There’s not really much to say about this one. I was messing around for ages, trying to get a Doctor Doom style pose right, but in the end I just wanted to get on and paint his face, well, his mask, with his eyes all angry and intense. I tried to replicate the classic Jack Kirby look, with thick black lines and solid blocks of colour, but I am not that bold, and I succumbed to the blending. It was done in ArtRage in about 45 minutes, using the minimal amount of layers, and I don’t think I actually erased any lines – I just incorporated them into the overall composition. I purposefully kept the metal mask quite angular with sharp lines, making it look hard, heavy and durable, while his face underneath was much softer, with the colours being blended a lot more subtly, so it looked like a soft and fleshy.
I messed around with some of the various blending styles that ArtRage has to offer, like duplicating some layers, blurring them, then merging them back into one layer. Not a lot of care was taken to make it look tidy or finished to be quite honest, I wanted to see if the rough look suited me. It’s all about experimentation at this stage, trying to find my style, and then refining it. I think it still has an amateur look about it, there’s something about the contrast, the brightness of all the colours, but I can’t put my finger on exactly what is wrong.
Can you help? Feel free to leave a message if you can.
This was originally posted on my now-defunct creative blog.
