It started early... as I said, I was up at 4am, refusing to go back to sleep. I eventually got up for a walk at 6am, into the city centre. Note for those unused to European winters... it does not get light until 7.30ish! I found myself a cheese pretzel thing, and downed an energy drink to start what I hoped would be a long day. Here are some photos of the walk around:
I arrived at the studio at 9.30am, ready for a 10am start. Raffa messaged me to tell me to walk up the stairs, which I did, arriving in the studio:
I'll take some more pictures tomorrow, but it was both inspiring, humbling and exciting to be in that space. There is projects galore, lying all over the room, some finished, some barely started, but all oozing with creativity and passion. You can really tell these guys care about what they create, that they put themselves into their art, and it really leaves you awestruck.
Before we got started painting, Raffa and I sat down and chatted for a while, discussed some models I had brought and areas I could look at improving, as well as the general getting to know each other chat. Raffa was delighted I wasn't a massive dickhead (obviously didn't get to know me that well).
We then got cracking on some basic theory side of things, some of it I was pretty good on, other stuff was like a lightbulb going off in my head. I took a whole pile of notes, two pages worth, and no doubt I will add to that tomorrow also. The biggest thing we discussed was contrast, between all of the different textures, colours, hues, values, and cool/ warm colours. It is one of the key areas for me to focus on moving forward.
The model that we chose for the class was Mannaz the Rune Collector, one of Raffa's own sculpts, a great model that I was actually going to buy, but held off on as I knew we would be doing it in the class. Normally Raffa would paint the same model, but he had a special new model he needed to be working on... "Tinkerbell", his new sculpt. LOL. Here is the base coating, done with an airbrush to give us a nice smooth and opaque surface to work from.
Next step was to fill in the other colours, even only roughly, but focusing on the value more than anything else. Once that was done, I was able to paint the first layer of highlighting, using a different technique to what I am used to. It is a lot more like painting with oils, using a stark highlight to get an idea where the high points of contrast need to be. Hard to explain, but seeing in action it made a lot of sense.
After the first layer of highlighting, we started adding some shadows. Again, a lot of theory and discussion as to what colours to use, for the various shading stages, discussion of the technical aspects of where to lay the shades and so on. We then did another few stages of highlighting, giving us the left hand picture. After giving the skin a few airbrush glazes to harmonise and filter the layers, we went back in an added some colours and richness to the skin, and then painted the eyes.
It was a long long day of painting, thinking, discussing and eating, but it was made a lot easier by Raffa, how personable and friendly he is. He was able to easily break down a topic into manageable pieces, and was able to find the happy medium for demonstrating vs explaining, and when to push further when he felt I could achieve more. However.. here is his days work:
Guy is a fucking weapon. So is the Tinkerbell.
Really excited for day two. The second day will be the really crazy stuff, where we go nuts with tattoos, face paint, full on ultra white highlights, more colours into the skin and model and texture all day, erry day. Cant wait.
No comments:
Post a Comment