"Sakura" Geisha painting.

I started this painting some time last year but I had to put it aside until recently when i decided to finally finish it up.
The painting is called "Sakura" meaning cherry blossom. I wanted to finish it during the cherry blossom blooming season, which I just managed to do ^_^

Below is a progression video of the painting to show it all coming together.

Snowfall (Geisha)

Been working on this painting for a while, jumping back and forth from different projects.

But got the time to work on it and get it finished.
This painting went through a lot of changes but I got it to where I am happy with it.
I was a little torn between 2 ideas for this.

Above are few work in progress images. The initial sketches showed the idea of her walking through a street in Gion but after painting in a rough idea of the colors I wasnt really happy with it and so I decided to go with the mysterious setting instead :)

Chinese New Year: Year Of The Monkey

Kung Hei Fat Choy

Happy Chinese New Year!

I Painted this in the spur of the moment today.
Instead of showing some progression shots I thought I'd spice things up a bit and instead show how I used layers for this piece.

Its a simple overall layout I use for these kinds of paintings/drawings.
I try to keep the layers to a minimum, mainly working on 2-3 layers until the very end when I add background highlights and a very small tint of color to the monkey and the tree, (Barely visible but its there). The text and Chinese writing is also on separate layers to add a slight glow around them.


1st I filled the background layer with a desaturated creamy/brown color which will allow me to make highlights on top of that layer to show through.

I used a custom brush I made to sketch the monkey loosely.

I create a new layer and set the current/previous sketch layer's opacity down to around 20% and start to refine and finish the sketch. I leave the two sketch layers there, If you look close you can make out the 1st sketch underneath the overall painting.

This is the details/shading layer. with the Chinese calligraphy and happy new year text added to it. 

This is highlights layer which is on top of the details layer so the highlights go over the darker lines. I don't paint the highlights completely separately to the detail layer. I do both at the same time, switching back and forth to layers as I go and work my way around the whole piece.

Lastly I add a tint of color to the monkey and the tree on an overlay layer set to 15-20% The color is barely visible. Then I add highlights to the top of the background layer to brighten up the top of the piece as a light to look to for the future ;) 

Katana (Suicide Squad) painting

Did a quick study painting of Katana from the Suicide Squad.
Half way through I thought I would try a little experiment and so I painted each hair strand seperatley on different layers to animate it for a fun little gif later on.


Katana

Painting Steps

Blackened Eyes

The eyeballs were painted on a seperate layers too to be able to paint in the black eye transformation later on. I plan on creating a few animated gifs sometime in the future with some sort of story for it. So this was just a little test run for that.

Katana, Tatsu Yamashiro

Been busy working on a few different projects, but got some time to get back to painting this Geisha painting and finaly have it finished.

Wanted to keep this piece a bit more loose and have more of a traditional feel to it.
Used a few different brushes for this piece, mostly brushes with a harsh bristle look to them and a few other brushs to smooth out a few areas.

Autumn Geisha

Here are some work in progress steps of this piece.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu

Needed a short change in scenery from my current 3D model project so I went and painted Japanese singer  Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.

Final Image

Here is a Gif of the painting in progress. Show some sense in all the madness ^_^
Click the images to enlarge for a better view.

GIF Progress Animation

Sumi-e

Carrying on with the Sumi-e paintings, which I will continue to do for the next week or so.
Here are a few of the paintings I have been doing.

 

 

More to come..........

Bamboo Painting

A Painting of bamboo in a traditional Japanese Sumi ink style.

 

This is the first in a series of similar paintings I will be doing in traditional inks and also some in digital and a few as a mixed media.

 

 

New Painting

Starting on a new painting. Have had this painting in my head for a good while and happy to finally get starting on it. 

Bird painting progression 

I got a little carried away with painting this bird as it is only a small portion of the actual painting it is for, but I was enjoying it and thought it would make a nice little painting itself ^_^

The above painting is intended to be a painting on a traditional Japanese sliding door (Fusuma) which will be in the background of the painting.

Sketch of the full painting.

Above is the initial sketch I did for this painting with the progress of the bird thrown in for a quick idea of how things are going to fit together.

Working my way through the details

Halfway finished the kimono

Quarter of Kimono left to paint

Kung Fu

Drawing of Shaolin Monk named Wang Bo.

Shaolin Kung~Fu

Geisha Sketches