high res paintings (Patreon)

I don't know if it shows or not, but can you all see a big different in these paintings compared to all the illustrations I did before?

Well, a week ago, I discovered Marco Bucci's youtube channel (link: https://www.youtube.com/user/marcobucci ). He's a professional artist and teacher and I cannot stress how much of an eye opener his videos were to me. Art improvement is a matter of years of grinding, yes, but very occasionally, something will Click and suddenly you improve within just a couple of drawings. You could say maybe I already had these skills and I just didn't know how to put it all together, but knowing how to put it all together is a vital ingredient. 

So in these paintings, I changed my process drastically. Before, I used to have a clean line drawing, block in colours on separate layers, continue working that way, adding more layers for more elements. Now, I do a somewhat clean sketch, then I block in colours under a greyscale filter to figure out the value composition of the painting. I just estimate what colours I need, but what matters is the values I choose. Once I'm happy with the values, I take off the greyscale filter and work from there, adjusting colours as I need and rendering the details, but checking back through the greyscale filter to make sure I don't deviate too much from my initial values test. In this new process, I am pretty much working on a single layer.

I'm not a great art teacher, so I won't go into any detail on how I choose what values - that, I direct you to Marco Bucci's youtube channel. I hope you check his vids out, his channel has changed my painting process in a seismic way. I needed just the particular academic knowledge of art making that he provides. I think I'm getting closer to the style I really want, and this is an extremely wonderful feeling as an artist.