Digital Painting

I am quite in a great mood test driving GIMP 2.6 release.

It was released quite some time back, and had installed it on my Windows boot. But I had been lazy to install it on my Ubuntu boot where I usually work. The Ubuntu 8.04 did not have a backport of the latest GIMP 2.6 - and since it was not available through Synaptic Package Manager, I just waited a bit for Ubuntu 8.10 to be released on October 30.

Layout

With the upgrade complete, the first thing I did was to check out the new layout. The menu strip from the tool box has been moved to a ‘placeholder’ window. When you select the ‘Keep windows on top’ for utility and dockable windows in the Preferences (Edit > Preferences > Window Management), the setup is quite uncluttered.

Frankly, I was used to the older layout and it does not make much of a difference. But some of you might find it handy if you keep shifting between different tools, to have the tool box always stay on top, and not be cluttered with menu items.
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• Software: GIMP / Photoshop (or even any other sketching tools)
• Level: Advanced
• Subject: Gogor - Giant Assassin

I left of at the cleaned up lineart in the last part. This installment would contain a little details on the color palette.

Color Palette

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• Software: GIMP / Photoshop (or even any other sketching tools)
• Level: Advanced
• Subject: Gogor - Giant Assassin

This would be another character for The Assassin Order - a personal project of mine. Check out the other two characters - Anwun and Kitar.

Concept

There are times when The Assassin Order is faced with necessity of brute force for some quest it has taken. Those are the times when the skills of Gogor - the Giant Assassin - is called upon. His opponents repent when they think he is a simpleton - his war-hammer technique leaves no room for other thought than escape.

After a couple of thumbnail sketches, I study the different anatomical features until I am comfortable with it. Note that since he is a giant, I try to keep his anatomy around 9 to 10 heads tall.

Lineart

Once I am comfortable and decide on the pose, I work on the basics and get the pose anatomically correct.

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• Software: GIMP (or Adobe Photoshop)
• Level: Advanced
• Subject: Kitar - Potion Assassin

Starting off from where I left, I start to detail the different parts of the character.

Details

Using the palette from the last part, the mid tones are painted in the bottle. Note that I plan to make this bottle quite a bit more opaque than the earlier study - Painting A Potion Bottle.

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