Because I was imagining this as a scene from a movie, I played around with some additional layers of film grain from a 70s movie. Of course I had to change the dimensions of the canvas so I expanded it, and added more background. I feel it gives it a nice touch.
The original line art was done for Inktober 2021 day 14.
With the idea of paying homage to the final scene where Jackie Chan defeats the Eagle clans master, I chose to make the background have that Chinese mountains look. For the Naoko painting I did last time I went for a flat painting style. This time I went for for my current painting style. I started with Tao Pai Pai and then painted Goku. Tao Pai Pai was actually quite simple, Goku’s hair though I had to think about. How could I keep his iconic hair style but also make it not so flat. That’s why I started playing around with crazy hair strands going every which way. I quite like what I ended up with. For the line art, I had an idea that I had in mind for a while. Usually I was selecting the white areas around the line art sot that I could isolate them from the background. But selecting the line art only and making a separate layer and filling it with the paint bucket tool. From there the line art is now isolated and I can modify it any way that I want. This has made the process much simpler. On top of that I started changing the color of the line art so that it’s not just black which I think gives the painting more versatility.
This is a double feature of sorts. I will be doing two types of painting on this drawing of Goku which has been drawn with ink. I first used watercolors to paint Goku and then I painted him again digitally using Corel Painter 2020. The time between each was very noticeable. The traditional painting took and the digital painting took me only . I really have to think about how I advance after every movement. Meanwhile with digital painting, I seem to have more experience and I can make as many mistakes as I want since I can undo right away. But I guess that doesn’t completely transfer over to traditional. Although I can go as detailed as I want, it might be better if I develop a simpler style like Little Thunders which can be so versatile but not overworked.
This painting has made it clear that I should practice more with watercolors. One other thing I remembered, don’t ink your drawing if you will be using watercolors on it (this is only if the inks aren’t waterproof). Otherwise they will smudge when painting. Instead, go over the lines by pressing hard on them using a pencil (I mean I know this, I don’t know why I didn’t remember). Then erase everything. If done correctly, the lines will be visible even when painting over them. One you are done painting, the line art process can finally be done. This can be done with ink, color pencils or more watercolors.