaks of shape dynamics and other dynamics. I feel my speed painting will really improve after a few more try outs this week. 

Is there something you wish you could do differently?
I do wish I am able to rotate my brush shape with short keys, instead of constantly going over to the brush menus to rotate the brush. I guess this what i get with CS4.

How do you feel about this project right now?
Feeling great to know I can initiate a digital color painting, as I use to hate using colors because I fear them. I do not know why? But a Professor has embedded a rule that you should think about what you draw in shapes, color in shapes, shading in shapes. And I do like blocky shapes coming together to form the final render of an object.

WWE LIVE with sis and dad :P

It was quite a funny imagery when my sister told me that she took my dad to a WWE showdown~ as she was describing the excitement of the show, in my mind I was imagining how in the world the two very people who I never had thought, liked wrestling. Actually went to a LIVE wrestling match?

I had to draw what I thought was a priceless image of dad and daughter out for a wrestling match hahaha.

Wedding!

Been asked recently to do wedding related designs and animation this year. Guess I ain't young no more : D. Helped this particular friend design some illustrations for a wedding invitation.
Took a while to establish the final outcome of this project.

I took the initiative to compile the process of creating the idea, and working towards what my friend finally decided on. (First roughs actually included crazy creatures, then it was of course too radical and asked to to be changed. Haha!)

Wedding no more up to this stage haha~

 

Mech Sunday

Used to buy these really intricate model kits of Gundams. Always liked the way each Gundam was designed.
Some with really cool weapons and wing spans, others have super awesome masks and spikes that swooshes out from the head.

Never had I tried drawing them when I was a kid until now, this was a rough rendition of a size in contrast of machine vs little man running :P.

In addition to have that comic feel, I added the typical dotted mask that's layered beneath the drawing. Just to mention, the "rough" style was also an inspirational mood I sort of liked from graphic novel artist Ashley Woods.

Provided with some references, I really enjoy the painting style and brush effects that Dice Tsutsumi has going on for his color mood boards in Toy story 3. In most of his works, the simplified features and the block like brushes has an oil painting aesthetic in them. Totally describes his idea of using simple strokes (http://www.simplestroke.com/)

Using some of his examples, I had to practice my way of using color in Photoshop. I like traditional oil painting, and to transfer that sort of feeling digitally came as a challenge. However by observing and testing the brush features (shape dynamics, scatter, other dynamics), I was sort of glad to find some close results to what I wanted the oil painting effect to look like.

My take on the practicing via observing:

Stepping out for a walk and sketch

Sketch walking again, too much computer is making me miss whats really out there in the city (culture, color, fooooood, and smell)

Posing and action!

Compiled a character pose sheet, accumulated since last month to help me seek new interesting poses and ideas for character movement or character design.