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DiscoDapper β Kill The Men That Get Past Me
Published: 2011-05-14 02:30:46 +0000 UTC; Views: 5411; Favourites: 152; Downloads: 88
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Description
This is my second samurai themed piece based on a scene from the Takashi Miike film "13 Assassins." If you haven't seen the movie, get crackin! I believe it's available on Amazon Prime for instant view, but if you can catch it on the big screen, it's really the way to go.Done using Photoshop in 8 days working about 3-6 hours a day. I used a Logitech MX518 mouse and a Wacom Bamboo Craft Pen and Touch tablet. Everything is painted using an assortment of brushes. No textures were used at all and nothing copied from the source. Hand-eye all the way.
My goal was to finish this in about a week with a reasonable amount of detail and realism, while maintaining a painted but not stylized look. I'm pretty happy with the results overall. Some spots still feel kind of raw, but it works for me!
Didn't start off with a sketch, as one normally would, just roughed in the shapes and starter colors with a thick brush and then set off on the long journey of detailing the world. I'm now pretty confident in using the tablet and the mouse for their strengths and weaknesses, so this will be my last technical exercise. Next I need to do something original. I want to create my own world, not paint someone else's (as awesome as this one is).
Link to source: [link]
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Comments: 57
This is absolutely stunning. You did a phenomenal job. A great way to honor a great movie.
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This looks absolutely amazing!
You've captured the scene perfectly!
I love 13 Assassins, it's such a good film.
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Just watched it today, this is one of the BEST parts in the whole movie, nice choice!
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Fantastic work 
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The poses are great.... very memorable!
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Its a very nice piece, love that it feels painterly. I work in traditional and digital media and I always try to make my work look painterly, especialy when working from photo refrence, it keeps me from just straight copying the photo. Thats the feeling I get here, its more your interpretation of the refrence than a straight copy. The only thing I can suggest is the same thing I struggle with, that is to keep it simple, especially in the folds of the clothing. In realistic work its not about all the wrinkles but about the most telling ones. The illustrator J C Leyendecker was good at never wasting a stroke- everyone reveals something about the forms it helps describe.
Again, Great Painting.
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BTW, just checked out your gallery and your work is very impressive. I hope to someday be able to paint as wonderful and precise an impression of a subject as you have with as few brush strokes.
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Thank you, but you are a tremendous talent and your work is very impressive and I admire your attitude towards always improving.
Like Hokusai said:
βFrom the age of six I had a mania for drawing the forms of things. By the time I was fifty I had published an infinity of designs; but all I did before the age of seventy is not worth taking into account. At seventy three I learned a little about the real structure of nature, of animals, plants, trees, birds, fishes, and insects. In consequence when I am eighty I shall have still made progress; at ninety I shall penetrate the mystery of things; at a hundred I shall certainly have reached a marvelous stage; and when I am a hundred and ten everything I do, be it a dot or a line, will be alive. I beg those who live as long as I to see if I do not keep my word.β (Hokusai)
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That's a great quote! Oddly enough I am sort of in a similar boat. I've always drawn and pretty well, especially portraits, but never did much artistically for whatever reason outside of my work (architectural photo-renderings). But , now the bug has hit and I'm moved to action. This was my 5th painting ever! You can see three of the four here, so you can see the progression in technique and complexity. The first was not really upload worthy.
I've never really painted before recently and only ever taken a couple of basic drawing classes at an Otis-Parsons summer school program in high school, so this is all emerging on the fly. I don't know jack about brush techniques or painting styles, I just try my best to shepherd light, dark, line and color into a pleasing order.
Good times... much to learn, absorb and try to progress.
Once again, thank you, your words have been very encouraging to me.
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Thank you very much! I hear you on the clothing folds, something I need to work on. I spent way longer on the folds than it should have taken. My next piece will be sketched first. I think I created a lot more work for myself in the long-run by not making a proper line drawing first. I just dove into the color right away.
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i so love this movie!!!
your work is amazin!
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I really like this peice! When I first saw it I thought it must be from a movie. The figures you did are really well done and I love the detail!
Since you want some critique, the only part I have my reserves about is the fire. I feel like if you took a little time giving the fire more of a form. Do more with the fire overlapping itself. (Like is happening in this photo as an example : [link] ) With that I think you can do a bit more to make the fire a tad more translucent as right now it seems really opaque and would blend in with the picture a great deal more if you made that change. Looking at this painting I want to focus on the two guys in the middle but the fire really fights for your attention.
I still think it is a great piece of work though! Good job ^^
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This is good! Thanks, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to provide a critique and I totally agree about the fire. It's definitely one of the raw spots I mentioned in the main description of the piece. Most of the elements of the painting are a result of a third go-around of detailing (not including the initial rough-out), except the fire. It came out pretty well in the first go at detailing it, got a bit better on the second, but when I started a third coat, it wasn't really going where I wanted it, so I turned off that layer and kept rev 2.
What do you think of the smoke, btw? That's a result of both how things were colored (muted more gray colors the closer they were in relation to the fire) and a couple of layers of translucent smoke painted with various light gray brushes. I greatly enjoyed working on that aspect.
I will certainly take your advice at improving the fire. I want to give it a bit more glow and life as well, and possibly some more embers. Stay tuned...
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No prob
With the smoke I think if you do anything to it maybe darken it a bit in some places. If anything it blends into the background alot, especially when you get to the far back when things start fading together. But, that being said I dont think its a big problem to start with.
Im excited to see what you do with it!
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Holy crap; at first glance i thought this was a photo! Nicely done!
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wow, this is really quite good! I like the cell-shading
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is it all right if i use the pose this guy is in
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Sure, it's not my pose. I just painted it.
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awesomely epic : }. I have to watch more samurai movies.
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This is amazing art work but the stle reminds me of illastrators live trace feture al though I know this is not live trace because it is too good for that but anyway great work man
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I agree, near the end of the painting process it began to freak me out too, especially when the main character's face started looking a lot more like the actor's face and it clicked with the background! I should post some of the mid-process saves so you guys can see the progression of the painting. The other thing is the scaling of the characters and FOV shifted slightly since this was done quite literally by... eyeballing it. And it's just slightly off.
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This looks awesome! great job. very realistic looking.
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This was a great movie. The guy in the forefront looks exactly like the guy in the movie. IMO he was probably the most brutal and efficient of the Ronin/Samurai.
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Haha, brutal he was. And thanks!
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no problem.... keep it up.
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this movie is incredible, it's like a version of '300' but Japanese
great art
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I totally agree. I didn't think of the 300 connection but it makes sense, with Frank Miller being a huge fan of samurai lore and comics. He did the covers for a lot of the Lone Wolf and Cub comics that were reissued in the US in the 80's by First Comics. Bill Sienkiowitz and Matt Wagner also did some of those covers as well!
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I also think it has no connection between the authors, but the movies where a few defeats many, where honor prevails against numbers, are surely the best :]
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dude your avatar is awesome :0
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You seem to like it
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Cheers, thanks! Love your gallery btw! Your perspective line work and figures are off-the-hook!
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amazing work is the movie already out on dvd
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Many thanks, zardis! It's in limited release in movie theaters, but you can watch it on Amazon Instant Watch right now.
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ok thanks for the information
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