It’s been years since last sitting down to do an actual digital painting. I would be lying if the inspiration arose from some forlorn corner of my creative spirit, but amid my living out of suitcases for the past 2-3 years, I’ve become nearly dependent upon Chromecast and Youtube as my bedtime storyteller, including regular viewings of other digital artists and their craft.
Something specific that caught my drowsy eye was a video describing an artist’s favorite digital brushes, when they showed some of Kyle Webster’s famous wares, explaining that while they used to be sold online, they were now exclusively a part of Photoshop CC…at no extra charge. News to me!
So here it is; my rather mediocre return to digital painting after effectively years away from a full canvas work: a two-hour semi-rough draft. Yes, I could probably continue on to refine it, but honestly, it looked 95% like this after the first hour; the second hour was just adding that extra 5% detail and deepening the tonality.
Rather than overcomplicate things and just bloody paint, I restricted myself to a single layer, a single brush, and no eyedropper/color sampling. The only exception was adding a Curves adjustment layer to correct the gamma during jpg export.
Not a complete failure, which is success enough for me to continue on with another.