Experimenting with Mood in Painting.
Dev Diary #9
After learning and experimenting with colour and tone in painting within our in-person Art Skills for Games classes, we were set the task of using another of our photos to paint a scene to the theme of horror or fantasy. When setting out to start this task, I reviewed the photos I had previously taken and decided on my photo taken from Victoria Park of some trees in Autumn, with the leaves scattered across the path. I chose this photo as I felt it had so many bright colours that might be interesting to experiment with such as the vibrant orange trees and subtle greens in the background. Due to not having my own paints on me, I decided to complete this task digitally and use the tools and techniques learnt in our digital art classes to help create the painting.
By making the reference image greyscale, I found it easier to block in colour using a monochromatic colour palette. As well as this, it helps to highlight the light and shadows better than the original colour image. With the painting replicated in greyscale, it was time to add colour and experiment with the mood of the piece. I decided to use Clip Studio Paint's 'gradient map' tool to easily overlay colour onto the greyscale painting as it would save time, however after experimenting with this tool repeatedly, I felt the results did not accurately convey different moods and decided to start over.
After having experimented with the gradient tool, I decided to go back to a more traditional approach and, after replicating a new image in greyscale, change the colour of each layer manually. This time, I kept the detail to a minimum and focused more on the shapes, colour and tone of the image. I found this method took longer to work with, but I felt it was ultimately better as it allowed me to be more selective of exactly what colours I wanted to use and experiment with the tone and more complementary colour palettes. Whilst this method let me explore colour palettes better, I struggled to create a piece that conveyed a clear mood and settled with two new pieces, one with a cold tone and one that is warm.
After having created these digital paintings, I went back to the task brief and remembered that I was meant to create a painting with either a fantasy or horror mood. Realizing this, I decided that I would revisit this task again later and re-attempt to create these paintings with horror and fantasy vibes. Whilst I was unhappy with what I created during this task, it hasn't been a waste of time as it let me experiment with tools such as the gradient map and understand which are better for creating different effects in digital painting.
