Creating a bland blotchy hand painted surface?

MainManiac

Im wondering how you would paint something like this and have it look so natural, there seems to be surfaces like this in almost everything ive seen hand painted.

Ive tried sampling colors to recreate it but it just doesnt look the same...

PredatorGSR

The way I was taught to do it is to create a sampling of several colors and hues to create a palette, and use those colors to create your base. You put down splotches of color, and then use the eye dropper to sample the in-between shades and keep painting until you blend them together. Based on the the style you're going for, you'll either blend them together smoothly, or keep some of the rough brush strokes to help establish surface detail.

That way you aren't just painting a flat brown for example, but there are elements of green and yellow and red that helps create a more vibrant image. It is similar to how you create color in traditional painting.

I'm sure there are different ways to do it, but that's the way I learned how.

Also, you want to use a brush that has the brush opacity set to the pressure of your wacom, but the size should stay constant. That's how you get that brush look. You can start with a circle, but you can also use a triangle or a rougher alpha depending on what you are painting.

PredatorGSR

Also, the reason you can't just sample a color is because what you are sampling is the result after it has been blended, and when you paint with transparency you are only getting a fraction of that color. The original colors were more saturated and had different values. So if you sample the color, adjust the color wheel to have a bit more saturation so that when they get blended and when you paint them with light brush strokes, they will settle down to the final blend. If you just sample what is there, and then blend it, it will become even more monotone.

Ghostscape

hard-edged brush, low opacity, layered painting.

Wells

Ghostscape wrote: »

hard-edged brush, low opacity, layered painting.

yup. this.

MainManiac

See but what exactly do you paint? You cant just make blobs or make a bunch of lines because it still doesn't look natural...

sprunghunt

frell wrote: »

See but what exactly do you paint? You cant just make blobs or make a bunch of lines because it still doesn't look natural...

the trick is to make natural looking blobs and lines...

Are you trying to achieve a realistic surface? the only surface I can think of that you'd hand paint in this way for realism would be something that's been hand painted in real life. Like drywall that's been painted with a roller brush.

If you're doing something with a bit of style to it then you've just got to harness your sense of flair. Go with the flow.