Advanced' Illustration Tutorials

Hi you!

This is my 2nd image for the DAW Spring Edition 2012 contest. I'm really proud of it, but I'm still not happy with it too... I could have done much better with references. Anyway...

I'll post a WIP. Everybody loves WIPs!

Now, for the teaching part: I'm not a good teacher, or even an average communicator, so, if I'm not clear enough, please PM me. I answer every PM. :)

Or start a thread in the Illo Forum



[Edited by Moderator on 6/14/2012 6:13:52 PM]

First, to achieve likeness, we must have a reference to look at. I wanted to do Robodrigo as Robocop (almost a cliche, but, you know, it's his nickname in the other life some people call "real"! It screamed to be done!).

So, I needed to use his photo and find a Robocop pic.
Unfortunately, my net were down while i did this, so I couldn't use the Robocop ref. :(
I had to trust in a memory of a movie I saw while I was a kid... Right now I want to watch it again!

I wanted to make a caricature, but I'm not good at caricature. I'm still trying to learn. What's the best way to learn something? Doing it!


[Edited by Moderator on 6/14/2012 6:15:40 PM]

Ok, let's look at his pic.

What I first notice is his left eye, a little closed compared to his right eye.
I can see too a pair of round, prominent apples of his cheeks. I can use this too!

And this is all I got then. Again, I'm not a good caricaturist... :(

[Edited by Moderator on 6/14/2012 6:18:30 PM]

In image 1, I try to get the lines I see in his face. I just draw them, ignoring proportions. However, I must say one needs to make eyes very similar, mouth similar, everything similar, but ignoring only proportions. I heard one needs to accentuate some traits, but its something I still need to learn.

The cool thing about caricature is I dont need to draw the perfect proportion. The hard thing is if we do it too loose, we cant get a good likeness.

Oh, here I made a sketch of his robot body. I forced loose goofy lines to get a cartoonish feel (and because I cant do it perfect, due partially to lack of ref, due partially because Im lazy; later I realized if I had done it correctly, with the pen tool, I would use way less time. Laziness is relative, can get you more work than you need).

Very important: Composition sets your image. Think about it before start your image. Think about how your image should look. You can change it later, but a strong starting point eases your work.




[Edited by Moderator on 6/14/2012 6:20:49 PM]

In image 2, I just sample colors from his face and paint it roughly. By doing this I can achieve a nice skin color and get some good/right values (I confess, I feel like I'm cheating, but this isn't even a worth rule. It's almost, but completely unlike tracing!). I tend to destroy it (the color and values) in later stages, but at least it sets me a good base to work.


[Edited by Moderator on 6/14/2012 6:22:22 PM]