CGSociety: Reader Tutorial
'Moonlight Lovers'
Robert Chang, 15 November 2005
The older we get, the less likely we are to do something crazy and romantic. I've done some really crazy romantic stuff when I was younger, and I don't regret any of it. This painting is for all you mushy romantics. Yeah, you know who you are.
Learn more about digital painting in
d'artiste: Digital Painting
d'artiste: Digital Painting showcases the work and technical skills of: Linda Bergkvist, John Wallin, Philip Straub and Robert Chang. Each Master Artist presents their digital painting techniques through a series of tutorials which start with the original concept and step through the painting process to completion. Available through CGProShop.. More >>
01 - While conceptualizing the piece, I knew I wanted to evoke feelings of classic romance, but I also wanted it to feel modern, so I had him climbing a modern art deco styled building and they're wearing contemporary clothes. Although the piece is a tip of the hat to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, it's not supposed to be them. Plenty of people have climbed up on balconies to steal kisses--Shakespeare is not the first or the last to have thought of it. Yes, I know about the Dicaprio and Danes movie, and no, this is not a takeoff on that. I used Painter and Photoshop for this piece.
02 - I have two ways to start a piece. One is to do a quick line sketch, and then roughly color it to decide what color scheme/lighting is suitable for the piece, the other method is to not do the rough coloring until after I've cleaned up and finalized the line sketch into a final drawing. This time, I went with the first method. I knew even before I started sketching that I wanted to have a combination of cold and warm lights, and I wanted blue and purple to be the dominant colors.
The poses didn't feel natural to me, so I shot some reference of my wife, and me and then re-sketched the poses, using the references as a guide. I always work on a grey background because the white of the canvas is too bright and hurts my eyes.
03 - I finalized the drawing with details. I got rid of the climbing vines on the right because I wanted the piece to feel more modern, with concrete and art deco designs.
04 - I blocked in the basic color scheme on another layer, and faded the drawing to about 20% opacity, so I can start concentrating on values and colors, and start leaving the "world of lines" behind. Although drawing and painting go hand in hand, and you never really stop drawing
even during painting, but because of my background as a comic book artist (I was a comic book creator/writer/artist for almost eight years), line art has a special place in my heart.
