The picture isn’t of the highest quality because I am hosting it on Imgur (because of hotlinking idiots) which edits the JPG, so there’s few artifacts on the image. Try to ignore them, if you don’t mind.

That said, due to a very nice commenter on Reddit this post will continue quite a long way further. I’m going to now explain how I did this image.

STAGE 1, part 1:
I missed one stage from this step-by-step because I got the idea to do this whole thing too late. However, there’s nothing extraordinary here. I usually take several photographs of me (yes, that’s me) for references. I use my references extensively to get the anatomy right (although I often abuse it). But mostly I use it to get lights right. I also abuse them for one more thing that I’ll show you later on.

The reference photograph is horizontally flipped compared to the drawing. That’s because I keep flipping the drawing horizontally. It helps me draw things in balanced fashion. If I never flip a painting, it usually ends up being slightly lopsided either in anatomy or composition. So you can assume I keep mirroring that drawing every fifteen minutes.

Some more things I did: I invented the mouth and jaw, because there’s no way human jaw goes that large. Naturally, the tongue is also not real. As if you actually needed me to tell you that. Also, technically you should see head behind those fingers. But I don’t think anyone will pick up on that and will invent their own details. I love fading out things because human mind can invent better details than you can ever paint. So, fading shit out is good.

STAGE 1, part 2:

As I progress with the painting I’m drawing excessive wrinkles on the skin. Basically just doodling, the idea is that the skin is either loose or something like that. Incidentally, the reference photo has two “eyes” on my palms. This is just because I had taken another photo reference for another idea. Which never did fly anywhere.

STAGE 1, part 3:

Nothing to see here, just more sketching.

This is the point where I more or less ditched my references for now. There’s not much I can use the refences to check on my excessive wrinkles for. Also, the mouth/jaw area is pure fiction anyway. There’s no point to be very precise with the light, all I need to do is keep in mind the primary light source and not sketch those areas too dark — although that could be fixed too. Light isn’t really my priority at this point.

STAGE 1, part 4:

This is the point where I got a bit crazy with my ideas. I was looking at that vast expanse of arm and armpit/chest area that needs details. If I was being realistic there would be no details there. It’d be fucking annoying to paint because I’d need to do a very smooth expanse of skin, with very subtle muscle tone to establish some details. So, things started churning in my mind to avoid that and I went “heeey, what if … ?”.

STAGE 1, part 5:

So, because of my temporary insanity I ended up with that armpit and shoulder. Which will end up being the best part of the painting, anyway.

STAGE 2, part 1:

So, because I wasn’t thinking I ended up adding most of the shadows in Art Rage. Then I realized that what I did in half an hour in Art Rage I could have done in Photoshop about ten minutes. Cue in facepalm and switch of software. Also, a feature of Art Rage visible in the color wheel. I just picked a random painting with colors I had in mind and put it there for me to use to pick colors from. It’s a very cool feature.

STAGE 2, part 2:

Here I decided on a color scheme. Although I already had a good idea to start with, yellow and green in highlights and shadows on the skin was pretty much my idea to start with. The purple background simply happened because I wanted to use some colors I don’t usually use. I did slightly brownish highlights on the background because it seemed to fit and would tie together the skintone and the background.

STAGE 2, part 3:

Now here’s the second part where I abused the photograph. I just boldly went in to the photograph and picked the skintone from it. I used a very noisy and blurry brush to paint it all over the skin area. I used about 10% opacity or so most of the time. It ruined the shadows a little bit, but I am more concerned with the actual color tone than the levels. It’s fairly simple to just darken the shadow areas.

STAGE 3, part 1:

Okay now we’re firmly in the detailing phase. In this picture it’s apparent I added much detail to the armpit, and a secondary lightsource (reflected light from the chest). I’m not actually all sold on that secondary light source, but I added it to highlight the details in the armpit. Also the background received some love. Now, back to Art Rage for some finer detailing.

STAGE 3, part 2:

What I first did in Art Rage was to paint with “oil” paints and fix some minor stuff. Worked on highlights and shadows. Then I went over the painting and used palette knife tool to basically smudge most of the sketch away.

STAGE 4, finish:

In the final phase I continued to sketch with the pencil tool on Art Rage and add fine details and fix some edges and such. Then I took the painting back to Photoshop. But there was surprisingly little for me to do, I mostly just adjusted levels almost too little to notice to make the darker areas slightly darker. And that’s it.

This is how I do my paintings most of the time. Sometimes I start on Photoshop and then in Art Rage. It all depends how I feel like, but the general idea is the same. Just jumping between the two programs. Generally you can say that I use Photoshop for large stuff and Art Rage for small details.

Thanks for reading, and the interest!

THE FINAL ARTWORK (again):

“Providence” by Jyri, 2012.

“Providence” was a bitch to paint. I was supremely unimpressed with the hands, so I had to redo them few times. I actually in practical terms started this painting from halfway point forwards three times – each time almost completing the piece before I decided one or another thing was fucked up.

So, yeah, I definitely let this piece to develop fully in my mind before I managed to actually pin it down to this form. It’s much less “horror” than my last few previous works. I don’t know quite how to classify it.

It makes me think of some ancient greek legend or something, for some reason.

Half and half done in Photoshop and Art Rage 2 Pro. I did the basic sketch in Photoshop, and did 90% scribbling in Art Rage with the pencil tool, and then I adjusted colors/contrast and such in Photoshop at the end.

Here’s a picture of how it looked after the first try, and the point where I realized it wasn’t working like I wanted it to. So I went ahead and redid a shit-ton of work.

It’s middle of night and I am working on a new painting. I think I should go to sleep actually, I think it would help with the headache I’ve had for the last three hours. Anyway, the new painting will be called “Providence” and it sure as fuck took a lot of work. Not just because it’s detailed (which it is), but because I’ve now done it three times. Thank fucking god for computers, it means I only had to do the very rough work ONCE.

At first try, I didn’t like the hands. On the second try, I tried fixing the one hand, and after a while I noticed it was too small. I don’t know how that happened.

But I just about slammed my pencil through my table for that mistake, and then went to sleep. Yesterday I started from the rough sketch again, this time making fucking sure the hand was right size and now I am today rendering it in Art Rage 2. Excellent. Still some small work on photoshop and it’s going to be finished. But, I am tired and I think it might be a good idea to do the final work with a clear head and vision.

All I’m going to say about the painting that it’s going to be rather epic, and not at all as disturbing as the previous one.

I listened to Alchemist on repeat, especially their “Austral Alien” and “Tripsis” albums while painting “Regurgitate”. I consider the Tripsis as an album better, but this first song from “Austral Alien” just rocks. Something about it…

“Regurgitate“, by Jyri Straechav. 2012. All rights reserved.

I painted it almost completely in Art Rage 2, but I did some minor stuff in Photoshop. I laid down the composition on photoshop, and then used ridiculous amount of pencil tool in Art Rage to make it in to a painting. Some oil paint tool was used too for the overall colors, along with palette knife. I did some brushwork in photoshop, which does show in the full sized piece if you examine it closely. Mostly because the “canvas” texture disappears where I’ve painted on photoshop.

But I was a bit tired of the painting by that time and I couldn’t couldn’t be arsed to work in Art Rage anymore. Photoshop is still about five times faster tool when you just want to change little things, even if the results aren’t quite so nice.

And yes, I know this is a “regurgitation” of my older paintings. I don’t care, I do this for fun.

]]> http://www.straechav.com/weblog/archives/560/feed 0 http://www.straechav.com/weblog/archives/556 http://www.straechav.com/weblog/archives/556#comments Sat, 05 May 2012 09:01:17 +0000 Jyri http://www.straechav.com/weblog/?p=556 [...]]]> So, finally, back home. It took four weeks as opposed to the three weeks I was expecting.

Now, where was I? Well, I’ll finish uploading the last song for the “Seed” and publish that album tomorrow. Then I’m off to greener pastures and new musical soundscapes. I’ve already been working on some stuff for No More Cocaine. I did a lot of thinking and mental songbuilding during my four weeks away, so I have a bunch of ideas that I want to put on tape. I’ve also listened to a lot of Tricky and other older Trip-Hop artists and I have to say that it’s been influencing me a little.

I was initially hesitant on putting overtly electronic or beat heavy stuff on No More Cocaine’s music. But I think I’ll just go “fuck it” and do what I like.

A synth punk band turned a new leaf on their 2010 album “Gift Horse” and became a sludge metal band, taking obvious influences from Mastodon. While you could argue some of their riffs are very simple and also very typical of the genre, you could say that of the whole genre to certain extent. I love the album, so buy it.

It seems that going back to home was delayed by a week. That’s a slight problem, because I needed that week to finish my solo album and move to new projects. We’ll see how it goes. The album is almost completely done, but I might have to drop off a song or two. I’m going to give a coupon code for that pre-orderers that will take off half of the price of any of my future albums in compensation for unintentionally misleading them.

That said, I’m still playing Saxophone and loving it.

Which leads to my next bit of stream of consciousness: I have a feeling that No More Cocaine will end up being my main project in the future. I’ve already made some test songs and I have great deal of ideas where to take the project in the future. Almost certainly it will prominently feature my Saxophone in it.

I’m thinking of making most of the music for No More Cocaine in a very eclectic combination of Blues, Jazz and Rock. It’s nothing unusual or complex. Basically I will be using Blues scales and generally the blues sense of aesthetics for simplicity a lot, and the rhythm will be more towards rock, and from Jazz I will steal the improvisational nature of the music.

In other words, I will be improvising big parts of the songs. Which is unusual for me, I’ve always constructed my songs fairly methodically, despite the simplicity.

But the big change in how I approach things is because I now more or less accept that despite the improvisational nature of what I am planning to do, it will still be fairly simple. I like simplicity and minimalism. I sometimes have a lot of things going on in my music, but it’s fundamentally very simple stuff.

So, I am pushing my music outside the old boundaries a little bit. We’ll see how that works out.

I’ve been quiet, but not inactive. I’m practicing saxophone daily and still doing music in the small ways I can. I managed even to record some with a borrowed laptop and soundcard. I did some test recordings of the Saxophone and it worked out really well. I was quite happy with the sound I got out of it.

So, soon, more stuff. I’ll be home at 25th (wednesday), but I’ll be busy so I don’t know how soon I can actually make new music. Might even be the next week.

This is mostly because I have very little to post. I’m living in “exile” for the next few weeks. I should be back home at 25th, so still plenty of time to go. As for what I’ve been occupying myself with, since I can’t mix or record songs is pretty simple.

Saxophone.

I’ve spent on average about two to three hours every day (in multiple sessions to take every minute more productive) and reading about Jazz Theory.

Yes, I’m studying the theory behind jazz. This is funny because I don’t actually like jazz. I like “Dark Jazz” because it’s mostly very unlike most jazz. I also watched a 10 part documentary about Jazz, and I concluded I hate Bepop and all Avantgarde. I find most of what Charlie “Bird” Parker plays tiresome and useless. I don’t like swing, and so forth.

In other words there’s precious little of Jazz that I actually like, aside from the instrumentation.

In conclusion, I didn’t learn anything I didn’t already know. Just now I know more about the subject. However, this still doesn’t change my mind about studying Jazz Theory and get more in depth in to Music Theory in overall. It can only help, and enrich my music.

However!

I love hard simple beats and repetitive stuff, so I don’t think that despite studying Jazz Theory for the next three week will change that about me. But I will be from now on questing to find a way to incorporate my Saxophone in to the music I play. I already have a bunch of ideas, but we’ll have to see how that goes.

I’ll go back to studying now, and then I’ll continue playing some more.