Dominicque's Sketchbook

[Dominicque]

Nice work here! This last piece looks very promising. I'd say don't be afraid to spend a stupid amount of time on finishing pieces. Especially when figuring out digital tools and all that, it can take forever. Just go with it. Seems like you figured out the brighness to opacity thing already. Now you can block in all the colors you want, start some rendering of the form and once you have it all sort of jell together, make a new layer on top of everything and try "painting out" your pencils. It's an ambitious image with all the water, the hair and everything, dont hesitate to get good references at this point. If you want I could do an overpaint once you've pushed it as far as possible, let me know. Have fun!

Hiya, thanks for the encouraging post. I do honestly get anxiety when a piece is taking too long, as I feel it's a reflection on my abilities and 'I'll never improve'. I think it might be my idea of 'being left behind' and not wanting to 'waste anymore time', but seeing your progress lets me know there is a way out if you just give yourself time. I just need to learn to relax and give myself breathing room. Digital is very hard indeed and frustrating. It feels easier in some ways to traditional, like being able to experiment and make copies, but all the controls feel nebulous and the learning curve super steep and less intuitive.
That took a while lol, didn't even know it was possible to paint under the original sketch lines, until someone on discord told me. 
I'll try to fill with refs of course, photos and artists for stylisation guidance, like Loish for hair. It's surprisingly hard to find refs of the white water/pattern like part on water, because I don't know the exact name for it. 
I would appreciate an overpaint or anatomy help.

By a new layer, do you mean 'flats', then a 'blending/rendering out' layer? However, you said to 'start some rendering of the form', so I'm not too sure what you exactly mean. Like a 'pre-blend', laying out colours to blend, but leaving the actual bulk of that to another layer?

Thanks, again for visiting.