Tentatively finished, but needs a lot of detailing work and a few fixes

It isn't really done, but I'm not sure what to do to it at this point. I need to make some decisions. So I'm posting it now as "Tentatively done." At some point I might go in and try to fix some of the problems, but for now I'm ready to move on. 

There's a lot I like about the way it looks. I lightened it up so much because Fafhrd is supposed to be really pale, but in comparison to it most of my earlier paintings now look ridiculously dark. There's always been something weird about the colors I use, but it seems I pick better ones when I'm coloring a line drawing. The lighting doesn't really make any sense—I need to decide where the sun is and then place shadows accordingly. That shadow running down the center of his face says the sun is in one place, and the rest says it's somewhere else. 
 

I need to learn some serious hand anatomy

 

Above are some examples of competently done but uninspired hands. They're drawn with hard lines and very squared-off. What I mean will become apparent in the video below. 

These are drawn by Mark Texeira. Much more fluid and graceful in terms of gesture, and they show a solid grasp of the anatomy underlying the surface. This is not surprising considering Texeira spent some time in his early days working at Continuity Comics, spearheaded by Neal Adams, and apparently got some good tips and pointers from him. I just watched an interview with Mark, where he said for his paintings he does an inital rough-in, and when that gets greenlit he'll hire models and take lots of pics for reference. I'll bet he does that for some of his comics work as well. It would explain a lot. Richard Corben, who I talked about recently, also took lots of pictures of models to work from. 

Jae Lee. Frequently his panels are little more than extreme hands and grimacing faces. Those alone can tell the story, or much of it. 

Here's how Jae Lee did hands back in his crazy 90s extreme comics style. The best comic book artists really show what they're made of if you look at the way they draw hands. As bizarre and extremely distorted as these all are, they show a deep knowledge of skeletal structure and hand gesture. Which is not the same thing as 'hand gestures'.  

I plan to go to two main sources for hand anatomy—Bridgman (always go there first) and David Finch (who definitely studied Bridgman). You can also go to Frazetta. Guess what, he studied Bridgman and used that stuff all throughout his work. The reason Bridgman is the go-to for comic book and heroic fantasy artists is because he spent a lot of time immersed in a deep study of Michelangelo's art and ferreted out some of his secrets. 

Ok, David Finch video:

Since I don't plan to be a comic book artist, I won't need to exaggerate as much as he does, but I think it's good to know about it. I always want to aim high, meaning to learn a bit more than I need. If you learn how to exaggerate farther than you need to, then you can always pull back a bit, but if you only learn realistic drawing, then how will you be able to exaggerate at all? He puts so much dynamism into everything he draws. One of the best pieces of advice in the video is to look at your own hands for ideas on poses. I think the guy who's art I posted in the first two images above could have done himself a big favor if he had checked for how people hold telephones and guns. 

Impromptu Chalk Brush and Decent Digital Drawing

 No more Fafhrd updates til he's done, I don't want to spoil the surprize.  It's going well, if slowly. I'm finally done constructing the axe and the hands, and back to actually painting on the figure again. 

I've figured out a couple of important things that will really help me work on this kind of hybrid drawing/painting in the future, and I want to record them here so I don't forget. 

Chalk Brush

First, there doesn't seem to be a chalk brush anymore in Elements. It was one of my favorites. But I've found a way to chalk up whatever brush you're using—just open Brush Settings and raise the scatter. Simple. 

Drawing decent lines digitally

Second, a way to make lines that match the pencil lines, and also this allows me to draw much more accurately with the stylus. You don't just make a sinlge line and leave it, you go back and forth between cutting in and cutting out. meaning make the line, but make it thick and chunky, and then come in with background color and cut in along the edges to shape it. You do this a few times each way and you can make a decent facsimile of my type of pencil drawing with the built-up thick linework. I use a blend of both soft and hard round brushes for it. 

Getting hands on

 

Finally putting some hands on him. I knew I'd never be able to draw them digitally as well as I can draw in pencil, so I cheated. I looked up pictures of men holding axes, lopped off hands in just about the right positions, and Frankensteined them on. I had to do a lot of finagling and adjusting. Luckily the lighting was just about right for his right hand, but as you can see, for the left hand it's backwards. I need to reverse it, so there's light where there's currently shadow, and vice versa. 

Right now I have the photo hands pasted on, but I'm painting over them so nothing will remain of the original photo elements. 

This torturous experience has made me tell myself over and over that I need to start with a fully developed pencil drawing, where all mistakes have been corrected already and everything is in there, nothing left to invent in photoshop. I've never done that yet. And I suppose I could fix a few things digitally before I start coloring, but it needs to be all done before I start adding color. I need to have that pencil drawing as a layer on top so all coloring is done underneath it. Once you get them stuck together it gets crazy.