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Speed paint of an Iguana

13

Craig Jones is back with another speed paint! If you haven't seen his Tigger Portrait, you've missed something.

Theory Animation writes:

Here we see Theory artist CDMJ work another time lapse while painting a certain iguana we know, though some say he might be our own friend Ray in costume as Smaug, or Godzilla...

Craig shows us over his shoulder how he paints in neutral values and then over paints in color, and then bringing it all together in a composite portrait.

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

13 Comments

    • Craig David Jones on

      I think that the more tools you are comfortable with, the better off you are. You might try starting a texture directly on the model, then taking it to Gimp to finesse, or maybe like a friend of mine does - make brushes from images in Gimp and then use them in Blender.... all kinds of good stuff is possible when you think "and" instead of "or"! :D

      • The thing is, hard as I try, I still don't feel love for Gimp... When you have used Photoshop (I have licenses at my lab), there are so many things that make sense (live transform preview e.g.) or simply make life easier... when you are reduced to guestimations and retry on Gimp.

        I think Blender devs have been harder at work than Gimp devs to produce something people would like to work with. I don't know how to describe that clearly...
        I just feel at home with Blender, while I keep pestering at Gimp.

        But what you said first makes sense.
        Blender might be the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down...

        • Craig David Jones on

          I understand - I have used all the usual suspects, from Photoshop, MyPaint, Krita, to Paint.Net and a few others. I am just more comfortable with Blender and the controls while painting, and I know I can at least start in Blender and take it out if I need to - but lately, I have tried as hard as possible to stay within Blender, exploring the whole program from the view that it is a 2D editor with 3D tools instead of the usual 3D suite with a 2D tool...

          There are some things that each software just does right, and in a comfortable way, so I do not advocate one over another really - that is a personal choice for everyone to make. I do however feel that artists shouldn't be denied access to a tool because of their financial burdens, and I am so appreciative of all that Open Source has brought us, especially Blender.

  1. Craig David Jones on

    Thanks! This was fun to do, and I keep learning as I go. I have been following the development of the paint tools in Blender for years now, and I have been exploring many 'hacks' on my own channel for using Blender as a complete texturing and painting tool.

    • Craig David Jones on

      Thank you! This was a lot of fun to do, and I even explored the image further in another video by adding bump and sculpting the surface of the drawing a bit to fake the scales more.

    • Craig David Jones on

      Thanks! I have a lot of new respect for people that can describe scales visually, especially such erratic patterns as on this iguana :D I had fun, and I also learned a lot in the process. I really hope that this encourages people to experience painting and texturing in Blender, or even just to pick up a tablet and get some painting going on regardless of the program used. The process of pursuing art is uplifting :D

      • oh yeah! Now that I saw you drawing and painting scales one by one, my next texturing job will be much more detailed!

        This video made me realize I'm not trying hard enough! ..and I thank you for that.

    • Craig David Jones on

      Thanks - I love to use Blender to paint, and the iguana was an idea that came about because we have a character named Ray on our series, so a realistic version was just logical :D

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