Dwarf Face (improved) and Dwarven Warrior Priest (colour) - WIP

I made the hair look a bit better on the dwarf face. the Dwarven Warrior Priest: NO MORE SMUDGE! Probly the best picture i coloured on photoshop, even though it is still WIP.
c&c

Booyakasha! that is indeed an imoprovement. See now how much the smudge makes babies cry?

Anyway, on the paladin dwarf guy. I think you should change your workflow. Right now you are "finishing" it bit by bit, however, the end result will come out much better if you start with setting up colors over the whole thing first, find a cool lighting scheme, and then start adding more and more detail all over the picture.

What i would suggest you do, is first tinker the contrast and brightness of the scetch, to a point where it looks a little less messy (do this digitally ofcourse)

Then, create a layer underneath your scetch, and set the layer blend mode to "multiply". Now you can add colors on the color layer underneath the scetch, without damaging the scetch. Now, when you are happy with the color and lighting, create a new layer on top of the previous two layers, and start adding details on that layer.

At least, that is how i would do it. Allows you to keep track of the lighting better, thus ending up with a superior coloring :)

Thanks for your help erwtenpeller i will try and make that happen. Oh by the way i have all the colour so far on different layers how do i make layers go underneath the background?

Double click the "background" layer and it will act like any other layer. I however, just copy the entire background layer so i always have the original sketch at the bottom, for reference.

Ok thanks

A recurring problem you should be aware of is the compulsion to detail and define an area of an illustration before you conceive of it as a whole. I did a paintover and saved a few steps, to show you how I might go about doing it and some of the considerations to keep in mind.



First things first, you should start with a background. If you want the colors to have some harmony, work from the background to the foreground to establish your color scheme.



Here I roughed in the silhouette of the figure. A colored painting will have weaknesses if it cannot be conceived of in terms of strong and communicative shapes. Keep in mind composition, power of diagonals, body language, etc. Work big to small.



Here I refined the silhouette shape and mapped out the interior details on the dwarf, more or less. The red lines are not part of the image and are simply guides.



Here I start to block in shapes with a big round hard brush at 50 opacity and 70 flow. Always think in terms of shapes of values and colors to keep the tonal an color composition in balance.



Here I refine the shapes to include a little more detail. I work on the background a little more.

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This isn't finished yet, I brought it this far to show how you can get started. It might need two more steps of revisions and tightening of rendering, or it may need twelve more. It's up to you.

Hope that helps. Good luck and keep on practicing.

Well, ogre took whatever I could have said and had sex with it and made super crit babies. Just to add on to it however, keep in mind that shades and lights arent black and white. Ever.



















eveeeeeeeeeeeer

Ogre crossing: thanks alot that helps alot! but you have to tell me... HOW DO YOU DO THAT BEARD!!!!!!

...with a brush. :)