Chimera 1
Super Freak
Excellent job Man!! This is really top notch work.
RAMBO Illustration by MaulFan
- Thread starter MaulFan
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Damn! this looks like a vector!!! Great Work man!!!! it shows you the Photoshop is the ^^^^!!!
My methods have really evolved over the years. The first one I ever did, Darth Maul (I know, big surprise there right), I didn't use layers and just used the airbrush tools to paint and the smudge tool to blend things, it worked ok, but it had it's challenges. After that I did Gladiator and started using layers to separate hair and skin and all, but I was still using the smudge tool for my blending.
One day I was showing my professor my illustrations and he was impressed and wanted to see how I did it and when I was showing him he thought I was using a different technique and that's the one I've been using since. Basically he taught me about using selections with feathering and the gaussian blur to blend my tones. From there it just made more sense to me to just use selection tools to make a vector looking layout of the ones up front, then use blurring to blend it all. I used painted airbrush spots originally but found better control with vector looking shapes.
The biggest upgrade for me was the pen tablet for doing hair strands, really elevated the quality of my haired portraits.
Eli26
Super Freak
I am so inspired to do this..
How many hours did this take you? Roughly. Even if you're way off I want to gauge what time I have to take on such a project.
I thought your sig was a cropped photo. Nice work Sean.
Eli26
Super Freak
I thought your sig was a cropped photo. Nice work Sean.
Need a stronger prescription for your glasses.
That's something that's evolved too. For a basic human portrait, I can do it in 10-20 hours.
Rambo, with all of the back and forth, I'd say probably took 30-40 hours to complete.
Take into account to, that's working bits here and there over many days. If I could sit for like 8 hours straight and work, it might not take as long.
I'm always learning too, different ones have different challenges or aspects I've never dealt with, like Rambo's dirt. I actuall improved my skin blending on this one. In the past, I'd block in all the spots and just blend, and I'd lose some of the subtle details. This time around, I blended the large areas first, then blocked in the small spots and did a second blending.
There's a lot of play to it, because it's on the computer and high resolution, you can really get down to detail, and sometimes doing something may seem good zoomed in and when you pull back it's all wrong, or you think it's enough and pull back and not even close. Zoomed in the blend of the lips to the skin is horrible, but at proper full portrait viewing, it worked out well.
Like I said, I've pretty much got standard faces down to a science so those go faster, the specialty stuff like Rambo, Two-Face and Joker take more than normal.
The other challenge is fine detailing. I illustrated one of my brother's wedding photos as a Christmas gift for my sister in law and her and my brother went by fast but her freakinb flowers were a ^^^^^, soooo many little colors and lines. It's the second wedding photo I've done so I've got tricks for that, but it's still very tedious.
Need a stronger prescription for your glasses.
STFU Eli. Noone cares what you think especially when you can't use a complete sentence.
Eli26
Super Freak
STFU Eli. Noone cares what you think especially when you can't use a complete sentence.
Oh Marc, I know you love me.
uhhh Thanks for the moon.
*slaps a wide load sticker on it*
Eli26
Super Freak
hmmm.... Eli is wanting to install things in your ass huh Marc? ...
Hey now, this is about MaulFan's awesome work. Lets not derail his thread.
Seriously though, I really like your illustration work MF.
Eli26
Super Freak
Seriously though, I really like your illustration work MF.
Stop derailing this thread.
pffft He's just mad that the craters on his ass have their own zip code.
You're mean Eli. 
(by the way, why the preoccupation with my buns Eli?)
Whats your next illustration project Sean?
(by the way, why the preoccupation with my buns Eli?)
Whats your next illustration project Sean?
Eli26
Super Freak
You're mean Eli.
(by the way, why the preoccupation with my buns?)
Whats your next illustration project Sean?
I'm kidding bro.
Sean, yeah I would love to know what you're working on next. You're very talented sir.
Heath Ledger Joker is immediately next, at some point Batman also so I'll have all 3 mains from the Dark Knight, already did Two-Face.
This is the Joker ground work.
I also have an unfinished Captain Jack Sparrow, and now that I'll have the General Grievous 1:1 bust to see all the details I can't make out in the photo I'm working from, I have one of him to finish as well.
I also plan to do one of my favorite Red Sox player, Papelbon, at some point, and by the time those are done, I'm photographing a friend's wedding this summer and I'll take a good one from that and make an illustration as a Christmas present.
Balsquat
Public Enemies
Cool work guy
Amazing Sean. I had seen the eyes in your sig for a couple of days now, but never found the thread with the full shot. It is just amazing how you go from something so simple looking to something photorealistic. Very, very impressive!
tylerdurden
Super Freak
excellent work maulfan!
makes me wanna get back in touch with my long-neglected photoshop skills.
but i'm too lazy
makes me wanna get back in touch with my long-neglected photoshop skills.
but i'm too lazy
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