Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Head coach Jim Tressel


I have been working in this one off and on for a while now. I am finally happy with the end product. Jim Tressel is The Ohio State University's head football coach for those of you not into college football. Here in Columbus Ohio, he's a really big deal.

6 comments:

pete said...

Hey, Steve. Great caricature of the head coach!

I enjoy the expression, body position, and detail in the clothing. How the heck did you make his pleated pants look so real? That's great!

I also like how you've handled the flesh tones in his face. I like seeing how you handle getting the reds in the skin, around the tip of the nose in particular. Great work!

If anything, I'd say that his arms could use a bit more of the same treatment that you gave his face (in terms of color). His hand on the chin and arms seem a bit pale...but that's a pretty nit-picky crit.

It's a very strong piece! I saw this one on your blog awhile ago in its "underdigitalpaint" phase. I like seeing it done.

On a side note, does Photoshop/Illustrator/Corel have a function that allows for the color layer to be faded to allow an underpainting to slightly bleed through the upper layers? I'd be curious to see how that mix would look in your paintings if it were exposed more. Does that make any sense at all? If not, disregard.

nicbrek said...

Great work. Nice details and striking colors.

Unknown said...

Wow! Great job doing a cartoon/realistic person! It's got dimension and real character! Very nice detail, and (as always) nice textures.

I'd like to get a little nitpicky and agree with Pete about the arms. They could use just a tiny bit of warmth/pinks. It might just be the shirt that washes them out a little bit because it's so bright...

And my other nitpicky thing is the left leg. I want to say it tangents the lines on the ground, but that doesn't really bother me...what I really want to talk about is the shadow coming out of that foot. like the right foot, it should start at the bottom of the sole, and it looks like it's a little higher than that and causes the foot to float a bit...

Great stuff Steve!

Unknown said...

Thanks guys and gal.
Pete do you mean so you can see the original drawing underneath a little more? Not sure if I understand.

The arms are not as detailed because I had to pose for the body and the picture was way overexposed. Couldn't see a lot of the details and my skin tone is way lighter than the coaches. My natural whiteness is from hours of sitting inside working on the computer.

pete said...

Yeah, sorry...didn't know how to phrase that one.

What I mean is that your initial/beginning paintings have so much of high-quality sepia feel to them. Just wandering if you can bring that layer out in the final version to see how it looks. Not that its an issue for your work, but it may bring a new found balance to your darks/shadows. I'm just trying to see how painting techniques apply to digital. It may not be possible depending on how you "build" up your layers of color. And I have virtually no knowledge of digital painting so that may be where I'm having trouble putting it into words.

I think the character painting is great.

Unknown said...

Gotcha. The problem is that it would have an overall hue of sepia in the final image. You can do it...

I have an image that I am working on now in BW and I want to add a hint of color to it. The BW version is on my blog now http://harpsterdraws.blogspot.com/