Oh goodness, Seedlet's Doodles

Aww, that's amazing Really, a very beautiful portrait! The skin texture is spot on
i sure hope that you keep us posted about your explorations !?

thank you very much Jim! I hope to be posting some pretty great stuff in the future if I can crawl out of my art shell and get a little more comfortable with experimenting.

...But until that happens, here's a WIP, haha. It's some Fable III fan art. I would like to reiterate that I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I AM DOING. I do everything in the wrong order, everything I paint looks AWFUL until the last 1/4 of the process, I redo and redo and redo until things look the way I like. This is NOWHERE NEAR done. Maybe like. 1/4 of the way done. Will it ever be done? Maybe. But don't judge too harshly until then, haha. I am MUCH better at just straight-up copying than I am creating my own stuff. Ugh.

Gif of all the saves so far

Aaand for good measure, a generic overly colorful head I am too lazy to clean up

Hi Seedlet!

Don't be hard on yourself. This piece looks fantastic!
Even if you're painting from life sources it appears that your skill is quite advanced.

Of course nothing looks good to any serious artist until they're quite a bit into the piece, but I think Verve has a mysterious way of making the trial and error process much more pleasant.
I've got hard drives full of stuff I never finished... must let go - all these things are for your experience.
Experimenting is good for the soul and actually trains your hands and eyes to do things better and more creatively... just go crazy with Verve anytime you can. It's good Zen meditation.

All great layout should be preceded by a good sketch or thumbnail, that way you're not too far off from what you wanted in the end.... good logic... however, hi hi, sometimes you'll spook yourself with a sudden free-form brush movement and spawn something miraculous you weren't expecting. so... then you tell others "I did that"

Great deal on the animated GIF... I should try that.

Keep up the great work.

[Taron]

Hey Evil Seedlet, (hehe, still funny to call you by that nick )
Thanks for posting the little WIP, too, that's always fun to see! You have a very strong style that wants to come out, but it's sometimes a grueling battle to shake off the reference experiences. I've hardly ever done reference based paintings for the longest time and only a few attempts at it already shook my foundation a bit. There's a different kind of gratification coming from it, but it can so quickly look so sophisticated that it's tough to deal with the stages our mind requires in order to get all things to look right. There's form, there's lighting, there's substance and composition again and perspective and proportions and all that jazz that needs to somehow crawl piece by piece into our artistic awareness.
When we "just copy" a reference- which isn't easy by any means- we suspend any effort towards truly understanding any component of it such as all of the above (composition, lighting, form, etc...). We "think" we do, but in reality it doesn't find its way into the part of our brains that really helps us create all that from scratch.
BUT we develop an understanding for the painting process, which is just as important as anything else. Thus, all you need to do now is spend time with your free paintings! Just go at it again and again and don't stop! Your style is strong and- as I said- it wants to come out into the open for sure! I'm already excited for you and all of us!

Heyyy, long time no see. Got a tablet monitor a few months back, thought I'd try it out with Verve I still have no idea what I'm doing. Here's a water nymph.

Mermaid!

I like it - looks like a vamp too

Very nice Seedlet!