Painting A Peacock

• Software: GIMP or Photoshop
• Level: Advanced
• Subject: Peacock

There have been many people coming over to KalaaLog.com searching for articles on drawing/painting a peacock - the only tutorial here until now was on illustrating peacock feather. So, here is a walk-through and screen shots of the peacock painting I did.

Concept And Sketch

Searching for peacock images, and getting a rough idea of its form is quite easy. After that, create a neater sketch in another layer over it and delete (or hide) the concept layer.

Background And Other Details

Since the subject is having cool colors, a warm colored background would be good composition wise.

Before proceeding with painting the peacock, the branch is painted first. I planned to use less number of layers, and wanted to go with a traditional approach. Hence, start painting from objects in the back. In this case, the branch that the peacock is sitting on.

Painting The Peacock

Start out by blocking out the basic colors over the sketch in the same layer taking care of the branch. This gives it a more blended feel. There are only two layer in this painting - one is for the background, and the other is for the branch and the peacock.

Final Peacock Artwork

You can see a larger view at deviantART entry in order to study the details.

Do let me know if you want details on how I did any specific are of this painting. Just use the comment form to ask - I would try to reply.

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