Ok, so defying all health issues and up at my desktop, I'm trying to paint a picture in Painter in the style of Edvard Munch, a week before the deadline (fractured fairytale challenge), having only ever done two fully digital paintings before - both in photoshop. I know you should either be very good at photoshop before switching to painter, or just start out in painter to begin with, and that you should at least know how to paint in real life (no, I've never painted a single thing in real life ) before attempting to emulate its effects in a software package. And all this because I'm too depressed to do anything else - what a way to make me more depressed!! Trying to code a thumbnail gallery generator applet didn't work in lifting my spirits so I figured, if my friend doesn't work, I'll try my enemy. So here I am, once again getting myself in a frizzle trying to work out how to paint.

Painter.... well, I tried a few days ago to use the program following some tutorials in a magazine but since I have no short term memory I can't actually remember that occasion, I only know about it because I wrote a blog post saying that I'd tried it So naturally, this occasion feels like the first time I've ever opened it.

Painter is friggin AWESOME!!!! I started with a watercolour wash to get the colours blocked into my picture, and omg it does the transparency and the colour-getting-thicker-if-you-go-over-the-same-spot-twice (you know what I mean), but what most amazed me is that it shows you the paint drying!!!!!! Omg I'm spending waaaaay too much time scribbling with various brushes than concentrating on my picture, but here's my scribble so far (I'm not even going to be nice and call it a concept sketch because it's mostly the result of me playing and apart from basic shapes has nothing to do with my picture) Yes it's just a screengrab because I don't know how to flatten layers and anyway Painter only lets me undo 5 times instead of 500000000 like in photoshop so I don't want to mess anything up:

By the way, this was the concept sketch that I scribbled in all of 10 seconds in photoshop a few weeks ago... I decided to go with this out of all my billions of ideas and sketches (my sister and I spent an English lesson doodling into my pad different ideas rather than actually doing English) because I wanted to rip off "The Scream" and also study Munch's style. Unfortunately I can't find a painting he did of a brick tower so I may have to improvise there... Anyway, the concept scribble:

Wednesday 23 May, 01:30
Inspiration..... Edvard Munch
I wish I was.....  Someone who knew how to use Corel Painter

Okay so Painter Classic just wasn't cutting it because to emulate the style of Munch I really need those oil brushes, plus almost all tutorials involving painter seem to focus on the oil brushes too. So I made the plunge and am in the middle of registering Painter X. Judging by the fact that my last IFX issue had an entire booklet on "what's new", learning Painter X is probably going to be like learning a whole new software all over again. Maybe I should have just started with it.... oh well, I didn't know.

My computer is really struggling to keep up with me because these softwares are sooo huge, even though it's a brand new computer. I suppose I should stop trying to paint at such massive resolutions, but with my sight I need to be zoomed in as much as possible otherwise everything just looks like blobs (although I have a feeling they may look like blobs to other people as well, given the comments about my "cute" priests in last weeks MY-FX challenge).

Speaking of challenges, there is no way I can get to my grandmothers house in time to both photograph her and draw the picture before the end of the week, especially when concentrating on this fractured fairytale thing, which I probably won't even finish anyway with everything else that's going on in my life.... so I'm not doing that one. But hopefully the next one, provided I'm still at home (looks like I'll be back in hospital drawing on toilet paper soon).

Wednesday 23 May, 02:40
Inspiration..... Edvard Munch
I wish I was.....  less tired

Yeah I should really stop with that "Inspiration.... I wish I was...." stuff for this project since the inspiration will always be Edvard Munch and I'll always wish I was someone who knew what they were doing....

Anyway, after getting to grips with Corel Painter X (man it's freaky how real everything is!!!) I started back on my repunazal (someone please tell me how to spell that before I submit it!!) picture. I gave it a sky in similar vein to Munch's "Anxiety" series but the only kinds of grass I've found of him painting (and I can't say I have an extensive gallery of Munch pieces at hand, just some small jpgs from the internet) are either flat green (which looked odd next to the pretty sky) or random strokes. So I opted for a bit of both and played with the fact that the "oils" can blend with what's already there. Such an amazing program, I think this software is too advanced for me....

So I brought it back into photoshop for this screengrab but also so I could apply a brick texture from one of the IFX cds to the tower (don't worry I intend to paint over it so it doesn't look so much like a photo overlay) and the window where repunzal will be screaming.

You can faintly see the basic outline of the prince/knight at the bottom, although it's currently just a blobby blob because I haven't drawn armour on him yet.

Wednesday 23 May, 08:40

Com....pu...ter...........strug....gling.........to.......keep.......up...........
Man this Painter program is huge and it's eating almost all my memory. It's almost like when I was drawing blind a while ago (hey, being deaf never stopped Beethoven), I make the stroke, wait five minutes for it to appear on screen, if it doesn't come out how I want, undo, wait five minutes for it to undo, do it all over again. This is taking forever and I'm considering moving back into photoshop if the slowness gets too much (this IS supposed to be a fast picture).

Okay so I painted over the bricks and tried to shade the building by applying dark coats of watercolour on the edges instead of a gradient burn like I usually do...... It didn't come out the way I would have hoped and certainly doesn't look right, but I think maybe it fits into the style of the piece? yes? no? If I get feedback saying it sucks, I'll try something else.

Nothing much has really changed since last update, it's just drawing each brick by brick took me forever (and probably triple the amount of time than someone with a faster computer) and now my wrist hurts. My parents are also now awake and telling me to get back in bed

Trying to decide on what period of armour I should place on the fat prince given the sort of turn-of-century painting style that I'm trying to achieve (but not succeeding). Maybe just the typical knight-in-shining-armour style, but hammered out a bit. Or I could just shiny him up a bit to give the illusion of armour so as not to go into too much detail. I don't know. Feedback please!

Oh, and someone just pointed out the shading on the edges of the tower were skewed and a bit rake looking so I'll fix that up in photoshop (since my eraser tool in Painter is being funky because of the slowness)

Until next time!!

Friday, 25 May - 00:45
Music..... Pussy Cat Dolls - Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend
Inspiration..... Corel Painter X
I wish I was..... Ezra Tucker

Armour is a cow to paint on normal, frontward-facing or three-quarter, buff knights. It's a *** to paint on courageous fighters battling dragons. It's a bitterly-divorced-didn't-get-custody-wants-the-house-and-car *** to paint on a fat man who has just fallen on his arse.

I should probably have finished him before uploading a WiP picture, but I'm getting sick of him. I'm not very good at armour at the best of times so I'm not entirely sure what they have on underneath the armoury bits, so I gave him bright red - thermals? I think they're called? Can't be bothered finding a dictionary - pants so those who actually know the name of whatever it is I'm drawing may find some comedic value in the fact that when his thingy, the skirt thing at the end of his armour? Sorry for my lack of knowledge of words, it's a left-brain thing, I forget what things are called. Anyway, when that thing flies up as a result of him falling on his bum, the other thing becomes visible.

Okay, I know above paragraph made absolutely NO sense whatsoever (just be glad you don't have to listen to me in real life, I rely mostly on sign language because I can't make words come out of my mouth, and when they do, they're never the right ones. All my friends say I'm just like Captain Jack Sparrow, like that bit in the first movie when he wants parlay and he goes parsnip, parsley.... etc)

I do plan on changing the (first thing I mentioned) around his ankles into leather boots as soon as I can find a reference that isn't kinky boots or goth boots. I also know the bottom half of his helmet needs to be defined like the wrist-thingies but as I said, I kinda stopped halfway through painting him to take this WiP picture.

I LOVE Painter's Camel Oil Brushes and Wet Impasto Oil brushes. I've managed to achieve this beautiful "brushed" (haha) metal look using them although I need to practice control over my tablet because it is waaay more sensitive than I thought (it even knows when I switch hands!!)

Anyway, since the prince is annoying me right now I'm going to go work on Repunzal (someone please tell me how to spell her name before deadline because I'm adding comic-book style sub titles) because she needs considerably less detail than he does - she just needs to look like a copy of "The Scream".
Okay I admit I wasn't intending to make the prince detailed at all, I was just going to paint him gold and add a few highlights and shadows, but then I discovered the brushes and got totally carried away and now he has about 100x more detail than girl-with-long-hair-however-you-spell-her-name will have. Oh well, these things are all about learning and fun!!

I also had another battle with the evil Liquify tool in photoshop to try and achieve a more "roundness" to the tower instead of having the bricks just straight across but moving the center downwards and the edges upwards didn't round it out like I wanted and now it looks like a bulgy sack of potatoes with a brick pattern. I also painted over the istock image of the window but I think because I was using the clone thing it looks too much like a stock image and not enough like I painted it? Feedback please.

Saturday 26 May, 02:00
Music..... "At Last" - Dubreil and Lauzon's Free Dance music (I think)
Inspiration..... Victoria Frances
I wish I was..... Better, in every respect

Okay so tomorrow I'm going away and I dunno when I'll be back to finish my painting so I need to get all "painterly" things done in the next two hours because my laptop can only handle minor things like adding text, cropping/resizing things etc.

I know in this WiP picture the girl is way too big in proportion to the fat prince of bell air but I can change that later on my laptop. Right now I need to work out how to make the back of armour (the only pictures I've seen of armour are front-on) and when I've worked that out, I need to figure out how to apply it to a fat man.

I'm also trying to work out how on earth I'm going to have a bunch of plaited hair nestling around the prince because it will take simply ages to draw the plaits. So I thought maybe use a hair-brush and just draw strands of hair but that would all blend into each other and look messy. I'll try it though if my quest for a reference photo of 10 metres of braided hair falling in a pile fails.

The prince's shoes are annoying me. I might just extend his leg armour so I don't have to draw the whole boot. Also, his collar is all squiffed out of place at the moment.

And don't worry, I intend to find which layer is the culprit responsible for the random white mark on his back chainmail.
Also, I've fixed her hair from the large screenshot above using Photoshop's grass brush:

I seriously doubt my ability to pull this off to a reasonable standard in the next two hours. I'd ask for some help, but nobody ever reads this crap. I don't even know why I write it..........

Tuesday, 29 May - 23:45
Music..... Queen - Bohemian Rapshody
Inspiration..... Andy Jones
I wish I was..... Someone with extremely long blonde hair....

Scaramouche! Scaramouche!! Okay so I dragged myself up onto the computer tonight because I have to get this to at least contain all the elements of the picture before I can submit it. However, given the limited amount of time I have left to finish it, I can't write too detailed in here.

I'm referencing some yellow wool that I braided (hey an artist needs to improvise when she has no idea how to do something) for Repunzal's hair (yes, people finally told me how to spell her name ). This is a very rough blocking-in using Wet Gouache for the red-toned underlay and a very tiny Camel Oil brush for the actual strands of hair. I'm not too fussed on the correct placing of shadows considering the light source and the way the hair has fallen (the knight's armour reflects in all the wrong places anyway....) but right now I'm concentrating on getting the main "blocks" of hair in to suggest a braided plait and although it's a bit pixelly now, I'll be able to blur it on my laptop later. I need to utilize this time for things only Painter can achieve.

Anyway since I should be concentrating more on the picture and less on blogging, here is a quick snapshot of what I'm right in the middle of doing right now:

For WiP enthusiasts (and also in an attempt to make people join my MSN contact list..... lonely, oh so lonely....) I'm updating my MSN dp for sneak-peek WiPs hourly. I'm also probably going to not write in this again until I've finished with this computer (although later I may write in it via my laptop once all the WiP pictures are uploaded) so full-picture progresses can be found in the Fractured Fairytale WiP thread, or in my MSN dp. Which you'll have to add me to your list to see. You know you want to

MSN: chenyun-art@hotmail.com

Friday 1 June - too long after the deadline
Music..... Pink - Leave Me Alone
Inspiration..... My wonderfully supportive family (</lame>)
I wish I was..... Nickillus

I didn't win the Pink competition Probably because I questioned the questions being asked. Under the multiple-choice thing for "What is Pink's Current Record Company" they didn't have her current record company. Anyway, chances of me winning were miniscule anyway In more post-related news, I've completely forgotten to keep this thing updated on my Rapunzel progress, but fear not as it's all in the WiP thread.

Anyway, so I finally got the image to a near-complete stage and then all this hospital stuff happened and I forgot to add the text and upload it before getting admitted. So I went down to the public access internet as I didn't have lappy with me and waited like half an hour for this girl to finish playing on her MySpace thing. Eventually my mum's phone rang and the surgeon was like, okay we're all ready.... so I complained very loudly about how long this damn girl was taking and she FINALLY got off, I told the person I only wanted to purchase five minutes, but she said the minimum was half an hour, sigh.

Anyway so I tried getting through to my sister to add the text, flatten the image, resize it and upload it, but the neurosurgeon was getting impatient and next thing I'm getting my spine dissected and didn't wake up until this morning, after the deadline (long after the deadline), but eventually the image got uploaded and even though I won't be getting any votes or anything cos of how late it is, at least people can view the final image (click for the big)

Not as "finished" as I would have liked but I've had stuff happening and I was dumb enough to not start this until too close to the deadline, in the knowledge that I'd only get a few nights on the computer. Eh, my own fault

I know the hair on the right side of the picture sucks, my hand was getting tired by then, and the "shadows" are sort of very very quickly scribbled in. Kudos to my sister for the spiky speech-bubble thingamy although personally I would have only made the insides of it transparent and kept the outline as opaque as the text and probably placed it next to Rapunzel instead of underneath her, but she's studied art and stuff so she knows more about composition than I do.