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Tutorial - Work in Progress
May
2002
Hello my millions of fans!
(Sid & Doris Bonkers)
One of the questions I'm most
often asked (not in relation to the Brighton Murders) is how
I go about making one of my trademark images. Well the full
gory truth is about to be revealed as, for the first time,
thanks to the miracle of computer technology, I'm going to
take you through a painting from start to finish, by scanning
in the painting during it's development, including materials,
size, techniques, reference etc. Then I'm going to try and
sell it to you as a deluxe limited print! My audacity knows
no bounds!
OK the first installment (pencils
and design) will appear on the site around May 27th.
I already know what I'm going
to do, but I have some top secret work on for Marvel comics
which has to take priority for the time being.
Stage One
28 May 2002
Two days late
due to wrong sort of leaves on the line! A quick rough - in
with black coloured pencil, establishing proportions.(yes
I know it is off the page... due to A4 scanner!!)
Stage Two
May
30th - Hello computer people
First a quick word of apology
- I am not exactly launching into my print painting at a brain
twisting rate of knots. This is basically because I am off
on holiday from May 31st to June 10th (seven days with Nikki
and the kids, 3 days on the piss near Belfast with various
comic types) and had to fit things in to my schedule so to
ensure the weekly wage slip (self-employed people will understand
this). I promise I'll have it done as soon as possible - before
the end of June, probably earlier, if I survive. I'll give
you details about the Belfast thing, sort of 'what I did on
my holiday' and hopefully will be able to spill the beans
on my TOP SECRET Marvel project. Not literally of course.
It'd be all sticky. Hope everyone had a great time at Bristol
- see you there next year.
Cheers! Glenn
P.S. Come back and see us
around June 11-12th - will be more on this project then.
Stage
Two - 13 June 2002
Hi everyone
out there in computerland. Sorry about the delay in getting
back to you but, let's face it, everyone needs a holiday,
and I've just had mine - seven days at Centerparcs with Nikki
and the kids, and then three hard drinking days in Belfast
with comic superstars Garth Ennis, John Macrae, Darrick Robertson
off of Transmet and Tony Bedard who had loads of salacious
sex talk from Florida in between the rounds of alcohol and
the terrifying speedboat ride! So I can guess which one you
would like to hear about! So here goes.
Well, Centerparcs
is a great break for a young family, you can take it easy,
breathe fresh air, frolic contentedly in their spacious swimming
pools and enjoy the bike riding and nature trails and settle
back into a relaxed, almost rural pace of life. Of course
for the more adventurous amongst us you can always take a
fitness class or go horse riding, but remember it's best to
take nanny and granpops so you'll have someone to look after
the kids while you are out 'larging it' at the 70's and 80's
disco in plaza one.
Anyway I'm
back to do the stage by stage painting thing, so. You've seen
the rough scribble that makes up Stage One? Well now's the
time for a slightly more informed scribble, refining the elements
you intend to capture in your piece. Do we add an aardvark?
Shall we put in a small biplane over the crotch area? Now's
the time to decide.
Next
stop adding some colour. See you tomorrow....
Email question
from Dale Rushforth on 16/06/02
hi
glenn -
I`d really like to know what materials you are using for your
print? are you using ordinary pencil straight onto board or
layout paper. I would also like to know what you thoughts
are while creating this image what your ideas are what reference
you are using if any on an unconnected note (sort of) how
do you go about lighting a picture. I find this quite hard
and you often have objects or people backlit and have multiple
light sources that are quite complicated to think about do
you just learn by observation? - thanks Dale
Materials
are; CS10 Media 6 art board, Windsor and Newton acrylic paints,
coloured pencils (not the water soluble kind), ball point
pens, Liquitex colours, a toothbrush, and Daler watercolour
brushes.
References - so far I have only used one piece of reference
for the face; it's not an exact guideline but it's similar
and it's got the lighting I want.
Lighting
a picture is hard but you have to go with what looks right
on your image. I tell you what, 'Poser', the 3D art tool on
computer can be very helpful in this regard. I might knock
one up (not in the American sense) just to show you but so
far this is it as far as references is concerned. I'll include
anything else I use as I go along.-Glenn
Stage Three
Stage
Three - 15 June 2002
What
I am doing here is putting down a base colour in acrylic that
gives me a, erm, base to work on. I used to use a really heavy
burnt umber or Prussian blue scrub, but what with the layers
of wash I'd be using, the paintings were all getting too dark,
so now I'm using a wishy washy burnt sienna to begin with.
You can use acrylics impasto like oils or transparent like
watercolour, so you can build up from dark to light and build
down from light to dark.
A 'wash' is
when you have got a big watercolor brush and wipe a fairly
diluted colour across your image: This deepens the tone and
gives a more gradual transition between the light and dark
areas. Then you can go into it again, make the darks darker
and the highlights lighter. If you do this enough times you
can get an airbrush type finish. I'm also using coloured pencils
for extra 'modelling'.
Stage Four
Stage Four- 16 June 2002
Disaster
Strikes!
Sometimes if the top is loose you paint tubes clog up,
and you have to dig out a clump of dried colour before you
can use the bloody things. So I'm squeezing my tube of cadmium
red and it all spurts out after a blockage in an unsettlingly
ejaculatory manner, narrowly missing the poor girls face (©
reader wives letters page...).
A note on character: The idea was to do a series of page three
type girls with a cowboy theme as independently-produced prints.
Why 'cowboy?' Well last year I was finishing Preacher,starting
on Outlaw Nation, and getting paid my highest ever fee for
the cover of 'Desperados' computer game for American Infogrames,
all western- based material, so when we thought about doing
some prints, it seemed a natural choice. Why girls? Well,
girls are very popular with, er, all humanity.
I was going to start with
a rootin-tootin cowgirl Jane type but went for a Native American
girl instead after reading Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.
The idea with her is she's just run in with the wagon train
and hacked the dress off one of the seven brides for seven
brothers.
Stage Five
Stage
Five- 17 June 2002
Email question
from Jordan Henderson on 18/06/02
On
18 June - About your print.....I really really want to know....Hey
Glenn, thanks a lot for the ongoing tutorial, its looking
awesome. You listed all the materials that you used, I would
like to know when and where would you use a ball point biro
pen on your print, also when and where would you use a toothbrush?
Just out of interest. A few other people and I are following
your tutorial, it has been really helpful!! Also, when I am
painting in acrylic I always find it really difficult to add
detail, to skin, clothes and hair etc, any tips for that?Thanks
again, Jordan Henderson
Hi
Jordan. Nikki's done a close up of Minnie ha-ha's arm so hopefully
you'll be able to see where I've used toothpaste splatter
- it kind of adds tone and texture, and you can work into
it and use some of the aberrations that show up. I use ball-point
pen (either red or black generally) to boost outlines - since
the ink is waterproof
it's useful when you do as many washes as I
do. Adding fine detail in acrylic - buy Liquitex and use a
tiny brush! If yo still have difficulties, use gouache (but
remember not to put colour washes over it afterwards).
Stage Six
-
17 June 2002
Dale
asks about light sources, and I said I'd do a mock up on Poser
4 to show the quick and easy way to do it, so here it is:
I also decided to change
her bottle-holding arm a bit because I thought this position
was a little more cocky. You can also pinpoint highlight areas
by messing about with the render materials section (see little
figure). Poser can be helpful but they're still little plastic
Barbie figures with the arses all wrong. What it is good for
is proportions, foreshortening and shadows.
Stage Seven
18
June 2002
Stage Eight
19 June 2002
Okay
folks - this is the last scan before the painting's finished.
It's a full-figure shot on the painting, A3 dimensions and
size. As I stated earlier on, it will be available as a deluxe
signed and numbered print limited to 999 copies which is only
available from this site or my rare personal appearances at
conventions. Actually, I'll be showing up at the opening of
an envelope next year, (probably with 998 prints under my
arm - my mum wants one) as they'll be quite a few things to
push - The Authority Book, my TOP SECRET Marvel project, the
Other Authority book (also by Mr Ennis) and, god help us all,
my Vertigo pitch (if it's successful).
Stage Nine
If you would
like to email me a specific question about the print please
Click Here
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