Practices 26/27 – Process Videos & PSD Files

Why paint a LEGO piece? I didn’t use to play with LEGOs. Nevertheless, I quite like the material reflections, the colours, and the values. So, as a short warm-up, this worked. I pushed the shape a bit, as well as the values and colours, and finally made slight transitions between values using texture.

The sunset landscape captivated me with its colours—that range of cold tones in the sky combined with the warm tones in the grass was interesting. My approach to environment practice doesn’t rely on lines but on shapes. I try to split the composition into shapes based on their position: foreground, midground, and background. After that, I adjust the colours to resemble the reference, then add shadows. Keeping the shape layers separated this way helps me adjust them later without affecting other parts of the composition. This ensures the shapes stay sharp and balanced in terms of depth.

It had been a while since I painted a portrait, so I decided to go with this Asian woman. I liked the shape of the hair—like a contrast between order on the left and chaos on the right—plus the long neck. I must say I struggled a bit with the shape of the eyes until the end of the practice. I just couldn’t manage to match the likeness to the reference. I guess I need to do more of these.

Pencil sharpener—again, a warm-up. I did like the painting before I started adding textures (04:09:38), though I’m just not confident enough to leave it that way. It might feel too lazy? I think that approach will come sooner or later, but at the moment I’m not there yet. I’m definitely squeezing the “cater” brush a lot.

Green Hill—just a beautiful landscape. In these kinds of practices, you can see how I recreate depth using my technique. It’s not only the shapes but also the dark shadows in the front and bright, almost purple, shadows in the back.

Finally, the pelican. I’ve got plenty of pelican references saved—just like this one. I find them very strange creatures, and somehow people manage to take really interesting photos of them. I wasn’t sure which one to choose, but this one felt particularly peculiar. At first glance, the references didn’t seem to have a great range of colours. But while rendering, the more I looked, the more subtle colours popped out—benefits of sunlight on plumage, I guess. I thought the value of the practice would lie in the shape, considering the strange anatomy of this bird, but it turns out the colours had plenty of value too.

Process Video: https://youtu.be/5bcrCcSCg2o

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The campaign for my book Life in Every Sketch is over. I can’t wait for it to be shipped across the world. If you backed the campaign, thank you! If you couldn’t, don’t worry—in the future, I’ll share the link so you can purchase it directly on the 3DTotal website. Stay tuned.

This book is one of many things I’ve been working on these past months. I’ll also be sharing details about another project that’s been taking all my creativity and hard work since 2021. I literally can’t wait to finish it. You’ll be the first to know.

Thank you so much for your support.