Work-in-progress update of the Ithil bust from Arnau Miniatures after the second session painting it. It is painted as a drow with a dark purple skin, white hair, a shiny off-yellow top and arm band, red eyes and a blue rim light from the right, as well as magenta/pink bounce lights from the left.
Profile view of the bust. Same description as the first image applies. Except you cannot see the blue rim light from this angle.
This is how I plan and visualize color and light schemes in my mind: It's a shape based color palette display I learned at uni in a wonderful class called 'Design Methodology' and the point of it, is to define colors used in the 'design'(paintjob) based on their harmonies and qualities, after determining the intention of said design, while displaying the surface area any color takes up in the composition through the size of its shape. Thus establishing the color hierarchy as well. You can do this with any shape you want, I just enjoy rectangles for it :) And here's the light scenario I envisioned, which is, in part, the basis for this palette and composition: There's the main light source - I'm imagining a bright full moon in the sky, causing a neutral, soft and direct light from above and slightly from the left (opposite side of the blue light), lighting up most areas hit from that angle that aren't fully occluded. The secondary light would be the strong, also direct, object light source, causing the blue osl, which I positioned to be a rim light when looking at the bust from the main frontal angles. That is where I left it last week, and I just couldn't stop thinking it was missing something. Now, I've also been looking into artistic interpretations of ambient light ("bounce lights") and ambient occlusion a lot, recently, so the more I did that, the more it made sense to use a subtle, indirect bounce light to elevate this paintjob. Subtle because I still want a clear visual hierarchy. The third type of light shouldn't cause any conflict with the rim light, just support it! And making the angles that don't show any of the cool rim light a bit more interesting to look at as well. So to stay adjacent to the main color, the dark, desaturated, slightly blue purple, I chose a magenta as tertiary light, which is going to feel pink on the white hair (hence that tone in the palette). As an indirect light it has a subtle effect on the skin, but still does a lot!
What a difference the sparkly top and added ambient magenta light makes.
I'm quite happy how this is coming along after like ~15 hours of painting.
Added a bit of color palette theory - more info on it in alt-text.
#ithil #elf #arnauminiatures #bust #colortheory #minipainting #miniaturebust
