Ultraman / Eiji Tsuburaya

Happy (Belated) Birthday to Eiji Tsuburaya

Well, I'm a little late, but since Google did a Doodle for the birthday of one of the main creators of Ultraman last week, I figured I should do another something Ultraman-related, myself.  (Here's a link to the previous Ultraman painting I did.)

I've had something like this kicking around in my head for a while and it seemed the perfect time to finally get it done.  When I was much younger, I always loved watching anything involving robots, monsters, and aliens... Y'know, general B-Movies from the 50's, 60's, and 70's.  It's a subject I will be coming back to again and again on this Blog.  :-)

I won't pretend that I am the biggest super-fan, nor can I say I am a fount of trivia or deep knowledge for Tsuburaya's works, but there is a definite, abiding fondness I have for them and the characters he created/worked on.  They make my inner-child smile.

For those interested, here are the progressions for the picture...

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STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils.  Originally, I was going to do a watercolor/gouache (opaque watercolors) painting.  I penciled everything out on a piece of 12" x 16" cheap illustration board I had laying around and scanned it in to record each step of progression.  I debated if I should seal the pencils with Matte Medium or not, but figured the board was thick enough to take the watercolor/gouache without trouble; after all, I've done LOTS of watercolor paintings on cardstock just fine with no problem--this was much, MUCH thicker than cardstock, so it should work just fine, right?  

Of course, within 10 minutes of starting the painting, the board started to blister badly and peel up.  Sigh...  When will I learn, and why is the answer to that questions always "NEVER!"?

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STEP TWO:  Well, at least I had the pencils scanned in.  So, I just decided to do everything digitally for the picture, instead.  When life gives you lemons, just hope you have enough sugar on hand to take the edge off the bitterness of that disappointment.  In this case, I used a large charcoal brush in Photoshop to do some very general color layouts and rough shapes. 

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STEP THREE:  More of the same, just building up colors and beginning to work on the figures on different Layers.

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STEP FOUR:  Even more of the same as before.

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STEP FIVE:  And finally...  I did want some more destruction around, so did the building as destroyed by the battle.  

It turned out quite a bit different than I had planned, but it isn't as bad as I feared it would become.  There are parts which are still a little "too digital" for my tastes... originally, I was planning it as a watercolor painting, and then doing a little "sweetening" of the picture in Photoshop as needed, rather than a start-to-finish digital painting.  Oh, well.

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Done digitally in Photoshop.

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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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