Realistic Style

These 2 paintings were done using some photographic reference for the anatomy of the animals, looking into the workflow of Stjepan Sejic. Typically I produce a lot of line work and flat colour or limited rendering to achieve a more graphic style (like the previous study) to my work but really want to push more to a painterly style of art seen in work by the artists I mentioned previously. 

Initially I had intended to take the characters I had started designing previously but to be honest this is such a different workflow to how I normally work and I felt that working on something more familiar for which I could find reference, this would allow me to focus more on the techniques rather than the designing the subject matter.

The aim of these paintings were to try and push myself to paint more using shape and tone rather than spending a lot of time on line work. I limited myself to 20 minute sketches, not going into too much detail with the initial drawings as seen in Stjepan Sejic's workflow. I found this a difficult workflow to follow as I am used to having the detail already drawn in before moving forward with a rendering. However I found that having a more detailed made me restrict myself too much.

This was the first time I have attempted to make or use a texture brush in Photoshop (though I didnt think to do so until about half way through the Gorilla : / ) 

Though there are a couple of areas in each painting where the values are not spot on I feel that this has been a successful and very educational exercise. For me this workflow seems to be far more suitable when working digitally when compared to the workflow explored while looking at Grant Gould's work and aesthetically I do prefer the more realistic style that it produces.

I would like to go further and produce a series of studies on animals like these as I found this not only very educational as far as learning more about tone, lighting and texture but also as I am a big animal lover found this very enjoyable.

Could do with colour though....