Testing Paint Tool Sai Again

During my first test of SAI I didn't take into account I would be doing it from photo reference of my own emotions on my face, so I had to test out the technique again to accurately see which art program/software I would consider using for the final pieces. After the proper test I decided on Photoshop, even though I could of done with a regular graphics tablet at the university, I thought it was important to produce the work directly on a screen to imitate the connection a traditional artist has with their painting, Wacom Cintiq 13HD was used to produce all the digital paintings on this blog. During one week's session I also considered the emotional impact of working from home, doing that allowed myself to have a lot more of a connection to my environment and my emotions overall increasing the affect my portraits had on me emotionally, however the main disadvantage with working from home was the urge to procrastinate was stronger.






Even though I liked the look of the Paint Tool SAI portrait I thought the finished product was far to rendered for the effect I wanted and because of how 'lightweight' and limited the program was it wasn't able to do A3 size images, only high quality A4, the program had a limited size that it could work to. 

Changes to the Process and Tutorial Feedback

After the tutorial in Week 8 it was discussed how I could improve the overall process and concept of my idea on emotions, the theme was made more clear and a better solution of outcome, a suggestion was about mixing the analog techniques of screen printing with the digital painting techniques to a attempt to gain back a contextual side to my work, creating more value and impact from the final outcomes.

Feedback from my lecturer also told me to consider screen printing the emotional words page on top of my final piece to add more impact to the digital paintings. This page was done in my sketchbook, I wrote down these words as a description of how I was feeling when coming up with the overall concept. Adding in words that could also be taken in a metaphorical way as well as documenting the emotional roller coaster I was on when making this page, having myself fall into this state had me depressed for the majority of the day.

Artist Research

Looking into different artists better my digital painting techniques.

Jenny Saville

A painter who creates quite haunting imagery of women, using oil paint on canvas to create images with texture on a large scale, her paintings do include nudity. Saville is associated with the Young British Artists. I chose to research her because digital painting can have this look of being flat in most cases, looking into the traditional techniques and how they are created will help my efforts in bringing life into a digital painting.

Left: Rosetta 2, Middle: Red Stare Head IV, Right: Bleach

William Blake

A traditional painter and poet from the 1800's, who is incredibly creative and expressive in his mark making. Blake's work became historic in the visual arts of the Romantic Age and Pre-Romantic, a critic, Jonathan Jones even went as far as saying Blake was "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced". Blake was considered to be rather eccentric and quirky which had an affect on his work by emphasising the emotion in his paintings and poetry.

Left: The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve, Right: A Negro Hung Alive by the Ribs to a Gallows

Bottom: Newton

Lois Van Baarle 'Loish'

Baarle is an animator and artist known online as Loish,  she creates her illustrations by using digital painting, her work is quite stylized but has this realistic look to it at the same time, also creating caricatures. Baarle's use of colour creates a sense of depth and atmosphere, the way she uses lighting is effective is also a big part of this as well as how rendered the image is with the blending and brushes used.

Left: Jelly Glow, Middle: Hair Try 2, Right: Aqua Forest

DestinyBlue

A digital artist who uses her personal experiences with  her own mental health in her artwork, her pieces of art are quite stylised but her use of lighting and emotion is very striking. DestinyBlue was the initial influence for me to start looking at how to get emotion into digital painting

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Sakimichan

A digital artist who uses Photoshop CS6/CC to create fan art of various different popular characters, she uses light effectively to give her digital painting a sense of atmosphere.

First Sketches, Art Software Testing

First Sketches

Primary Reference Photographs

To expand the range of first initial sketches further I took photos of myself pulling a range of different negative/ impacting facial expressions. (It may or may not have been slightly embarrassing to look back through the pictures afterwards, but it is going to be useful for gaining an understanding of how expressions are pulled on the face.)
​I also focused on lighting, even as far as taking the pictures at different times of the day, early morning  just after waking up was the most raw of emotional photos in my opinion.

Digital Brushes

Paint Tool Sai

Paint Tool SAI, also known as PTS or SAI is a lightweight easy to use software, it's sole purpose is digital painting and has very sensitive mark making capabilities. SAI is very bare bones and basic, compared to Photoshop it does not have a lot of features and is quite limited, but the limitations can work as an advantage by pushing my own capabilities and giving room to try out new ways of  using the software.
​   My first attempt at digital painting in SAI was done using one of the first few sketches I did of emotions, it took me almost 2 days straight to get it completely how I wanted it, because although I have used Paint Tool SAI since 2011 that was with a line work based style that was always quite graphic and cartoon/ manga like - which is not a completely bad thing, but it did limit my knowledge over the years.

My second attempt was a value painting,  based on a reference image I found on google images, I tried out a value painting because it made me more aware of the different tones and the contrast between light and dark.

Photoshop CS6/CC

I've never thought of Photoshop as easy to use when it comes to digital painting but this time around I decided to approach it differently, like in SAI I tried out value painting which help me obtain depth and tone in my pieces . The second painting I did was using colour, this one was more of a challenge because the wrong colours would make it look off.  The painting were both studies of two photographs I took, I attempted to used different directions of light to increase the value of my development so I can improve more later on my technique.

Value Painting

Painting in Colour

KRITA

Another software I have tried out in my process is KRITA, it is sort of like a combination of SAI and Photoshop, but since this is the newest software and I'm currently in the process of learning how it functions.

W.I.P

Photo

Final