The Panda With a Pearl Earring: Part 2!

Hi Jammers, Arctic here!

Goodness, it has been a while hasn't it? From computer issues to getting sick to travels, this has been a hectic couple of weeks!

With my computer breaking down, I was very worried that I would lose all my files (and thereby losing the progress I made on my current masterpiece as well!). Fortunately, we were able to recover everything - and nothing was lost!

Anywho, if you've been keeping up with my most recent posts, you'll know that I am taking on a pretty ambitious summer Masterpiece project! For this project, I am making an AJ-version of a famous painting. I am parodying a painting called The Girl With a Pearl Earring and replacing the main figure with Liza!

Here is the original for reference:

And here is where we were last week:

Now, let's see what progress I made, shall we?

Now if you recall from my last post, I started out with a rough sketch and then some basic colouring. This week I started some of the more major details such as shading and highlighting!

I started out with some very rough colouring for details using the basic paint brush. I personally thought it looked pretty cool like this - sort of like an old comic book? But, graphic pop isn't the style I was going for so I softened it out after laying out some of the main colours. I also changed the mouth a little bit to better reflect the original painting.

Below we see the image after I took the smudge brush and softened everything up a bit. Now the lines are a lot less harsh and the colours blend better together, giving off a more paint-like feel (which is what I am going for!)

This masterpiece has been pretty difficult for me as it is a different method than what I am used to! Typically, I just use the airbrush for everything, but I was determined to try out a different style and stay true to the original feel of the painting. That's not to say I won't be using some airbrush later on, though!

Speaking of airbrush, I think that's probably what I'll be doing for next week - now that I have the softness I need, I want to come back in with some texture and some extra blending which will require the airbrush!

That's all for this week, folks! Stay tuned for next time!