ramonn90

Pushing Colors, Lasso Tool and Warp - My Process Video and Brushes!

Added 2025-10-03 16:06:56 +0000 UTC

Here are some insights on my latest practices, along with practical art suggestions, my process video, files, and brushes! Subscribe and let's dive in:

Flirting with Death - Focal points in a reference

It's been a while since I've painted bones, and I quite like the romantic feeling in this reference. I've always bet on a picture with a dramatic facial expression and hands performing some kind of action. Besides, my intuition suggests that repetitive structures like the ribs or the backbone are somehow interesting to look at, perhaps the contrast or the resemblance with texture brushes I've used in the past. I can't explain, but something is there.

As a plus, the light was a bit diffuse, so I chose to push the contrast a bit more with hard-edged shadow shapes.

"Dark" Gloves - A technical shift on light over shadows

A nice texture practice with one of my favorite materials, leather. I started this practice a bit differently; instead of a color base and shadows, I went straight to lights after the color base. I think I did this because I really could not comprehend the light composition at first sight, so I just tried to guess how the light acted on the right side of the gloves, where it felt very strong, and then the left side where it was very subtle. I needed to make the base tone a bit darker so it could act as a shadow, and after I went for some shadows over the spots where light did not touch each other, a bit unconventional to my usual approach, but it worked.

No lines mango - Just colors and shadows

I felt this practice would be ruined if I chose to add lines within the mango; part of the beauty in the reference is how the colored shadows split the shapes, so I simply decided to define the silhouette and guess shapes with dark orange tones (shadows), first the darkest ones and then the not-so-dark shadows. That's why I consider it key to keep the shadow structure in paintings with little tone variations, two or three, so the artist manages to get that volume nicely in the simplest way possible.

Puddle Distorted Reflection - The perfect excuse for textures

I think that the more casual a picture is, the better the chance a practice can be changed toward something different. What's more random and simple than a puddle in the street? Like every environment composition, I started by getting the perspective right, first with rough lines and later with some clean ones, so I avoid changes in colors and values afterward because of a mismatch in perspective. Getting the base right is key for compositions. Photoshop has plenty of great tools for this sort of approach; for example, Ctrl+T + perspective never gets old.

After, I went straight for what I thought would be the most intricate part of the practice, which was the building in the reflection. Right after, I used many of my brushes to get the pavement texture, which is conveniently chaotic. I could use any of the set and still get that look as long as it had contrast in relation to the base tone. Finally, I wanted to add a very slight texture right on top of the puddle, where the sky and building meet. Since these shapes were not supposed to be perfect, I thought adding texture would be a nice touch of distortion.

Baby Gesture - The utility of Lasso Tool and Warp

What I loved about this reference was the curves from the baby's body gesture. Most of the work, like it used to be with gesture, was in the line art. I try to get it right just by looking at the reference, but sometimes using tools like "lasso tool" and "warp" help me get that last shape exaggeration just right. I hesitated on adding dark values, but it really needed that extra contrast. Like the mango practice, I felt lines and dark tones would affect the mood of the practice, making it less bright than it is, but eventually it felt right because there was little.

Can Angry Garlic be purple? - Pushing colors beyond

Does garlic can be purple? I read in a comment, well yeah and I took that slight purple within the garlic to push the color as far as I could. I figure that If I keep the shape silhouette and some garlic characteristics, like the peel of garlic coming off, it would be recognizable. I hope I was not wrong, perhaps that's why the garlics are angry, because they are too purple.