Ultraman

Ultraman

OK, I decided to take a little break between projects.  

I checked out the entire run of Ultraman from our local library.  It was a show which I only caught a few times as a kid, but I was always intrigued by him.  And, with the new "Godzilla" movie being out, I was feeling a little nostalgic for all those old Japanese shows.  Because of that, I thought it would be fun to knock out a quick painting and post it to the Blog.  Something I should do more often, to be honest.  :-D

I also liked the series run enough that I am sure I will be doing more with Ultraman in the future.  I have a few ideas...  :-)

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STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils on Stonehenge paper which was glued to 8" x 10" hardboard.

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STEP TWO:  This was the halfway point in the painting.  I decided to use casein to paint the picture, which uses a milk-based binder for the pigment (it has a slight ammonia smell to is, as well, which can be a little off-putting to some).  I decided to play with it after reading James Gurney's Blog.  I like it quite a bit--it behaves like an odd mixture of acrylic and gouache (opaque watercolor) and is waterproof after it sets.

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STEP THREE:  Here is the finished painting.  For some reason, the brush strokes on the top half of the painting really showed through when I took the picture with my camera, but they weren't that strong on the painting itself.  Because of that, I decided to pull it fully into PhotoShop and tweak it a bit more...

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STEP FOUR:  After it was finished, I decided to just fix the background a bit and brush out some of the strong brushstrokes which kept artifacting from my camera.  I also digitally blurred the ray coming from his hand and added an airbrushed glow to the gemstone on his chest.

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Done with casein paint on 8" x 10" Stonehenge paper glued onto Medium Density Fiberboard (with an assist from PhotoShop).

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