Another Portrait from LogoVend

[LogoVend]

This is one that I knocked up today it's of my flatmate Martha - she's a fashion designer.

[John Rayner]

Very Nice James! I like it...

[cazza42]

Wow! Excellent James. I really like the way you've made her mouth. The teeth and lips are stunningly real. I also like the contrast between the stark flat hair and clothing and the sculpted look of the skin.

As this is way beyond anything I could do, I hate to critise anything about it, but if I did, it would have to be the whites of her eyes. They look a little unreal, maybe as if they are made of plasticine. Maybe a little extra colour would bring them to life.

Well done on a fantastic piece of work. Does the young lady like it?

Regards,

Carol Leather

[Ron Duke]

James,
Didn't care to much for your previous portraits, but this one is exceptional. Very good.
ron

[LogoVend]

Ron

Great --- a bit of honesty here. Rather than the standard 'collective consciousness' party-line --- which is the sort of thing you always get on forums. Agree or be damned.

I guess it's like any design work. It takes time to learn the tricks of the trade to doing something and get better at it. I've only been doing them for about 3 or 4 months. And to be honest it's only to spur on my amigo who is a really an amazing real-life-oils-an-all painter to do more of his work and get doing it full time. So we've set up a little venture called Stella Helps, as that's our surnames, and it's pretty funny I think - like drinking Stella helps - you know Stella Artois. So I'm working at it and seeing how you portraiture develops. You can see some of his work on the scrolly thing on the web site - which you can see is 10x better than what I'm coming up still.

StellaHelps.com

The girl as subject was really excited and happy about the picture, which is I guess is the main thing when you're doing something for someone.

Unless you were actually being sarcastic because of what I said about your car picture, and if this is the case, may I again commend you, sir, for your honesty and gile. Either way, it's all good.

[stlewis]

James

I like the variety in your work - both logos and portraits.

And that Flash on StellaHelps is really effective - each image teases you to wait for it, and then there is another...

[Ron Duke]

No sarcasm. The shading, form and shape are very well done. I don't know how close you're trying to get to realism, but this drawing is very close. More detail in the eyes and hair, for example, although a lot of work, would really add a lot to this already fine drawing. IMHO.

ron

[LogoVend]

Ron

No I'm not trying to get close to photo-realist other wise I'd be taking photos of people rather than 'painting' them which is a case of trying to get the essence of a person both in the facial structure (obviouly) and also in the character of the person - which is why I take video of people to work from so they can flow and I can get them at the right moment. Portraiture to me is all about capturing the soud of a person on the 'canvas'.

[wW]

I really like her skin tones. The detail in the eyes & mouth are nice. The graphic quality of the blue & hair set it all off rather nice.

My only crit, the hair seems large (like a helmet under the hair) but she could be having a puffy hair day. Not a deal breaker though..

How much time would you say this took you to do? Did you work from a digital image or have her pose whilst you created in Xara (old school)?

[LogoVend]

wW

Yeah she's a big-hair-retro-80s-kinda-chick - so the hair is real time!

The painting took me between 4-5 hours to do and to get the skin tones I build it up with numerous highlights and shadoww in yellow-white, dark browns, dark-drak-reds and dark-dark-blues. It was origianlly from a low-res video capture from my Pentax Optio S-4 so there's a certain amount of creative licience in it.