"Cafeteria" (Process + Timelapse) (Patreon)

Alright so i hadn't done one of these in a while bc i ran out of online drive space to upload these from my ipad to my computer buuut, i got

Alright so i hadn't done one of these in a while bc i ran out of online drive space to upload these from my ipad to my computer buuut, i got that fixed so i thought why not go a bit more in depth this time about my insane painting process to those who are interested

I like doing these concept pieces a lot, mostly because im bored but also to ground my world a bit more as I keep working on comic pages.  (yes im still working on that, im just slow .w.) 

I often try to look at references and such to inspire myself, for this case I just so happened to be working on a gmod map at the same time inspired by a certain video by the proper people, I have a ton of references from the video glued on my PureRef mapping file and i absolutely loved the atmosphere and perspective of this one particular shot at the top so i thought it'd be a fun challenge to try to replicate it in a painting.

The first order of business was to make my own perspective reference, I couuld just eyeball it with perspective tools in Procreate like ive done with some other pieces (Vet visit) but i wanted to go the extra mile for this one. 

From what i can only describe as tons of dark mathematical magic i managed to get some really nice perfect curves in the Hammer SDK editor to replicate the scene in a raw state.(yes im insane, ik i could do this in blender but im way more used to the workflow im my dumb 20 year old program)

This was tailor made for that very specific angle, theres literally nothing else outside what you see, only the bare minimum for maximum creative liberty, work smart not hard!

Next followed a very crude sketch made from the 3D reference that id use as a guide to paint over later followed by the funny animals

Syl's pose came to me very easily tho originally it was gonna be just her (As you can tell by the cutesy eyes looking at the camera). But I kinda wanted more character interaction and life in the piece instead of just another cute pin up sooo i thought who better else to add than Ash!

I originally aimed for a more slanted angle with her face kinda just resting on both her arms but i wasn't quite happy with it so i ended up tilting it to her just resting on her left arm, looking up at syl as they chat.

I actually drew most of her torso just to make sure the angle of the spine etc was right, dont be afraid to do this! You dont have to speculate and imagine everything, the digital gods gave us layers, put em to use c:

Next followed *actually* detailing the reference sketch, adding the wood planks on the cafeteria bar, litter and rubble across the floor, moss on the ceiling and holes etc, alongside a very painful sketching and fixing of the ceiling tiles to the low perspective shot, just stuff to turn the blank sketch into a lived in abandoned place, you might notice i started erasing parts of the background sketch and ash's torso (rip) in order to clean it up before i proceeded into Lining it. I was originally planning on giving Syl a button up t shirt but i wanted to show her femme nb ish side a bit more this time around so i settled on pants and a sports bra while Ash go the button up t shirt.

Then came the coloring... I started with the two dorks obviously, nothing too bothersome, just typical boring stuff ALTHOUGH i did "pre bake" some shading onto them as i already had a pretty good idea of where the lighting was gonna be, you dont have to do this but if you can afford it itll give your stuff another layer of depth to it before you even shade anything and i just think its neat.

Moving on the background, I carefully painted under the sketch layer to guide myself (which i had turned dark by now for better visual clarity) trying to mix and match colors for the wooden bar to give it a) a realistic look but also to break up visual repetition, i didnt even go too crazy on the details! Just the brush strokes are enough to give it that depth, same applied to the roof, although it was a bit easier since it was mostly a single strip of color. Painting the broken parts was trickyh tho, and the ceiling tiles kept on being a bitch, although i really liked how the vent pre baking turned out. Same as the characters i flat out just shaded some parts of the drawing in the color layer in preparation for the shading.

I repeated the process for everything, slowly adding in the rubble etc until i could hide the sketch layer to work on the actual painting itself. And so came the shading.

I dont know if anyone else does this, i might be crazy but my process for it is this: I start out with a flat multiply layer, usually around 50-70% opacity, This will be the main tone for the shadows so tinkering with the colors is important here, occasionally (and i do in fact do this later on) I'll paint specific different shades in certain areas in the layer to bring out or desaturate color in certain parts like Syl's red hair, the eye sclera, etc.

And then there was light.

In the same layer i add a very rough estimate of where i want the lighting to be, youll notice its a bit darker than youd ideally want it to look and this is on purpose. I do this first pass in the multiply layer to add that deep rich saturation to the colors that I and i think other people like on my pieces. Later (after ive fixed up the shadows and stuff) I'll make a second lighting painting pass in a layer below  the multiply one set to "Add"  this is what will bring out the brightness on the piece.

After this pass was done I start just flat out painting over the piece, Adding highlights, rimlighting, and all sorts of other details. The magic of painting is while layers are nice and handy you dont have to be afraid to just ~*paint over stuff*~, either by just eyeballing it or color picking it paint over it!

I ran into trouble while moving further into the pic, i had no fucking clue what to do for the exterior (Which i did want to be included) the colors didnt look right, the shapes didnt look right, it was a mess. And i tell you all this so you know i did solve it eventually, I experimented with shapes and brush taps to recreate the look of leaves and i think it worked out in the end!

I added some post processing onto it once i was satisfied enough with the results, along with painting out a lot of the linework in key places and or changing the color to match the piece better.

This took a bit of experimentation and here you can see the brush strokes i did before blurring them out with a gaussian filter for the bloom in the background, Same process that i did for the sunny side of it with the light beams and dust motes. I wanted a clear distinction of a blue dark side and a very orangy sunny side by using color values.

A problem i ran into was the resolution. bc I'm working on a such low resolution bc of my aliased art the gradients were being particularly bitchy today and creating some ugly splotches of color. I couldn't really find a way to fix this so i settled for using a subtle grain filter on the offending parts, which i think adds to the look and doesnt look too distracting, hopefully .w.

I added some finishing touches like adding a white rim light on syl's leg to break up the value mixing that was happening around there (You'll notice quick B&W flashes on the timelapse, thats what im testing for, im looking at the values by using a black layer set to "Color", a neat trick i learned from an amazing tutorial by Marco Bucci a long time ago)

aaand that's basically it! Some small touches aside like fixing a bit the puddle and some other values and colors that was the whole process i did.

I dont know if you guys found this interesting? I just like sharing knowledge. This took a while to write but i hope the information was useful and helped to break down a bit the "dark art magic" people often assume when looking at finished pieces. .w.

I'll def do more if people are interested in the more "behind the scenes" stuff i do.

I left the full timelapse per usual in the attachments, thats all for now. <w<