affinity designer My First Digital Portrait Commision Done! By Leveraging - AD

[sacboi]

Hi There:

Was initially notified by email in June which coincidentally was not long after I'd jagged a new bill paying job, that I'll receive a batch of commissions for a set of figurative portraits from a single client later in the year. At first pretty stoked but at the same time tentatively thinking if I could pull it off, since I've not attempted any serious paid work for ages, well 1998...! to be exact using traditional media via a genre without mincing words, had previously excelled when a working artist, during the 90s.

 

So anyway, I'm guessing they'd hit on an old long forgotten post of something leading too sparking an interest. Therein over the preceding months amidst a plethora of day to day detritus whilst also week in/out preforming high risk duties as an essential onsite worker, throughout a series of nationwide covid lockdowns due specifically to the Delta strain, coupled with our low vaccination rate in my region...trying to get back up to speed practicing using either stylus or pencil, sketching like there's 'no tomorrow' .

 

Henceforth, finally taking delivery of relevant reference material several weeks ago, made a somewhat hesitant start, plus time-frame toward completion considering my usual workrate, at face value was a little tight (two & a bit months) however it's paid so needs must. Consequently, decided to lean heavily upon a digital format, hopeful in providing an efficient alongside effective solution meeting or indeed sliding under the agreed deadline.

 

Current progress, first done, actually final edit was yesterday evening so happy to report the client's response was an approval of the finished result.  

 

 

Vector Outline:

 

 

Curve Segment Paths - [Blockout]

 

 

Workflow Breakdown

 

For those interested, a brief walk-through of the process I've been 'tweaking' for the best part of two years, drawing realistic content utilising Affinity Designer. Personally I think I've struck a balanced approach in terms of technique out-putting whatever subject whether organic or hard surface, basically not that dissimilar too 3D pipeline tasks i.e.

• Background Ref's
• Blockout
• Base Sketch
• Refining Details
• Final Pass / Render
• Post Processing / Comp

Typically, when freelancing as a Portraitist back in the day I'd mostly work from photographs, simply because of a preference for painting at ones own pace and also suited my persona as an artist without the additional hassle of in situ sittings. Now this particular methodology is fairly straightforward, base sketch is blocked out by tracing an image, from the outset primary color gradients are initially layered down.

 

Once appropriately edited, I'll toggle over to ADs Persona suite of raster tools for texturing. In my opinion they're fully featured for my present need, default brush sets are intuitively user friendly including a fleshed out settings menu, quite useful when changing properties on the fly while implementing effects such as blur, opacity, glow etc, as well.

 

 

Although that all said, layer management is pretty crucial, when dealing with complex content, the layer stack especially vector / pixel combinations will propagate fast, quick! so keeping tabs on usable naming conventions is well worth keeping an eye on, probably mitigated to an extent by some forethought during pre-planning.

 

Each Relevant Stage Highlighted via Gif:

 

 

Generally, with some optimism can state I've 'ironed' out more than a few wrinkles drawing using this app which hopefully bodes well for  the remainder.                 

 

Cheers.   

 

[Wosven]

That's impressive as an hyper-realistic work.

But strangely, I really like more the line work and wonder what you would have achieve staying on this path, or not tending to realistic result.

I found the shirt realistic part particularly intetesting, since it's visible it's a vector drawing... could the face be done the same way without giving a robotic feel?

[sacboi]

23 hours ago, Wosven said:

That's impressive as an hyper-realistic work.

But strangely, I really like more the line work and wonder what you would have achieve staying on this path, or not tending to realistic result.

I found the shirt realistic part particularly intetesting, since it's visible it's a vector drawing... could the face be done the same way without giving a robotic feel?

Thank you, appreciate the feedback.

Also, that's a great question. After giving some thought too your query, I suppose a conventional vector line drawing could well suit replicating, for example's sake. Victorian period portraiture illustration techniques of the day, including charcoal sketch, wood/steel engraving or lithography which typically most were depicted with a characteristic cross-hatched shading of the given subject that in my opinion still achieves a high degree of realism using just line work, without losing an overall 'organic' aesthetic.