Piece #8: In The Eye of The Beholder

I spent last week on vacation. Nowhere exciting. Just peace and quiet somewhere quasi-remote. The ideal vacation. While I was there, I decided to practice my drawing and painting.

I also had this idea for a much cooler eye than the one I painted for my last piece: an eye with a mechanical iris.

There's a scene from Star Trek: First Contact in which Lt. Geordi La Forge examines some strip of copper or some such, and he's not got his traditional visor; he's got replacement eyes with mechanical irises. That scene always stuck with me.

Well this iris isn't a recreation of that one. At least, I don't think so. It's been years since I've seen that movie and I didn't look it up. Instead, I looked at a bunch of steampunk images of iris valves. Then, I followed the same process I did for my last piece and started drawing without a reference image. And since, like my portraits earlier, since the first eye was masculine this one would be feminine.

At some point, I decided to use a reference photo, so I just did an image search for "female eye closeup" and found this image. It's a good thing I decided to use a reference photo. I don't think I would've done as well with the color of the skin otherwise, though I definitely shaded mine a tad too light.

Anywho, here is the painting I did:

I am super happy with this! I like the shading I did on the face! And the iris looks pretty cool, too.

I still see some things that could use improvement. The eyebrows still look a little unrealistic to me and I'm not sure why. Maybe each hair is too well defined? Idunno. The tear ducts and the upper eyelid crease look goofy. And the cast shadow under the upper lashes looks a bit too thick. Or maybe too dark?

Also, eyelashes and eyebrows are still technically hair, so I have still not defeated my First Nemesis. (Curse you, hair!)

Still, I think this is a huge improvement over my other eye piece.

Here's what I learned doing this piece:

• Shade the big things before doing the little things. I first started with the iris, then did the eyeball, then the lids, eye socket, and finally the rest of the face. But when I started shading the eye socket, I noticed that the way the shadows were multiplying with the upper eyelid crease was getting way too dark. I had to redo a chunk of that (I put the crease too close to the eyeball) and it was a pain in the ass to fix the shading. I practically restarted the shading and did the face and eye socket first, and the finer details later, which was way easier.

• Don't wait until you've added a tone of shadow or highlight to blend. Paint a little, blend a little. Do both as you go. It makes it easier to make those smooth shading transitions. Also the not so smooth ones.

• Do everything in its own layer. I got this tip from another SamDoesArts tutorial. I didn't quite do it like he does in the tutorial, probably due to a difference in skill level. I need more layers so I can keep things more localized. Easier to correct if (when) I mess something up.

• The techniques I've learned for shading with graphite translate well to digital painting. I've found that the best way to build up shadows is to use a pressure-sensitive brush in a multiply layer (wherein shadows compound) with light, smooth strokes. Darker shadows just require more passes. And blend often.