WIP : Portrait. (Showing Progress) 130kb

[Negafen]

Hello again everyone, I'm always afraid of posting here because you guys are all so much more talented than me :p

I'm working on a portrait. It's just a practice piece, but I'd still like to do it right.

I'm having issues doing the hair, I can't think how to do the eyebrows, I'm afraid of trying the eyes, and the lips are funky. Suffice to say I still need to do a lot of work, and refine what I have.

http://members.shaw.ca/mule/1.jpg
Inital sketch, just to get proportions right. I know, it looks gross.

http://members.shaw.ca/mule/2.jpg
Lines and Skin

http://members.shaw.ca/mule/3.jpg
Skin and Dress. I still need to build the shapes up a lot. The only part that I think is totally done is the collar bone hehe.

http://members.shaw.ca/mule/4a.jpg
The lips are shaped a bit wrong, and the facial lines need to be made a little more obvious so that it looks like she's smirking (She's supposed to be) instad of just has a weirdly shaped mouth.

http://members.shaw.ca/mule/4b.jpg
The lines put back over the colours to show my intent... hmm, the lips don't look as wonky like that...

http://members.shaw.ca/mule/5.jpg
I tried the hair, don't like it, I'm goign to try again. I guess I don't know where to start. Build up strokes until it looks like hair? Take the dark base and add strkoes to illustrate the flow and shape?

Tear it apart! And thanks in advance for the great help I know you guys will be.

[Chuck Wadey]

The hair itself is beautiful. What you're responding to and not liking is the harsh edge. When an edge is that sharp with that much contrast it really looks "cut-out" and graphic - not photographic or painterly like you're probably going for.

Painting her on a stark white background only exacerbates the problem and draws even more attention to the edges. In general you shouldn't start on white because your lightest light is already on the canvas and you don't have anything left to build up to. It's like riding any elevator to the top floor and then wanting to climp up some stairs - there's nowhere left to go.

Try putting her on a dark background and see if you can make her hair "melt" away into the background in places. Photoshop & painter have many tools that you can soften edges with: blur(b) or anything with low opacity.

You can flip canvas horizontal in both programs to double check the placement of features. Her mouth might be skewing to the right - I don't know, check and see.

It's actually a good idea (for practice or final) to do more like your initial sketch, building everything up at once. Use one layer and as big a brush as you can.

Enough for now, hope some of that helps.

[Negafen]

I own neither photoshop nor painter :)

I'm using OpenCanvas for the moment.