Assassin - Anwun - Part 2

• Software: GIMP (or Photoshop)
• Level: Advanced
• Subject: Anwun (Assassin woman)

The last part, we had left at the lineart of the character, Anwun. In this part, you will look at the basic coloring. The details would be covered in the next part.

Color Palette

The color palette was decided upon even before any part of this character was painted. I am doing this to have a uniform theme for the series of painting I am going to do. For the next set of characters, I would be extending the same palette.

Flats and Basic Coloring

The complementary color for each area is used to fill in and create the flats.

The flats become a good tool to select and paint within the area. The painting is done on a copy of the Flats layer. The Flat layer is kept hidden (or below) the painting layer, and used with the magic wand tool to make quick selections.

Anatomy study helps a lot while doing the basic shading of the painting.

The study of anatomy helps render the muscles and fat properly - after all, the character has volume and a simple gradient would render it flat.  Once all of the skin area is completed, I move on to the fabric areas.

Every now and then, I keep switching on the lineart layer just to see that I am capturing the details properly.

Mistakes and Correction

All the while, I keep posting the work-in-progress images at the forums I frequent. (CGPainting.com is one of them which I run).

That is when a member points out the anatomical flaw in the character’s right leg. Upon inspection - I see that there was indeed a flaw.

These critique becomes invaluable resourcecs while you are learning drawing and painting skills. After some practice, we do get it right. But during the initial phases, we make mistakes. These peer reviews help us learn from those mistakes when we are in the process of self-learning.

I then refer to some anatomical drawings by Christopher Hart.

With that as reference, I go back to the lineart layer, and correct the leg. I then fix the flats, and also the painting layer.

Now that the most basic of the painting is completed, I can move on to detailing the hair, face, and also give some lively hightlights to make it more interesting.

That would be the next part. So stay tuned using KalaaLog.com feeds or the email form above.