Big brushes? No rushes...

Well CA is still down (2 days now), but I decided to take a look at Rene Aigner's youtube page (one of the top artists on CA) - pretty sure he uses the big brush method. Yep - turns out he does. I also see his work is every bit as messy as mine, it's just that his brush strokes are laid down in the right directions and with no extra scribbling around, so they look good rather than messy.

This was one of the suggested videos when that one closed (actually Blogger seems unable to find it now - this is by the same artist - the video I wanted to post is called Digital Speedpaint | Feathers). I found it intriguing because he seems to paint more like I do - a bit messier - and yet it still ends up looking good - I'm guessing because he knows what he's doing and is able to lay down the right color/value at the right size with pretty much every stroke.

So I guess it comes with experience - eventually I'm sure you get better at putting marks down that are close enough that you don't need to do a lot of scribbling and overpainting to fix everything. Maybe put a stroke down on its own layer so you can tailor the edges, play with color and value, and whatever else might be needed before blending it down.

I remember being told on the board that I scribble too much and should use a bigger brush, and my protests fell along the lines of:

• But how do you know how big of a brush to use? as big as the character's head? Eye socket? 
• But I want to end up with energy, and I don't want to add brushstrokes on top of a finished painting - I want it built up from layers of strokes

That's all I can think of now. My own retroactive answers - I suppose experience will tell you how big of a brush to use - it varies depending on what you're doing at the moment. And using a big brush/economy of strokes doesn't necessarily result in a static, plastic-looking painting. That probably depends more on how meticulously you blend and fix things as you go. 

So now? I go forward and gain that experience, working on trying to put down a single plane with each brushstroke (something somebody mentioned on the board that was very helpful - and it wasn't one of the pros or anything, just a struggling newbie like myself but a bit more advanced. Funny how they tend to give better info while the pros like to drop extremely minimalist statements without enough explanation).