Saturday, November 14, 2009

Lucy And Her Fly Away Hairs

Sneak Peek of Lucy In Progress

It is a late night and I have been playing around with Miss Lucy. This pretty girl is our first "Small Munsterlander". I take pride in knowing a lot of dog breeds and their temperaments. I had never heard of this breed before. According to Wikipedia: " Small Munsterlanders are very intelligent, trainable, and attentive but require gentle and patient training, which provides excellent results. They are also strong-willed and an owner who is inconsistent or indecisive might find that his dog is hard to control". She sounds like my kind of girl ...we adore stubborn pups around here.

About The Art:
I still have a lot of work to do. Tonight I have been focused on painting in Lucy's fly-away hairs. The 3 detail shots below sort of show some steps. We start with an original photograph. Then my assistant erases the background. When you erase the background it is impossible to get every single hair isolated. Lola does a great job at getting photos ready for me. I know that some hairs will be lost and that is ok because it is easier to go back in and paint them back in than try to erase around them. If I did not go back in with the paint brush tool and the wacom tablet the result would be a little choppy and "cut out" looking. I will try to post a video tutorial on this process later next week. For now the pics below will give you the idea. It is a very time consuming process, but I love it. In fact I may have gone a bit overboard and given her more locks than needed. Hmmm, I'll have to look at that in the morning.



4 comments:

Christine Throckmorton said...

I wish my hair looked as cool as Lucy's ears after you were done with them!

Just watched some of your YouTube videos. I think I'm going to show a few to my Graphic Design students. They really respond to real-life applications of the skills/techniques I teach them. Great job on the vids!

artpaw said...

Christine- Thanks for the praise. Cool I am glad the vids will be shown to some students. I secretly want to teach:)

Shayla said...

Rebecca, your animal art is authentic. I love not only the technical side, but also the life you bring to the images. "Cecil's" palette is funky, and Pug Van Gogh made me grin. I can see why this would be successful. Thanks for your encouragement and sharing your TV story on Artbizblog.

artpaw said...

Thanks Shayla.