Tygerson - The 'too long didn't read' answer is to google for notes on how master painters paint things. And gather references.
For this specific piece, I remember somebody, probably by Amit, gave this link (
http://surfacefragments.blogspot.co.nz/2...ld-in.html) to me a long time ago and just to go through the painting with those thoughts in mind. I observed a lot of Rembrandt before tackling the gold stuff.
With regards to rendering people, I dived in hard on how Sargent does his paintings and copied some of his tendencies. Case in point: that solid brown stroke on the cheek shadow side is one of his tricks I stole from. It's pretty hacky, especially now that you know where I take my cues from. But that has always been my safety net: pick a painter's, preferably dead, body of work I really love and try to shadow him/her til I find my own voice.
Amit - I honestly don't have a good answer for that question, especially now that I took a good considerable amount of time thinking about it since you posted. All I can think of at the moment is a very cop out answer of wanting to be accurate on how I observe things and render them as perfect as possible. Another layer of 'why' or 'what for' question, I don't have a particularly good reason or even a solid thing that I'm aiming for. My body of work shows that I love doing fan art, but I think you know me well enough that I don't want to do other people's gigs my whole life.
I should be asking myself that question more often. I am coasting on that department.
And stupid, material studies. That's always been my problem. Looking back at my latest now, I should be more more aware of which brush to use on which.
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I don't have anything new to show for since I'm still doing comic book work. But here's a filler image of something I've done 3 or so years before side by side with the new one.
I remember I made that thing and I was so proud of myself. Looking back at it now, made me realize how obnoxiously conceited I've been. I think I coasted with that kind of rendering style for a long time before somebody pointed out to me that I wasn't the hot shit I thought I was. And boy, was that a miserable awakening!
I do feel proud of the latest one, but in the back of my mind, there are still a lot of issues of this painting I'll try to tackle on the next. Like what Amit pointed out, how I render different materials is still a mess to look at.
Well on to the next!