Painting & Art Style - with Batman

I think it's time I made a video about style so I'm gonna take my favorite thing to paint Batman and experiment with four different painting styles I'll show you my digital painting process for each one and we'll talk a little bit about what style is and how it affects the flavor of a painting okay see that Batman right there we'll be painting him first I chose to start with this one because it's the most painterly of the group which means it kind of represents one extreme end of the style spectrum now we will analyze all these styles up against each other after I finish all the paintings but while I'm painting I want to talk you through my process a little bit you see me blocking in with very textured brushes what I'm trying to do here is put down a nice variety of a random abstract brushstrokes and then I can paint into that I always find that painterly stuff really works well at least for me when you kind of take chaos and bring chaos into order it leaves the most interesting marks behind so here I'm the scumbling in random colors which are overlaying against various textures I mean yeah it has the general shape of Batman I'm kind of conscious of that but the goal of this stage is like to give myself a big sandbox to play in because I know that some of those crazy abstract marks are actually going to be left behind in the final and because they are unpredictable in random it will give the painting of freshness that's actually one of my philosophies of how to fight against that stiff overwork to look it's actually more dependent on what you do in the beginning rather than what you do in the end and that's because what you do in the beginning charts your course the course you'll take for the entire rest of the painting another thing I want to point out is that I'm not really using lines here and that's because a painting delivers information in the same way that nature does which is not with lines but with big medium and small sized shapes of value and color so the painters job is to consider each shape for example the shadow under the nose or the two eye sockets in shadow those are three shapes right there you design each of those shapes as well as you can and then fit them all together like a big jigsaw puzzle you'll be playing with concepts like big medium small shapes the edges between shapes and all these little factors that build a painterly look also you're going to be using different brushes you'll notice I'm switching my brush a lot trying make varieties of brushstrokes and that's because variety helps keep things interesting you know sometimes I'm convinced that human nature and painting don't really go well together human nature can drive us to want to control everything in our art but when you do that to a painting when you impose your control on a painting it just dies on you so again this kind of goes back to my bringing chaos into order I like to invite a little chaos into the mix because it keeps it fresh and I should say later in this video I will explore a couple styles that do have control as a more dominant element in the style and we'll explore how that can influence the outcome and now that we're almost done this painting you see me darting around and dealing with all these little small shapes not necessarily details but little shapes that I couldn't do at the beginning because I didn't know where they all went now that I do know where they go I can put them in little dark accents at the corner of the mouth or adjustments to the highlight in the eye things like that and when I find myself doing that kind of work I know that I'm almost done and here's a little Photoshop trick you might want to try as kind of a cherry on top duplicate the layer go to filter stylize find edges Photoshop finds all the edges of your shapes set that to multiply and then make a layer mask color it black so nothing shows through then with a white airbrush paint back in some of those little outlines that Photoshop has found now this doesn't work for every painting but I find that it can reinforce subtly reinforce the strength of your shapes so I'll put it like on that big shadow where the nose is I find that it's a good way to just make something pop out just a fraction more and here's a higher-resolution pan through of our finished painterly Batman portrait cool so let's put that aside and try something completely different so in Batman number two I'm still gonna be using multiple shapes to show form but I'm going to leave every edge of every shape razor sharp and I've left some space there on the left for Batman number one to preside so we can always look back and forth and see the differences okay so that's a pretty rough line drawing right there and my first step is to lay down some local colors you know flesh tone the color of the mask actually I should swap in my layers window because I do use layers here so on the top I have my drawing set to multiply and then color underneath at this point I'm just blocking in some wow those are some very full lips Batman I'm just blocking in some local color you know redness in the cheeks some 5 o'clock shadow kind of thing I'm still actually doing my chaotic thing you'll notice that these shapes are not very realistic let's say I mean some of them don't even conform to any like this shape like that doesn't really mean anything it's just graphic and fun and it'll hopefully influence a kind of interesting look at the end ok so what I'm gonna do now right about now is I'm gonna make a new layer for the shadows and that layer is on multiply mode and what that does if you for anyone who doesn't know is it darkens the colors underneath so every shape I'm putting down now is a shadow shape and of course that leaves behind the light shakes so my block in was like the light shapes and now these are shadows I'm thinking about the light source the plains of the head and I'm laying in my big forms and what I'm doing now is I'm setting the stroke effect which basically just puts a hairline outline around each of those shapes on that layer which I think helps contributes to a graphic feel this is a new layer and it's actually a halftone layer which is in the light just kind of darkens the light slightly and here I'm already getting into some of the lights which go on a linear dodge layer which lightens things ok now look at this the line layer is now turned off and what we have left is a very appealing punchy quality all of my shapes are starting to work together the lights and the shadows and the half tones and all that stuff they're starting to work together and they're creating this poppy graphic thing and we're at the point now where this style is really starting to take on its unique identity I needed the line drawing to get me this far but now it's just the shapes and they do a very good job of showing you the form in a very like nonfat kind of way if I can say it like that it's not there's no tricks here it's just shapes you can literally count every shape in this painting Batman number one has shapes too but the shapes were disguised by edges and textures and I don't know about you but I really like this look there is a honesty to it in the sense that there's like no tricks it feels like there's very little gap between artists and viewer like the viewer can under stand this technique implicitly which is kind of nice anyway so what I'm doing now I'm just adding more shapes really I have to be careful that I don't overdo this in fact later on in this demo I actually do go back and erase out some of the shapes that I think are overdone some of the ones around the jaw for example just to maybe a few too many shapes in there that I don't need there's just some overall attempts at color correcting or adjusting things I like photoshop's overlay mode or soft light mode for that kind of thing you can just have so much fun with this and it really will teach you about how powerful shapes are and it also look at the colors I'm using they're completely off the map like you don't have to adhere to there actually is no such thing as quote-unquote realistic color all you have to worry about is values and then as you can see here if your values are good you can really get away with like you know greens and the jaw and blues and the jaw and all this stuff that you might not otherwise be inclined to try in your work I mean I don't usually work in this style so when I was recording this video I found that just the style alone was encouraging me to keep going and explore it and see what's out there see what the potential is given this style and I had a lot of fun doing that it's fun to just move manipulate layers like that turn them on and off see what they do cuz you never know when you're gonna stumble upon something greats totally by accident here's the fruits of our labor here and that was fun I had a good time with that one let's move on to Batman number three so I think I'll stay in a graphic world for Batman number three but I'm gonna keep the line drawing in so I'll be editing that drawing as I go the big challenge here is to make sure that the line drawing carries one part of the load and that the tones and colors carry a different part of the load and having those two elements line and tone actually makes it possible to get away with not a whole lot in there this is actually probably the simplest painting of the group and actually I should give props to artist Ramon Nunez whose style I'm totally aping for this demo I wanted to explore it's a very nice way of getting across a quick illustration so Batman is mostly in shadow and you see a bit of reflected light on the plains of his face that point up this layer is this one right here is linear dodge which means it's a light layer so watch this I'm making this big light shape this is gonna be a very overblown hardlight it's gonna cut into the illustration like a blade and here it comes right now just pick a brush and paint within that selection and here I'm just adjusting some texture you know retrying different brushes you can play with textured brushes and all kinds of crazy stuff inside of that selection and once I have I'm happy with the stroke I will deselect that and continue working and just like that we have two elements working together actually three elements the line layer the initial block in which is a shadow pass with some reflected light and then our hard over blown light layer the three of those all cooperating to make a punchy graphic statement that is similar to Batman number two which you can compare on the left there but it has a different flavor it is a different style there's less involved and when I turn the lines on and off like that you can really see that without the lines the illustration doesn't quite hold up whereas Batman number two totally did hold up without lines it just proves that there are two different stylistic languages happening here and of course having the lines on a separate layer and turning them on and off helps you kind of see what exactly they bring to the table sometimes you'll find the lines don't help you other times like this the lines are truly needed anyway this one's basically finished at this point I'm just refining some of the shapes of reflected light I have there adjusting the line layer so the lines are a bit cleaner you know just tying everything together enroute to a finish I think this style would be great for quick like character concepts or something like that it is a very fast style to work in and the results are pretty pleasing so that's for me that's what I'll take away from this exercise and here we're rolling right into Batman number four I think I want to take inspiration from the graphic stuff we've been doing but also bring it back into a painterly language and the way I'm gonna try and do that is I'm going to use a brush like regular brush tools but I'm not going to make edges between each shape other than the edges that naturally come from the brush so I'm not gonna soften anything I'm gonna build the whole thing up like a mosaic or something out of little blocks of color so on a layer here I'm setting that stroke effect same as I did in Batman number two and that means every brush stroke that goes down on this layer will have that stroke outline around it which might give the paint a feel of thickness as if I were painting with impasto oils on canvas actually I'm driving this from Morgan why sling a great fine art painter who paints just like this with little tiles of color with oil paint so I'm kind of using a mixture of my inspiration from him as well as the inspiration from the studies that I just did and it's a big mess right now I'm fully but prepared to admit that huge mess I am laying down I feel like I'm a bricklayer laying down a bunch of more you know what I don't actually know how bricklayers work so let's cut that analogy short I'm laying down a bunch of raw material that I can build from I do some sculpting in my spare time and this actually feels to me like clay on an armature that's a better analogy okay so what I'm using here is Kyle brushes impasto kit those are a bunch of actions that make new layers with different layer settings and on those layers you can paint you can achieve different kinds of effects impasto effects and past oh by the way just means thick paint and Kyle brush has a nice impasto kit I believe they're free with Photoshop now Photoshop CC and you can play with all kinds of different layer effects pre-made and just paint on them and achieve all kinds of cool traditional looking things or of course there are other software's these days that you know do this natively anyway so I'm continuing to paint into my Batman craziness and you notice again I want to reaffirm this I I'm not using any blending techniques it's just a brush and you know I have a selection of brushes as you can see on the right and every brush is just raw it's it's I'm putting them down in little patches of color little mosaic tiles and building up this thing brush stroke by brushstroke without any extra tricks no accoutrement s'en in this technique it's just a very again a very honest kind of workman like technique of painting and I really enjoy this kind of look as well now this is very different from the graphic stuff even though it's inspired in part by the graphic stuff and that's what I like about style exploration you can take something from one style and bring it into another style and see how they merge it doesn't always work you know this might not work I don't know but it's worth playing with right and that's what style experimentation is all about and zoomed in like this you can get a better appreciation for this mosaic kind of patches of color painting technique you notice that like if I want to transition from like shadow to light or half tone to light or any kind of transition and value I'm doing it in small stair-steppy patches of color no blending techniques there's no soft edges here actually there are soft edges but they're made with many little steps of hard edges that gradually form a transition so it's kind of an illusion of soft edges and I find that before you get to the point where you're truly speaking the language of this style you have to have a lot of material on the board first a lot of paint on the canvas that you can then I made the clay analogy earlier enough clay that I can really start sculpting with it and I'm at the point in the painting now where I can truly take delight in the technique and push the difference the differences that make this unique from the previous studies I really find that style is like speaking a language it's like different dialects of a language or using slang that's kind of how I think about it almost like how a good writer has to be able to sound like different characters even though the characters may all speak English they don't all speak in the same way so to me style has always been something that evolves from a good understanding of the fundamentals of art and now this video is not about the fundamentals this is about style I have other videos about the fundamentals but you have to know what you're shooting for first like for example I know a thing or two about how light works I know about the plains of the head anatomy of the head how the skull is constructed all these things that comprise the fundamentals and then I can take any of these styles and use their aesthetics as a way of delivering the fundamentals to the viewer so my message to those who might just be starting out on their art learning journey is um even though it's tempting don't focus on style first focus on the fundamentals first because even though style is cool and seductive it's the fundamentals that are really pulling the weight and here is the finished Batman number four and this concludes our demonstrations but let's continue our discussion about style by looking at all the work side by side and seeing if we can deconstruct things just a bit further so here we are and because I was just talking about how style is like using slang in a language I want to explore that just briefly here let me make up a random scenario well say you've just come out of watching a good movie in the theater with your friends one possible way to express yourself might be to say why that was a very pleasant experience or you could say dude that was sick both of those were English both delivered the same message it's the feeling that changed so it's important to remember that when you're evaluating visual styles you're not evaluating quality you're evaluating feeling and you have to hold that up to a bunch of subjective criteria like your taste your personality whether it's the right fit for the project or the right fit for the client ask yourself like if your project were speaking English what kind of slang would it use like a film noir style might speak like a back alley gangster with edges that can cut you whereas a studio ghibli film might talk to you like your kind old grandmother so you know these are just the kinds of questions you can ask yourself when you're starting on a new project okay the next thing I want to talk about is how style imposes limitations here are four close croppings that all feature the same area of the painting the cheek and corner of the mouth I've always found this area of the head to be particularly subtle where the cheek wraps under to meet the nasolabial fold or laugh line and the corner of the mouth making almost a soft dimple in the form each painting delivers that fundamental articulation of the plains of the head but each does it differently I mentioned a moment ago that Styles operate within limitations what I mean by that is they all have their own internal logic systems or rule sets that are consistent in Batman number one the edge between each shape is very considered there are various degrees of hardness and softness to the edges as well as a wide array of brushwork and texture to achieve that lush look Batman number two doesn't allow for that kind of subtlety it's logic system demands that each stroke and each edge be made with the same polygynous lasso technique so I used that limitation to my advantage and opted for more of a chiseled look which I think really contributes to the graphic punch that that style has the style in Batman number three actually sacrifices subtlety in favor of those hard black lines that kind of dictate the form and the brushwork that's there helps offset that by providing just a little bit of softness and finally the style in Batman number four to me is an interesting combination of the first and the second one it seems to achieve the effect of calculated subtlety but does so with very hard edges so I really recommend this exercise if you want to explore and tap into some undiscovered potential in your work and if you enjoyed this video please check out my longer lessons available off my website at Marco Buchi comm they range from 45 minutes to six hours and cover a variety of material digital traditional fundamentals of art brushwork techniques etc and a huge thanks also to those who continue to support me on patreon your contribution really helps make these videos possible if you're interested in any of that stuff you can follow the links on the screen or in the description box alright everyone thanks for watching and I'll see you next time

Channel: Marco Bucci

Views: 493,207

Keywords: marco bucci art, marco bucci style, digital art tutorial, digital illustration, digital painting tips, DC comics, Superhero tutorial, how to draw superheroes, digital style tutorial, comic book tutorial, how to draw comics, batman movie, batman art, superhero, portrait painting, painterly style, manga tutorial, procreate tutorial, paint style, digital painting style, comic book illustration, Superhero art, art style tutorial, marvel vs dc, ipad art tutorial, digital art

Id: Fbo6ZAuF914

Length: 18min 21sec (1101 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 23 2018