Mini-Paint: Imperator Furiosa

Imperator Furiosa

Here's another Mini-Paint, this time of Furiosa from "Mad Max: Fury Road".  "Fury Road" was a visual spectacle and a fun, action movie (OK, I know it's a two hour car chase, but it's still cool to look at).  Since everyone and their sibling on the Internetz has done a drawing or painting of Furiosa, this is my "Everyone else is doing it, why can't I?" moment.  :-)

Here's the palette I used:  Titanium White, Zinc White, Alizarin Crimson, Cadmium Red Deep, Terra Rosa, Cadmium Yellow, Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Raw Umber, Burnt Umber,  Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Blue, Anthraquinone Blue, Dioxazine Purple, Paynes Gray, and Lamp Black.

Total painting time was about 7 hours for this one.  Lots and lots of corrections and repainting.

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STEP ONE:  On a 6" x 8" piece of gray gessoed hardboard, I vaguely laid out the colors and shapes using a #10 flat brush for the first 90 minutes or so.  At this point, there are a lot of things wrong with the painting: the eyes are too high on the head, the nose is crooked, etc.

Ugh, kind of embarrassing at this point, and I was half-tempted to pretend it didn't exist.  But, everyone's paintings and drawings go through that awkward phase where everything is gangling, out of proportion, and awkward looking.  Y'know, puberty.  Better to show the awkward phase and how it can be overcome, rather than pretend that everything turns out just the way you planned from the beginning, IMHO.

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STEP TWO:  I thought I was finished with the painting, even signing my name.  However, something about the right-eye bothered me.  And, the more I looked at it, the more it bothered me.  It looked a little lower than it should.  At first I was tempted just to fix it in Photoshop--move it up a little and cover my tracks, as I **FINALLY** got the eye to look vaguely right after an hour or so of frustrated noodling around, and it would probably be a lot of work to fix it.  But, it felt like Photoshop would be taking the easy way out.  So, back to the easel to fix it.

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STEP THREE:  I think this is a pretty good illustration about how much of a different an 1/8" (or, about 2mm) give-or-take can make in the way a painting turns out.  After repainting the eye, I think it improved the likeness substantially.  Of course, it's still not perfect and there are plenty of other things which could also be fixed, but one victory at a time.  (If you click on the picture, it should launch the picture viewer/Lightbox and let you toggle back and forth between the two paintings to see just how much of a difference it makes.)

So, kids, I think the lesson here is never be afraid to fix something which is wrong--even if it seems like a pain in the butt and/or covers a part of your work which you kinda-sorta like.  You did it once, theoretically you can do it again.

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This was done with acrylic paint on 6" x 8" gessoed hardboard.

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