Siren - WIP

[Claudio Saes]

Hi everybody!
Just wanted to share this project, which is my first wip here at WC. Some (very) long time ago I saw a picture from a famous model in Brazil, whose pose had given me some nice ideas of a fantasy art piece depicting a siren. At that time I was really amazed by Mike Mayhew´s art process and wanted to try something inspired by his fantastic painting method. Based on my "vision" I started to put a lot of scketches together, as shown bellow. My initial idea was not to go into a extremelly photorealistic approach, but rather some interesting life realistic elements, such the mermaid but with artistic brushstrokes as a landscape.

[Claudio Saes]

This is my reference material: I needed to get some cool feeling about undersea life.
National Geographic mag has tons of great material, and therefore was my choice for background.
Ah! This is the model picture who started it all. Soccer fans may recognize the model: Daniela Cicarelli, Ronaldinho´s short-time wife (and headache?...)
Anyway, it was not clear if I should reflect her facial expressions at the final painting, and decided not to. Mainly due to her posture with the media and to avoid any extra legal problem.

[Claudio Saes]

After playing with some more sketches I reached this point.
I did a detailed line drawing, took some xerox copies and saved for the final painting.
This one shown here was done over watercolor paper with water-proof ink pen. I found a nice Faber-Castell product named Pitt shades of grey artist pen, great for sketching.

[Claudio Saes]

Next step: play with the color composition, and that´s the main reason to go over watercolor paper...let´s use watercolor to see how the color balance should stay.
I slowly built the color hues and tones as reference for the final outcome.
Do you agree that this colored version is nicier than the B&W version, huh?

[Claudio Saes]

Do you remember the line drawing copies I did?
Here you can see it over my support: 19x27 sheet of Fabriano 6. A good airbrush support and replacement for the discontinued Schoeller.
After filling the whole opposite side of the copy with HB graphitti
, I taped the support & the copy over a woodboard and transfered the main lines to the board.
Second picture shows the lines transfered with red pencil. Why red? I could´t remeber all lines. Believe me there were lot of lines, and when you have a 3 years old kid, you may not be able to perform a single task in one single shot - hehehe

[Claudio Saes]

After lines were transfered it is time to plan things over the final piece. I had decided that the mermaid should have a more realistic feel, so best way to achieve that is using opaque colors.
I worked into 2 main colors (3rd & 5th from L to R), and worked with variations of it, adding more white or more gray.
This will be my pallete for the mermaid human side.
You are probably asking when the hell I am going to spray, right? hehehe...be patient. Next post I will show the airbrush part.
Cheers

[Penny220]

thanks for sharing this with us

[Lucidwhale]

Excellent job, and thanks for sharing your process with us. I think you did such a wonderful job bring this piece to life. Looking forward to seeing more.

[billiam]

definately watching for the finish. bill

[Claudio Saes]

Penny, Lucidwhale & billiam thanks for your supportive words!

Well let´s jump to the funny part: The mermaid hotbotti.....
Once the mermaid got frisket covered we cut the "negative" mask out, save it on a safe place (out of children & cats sight). First picture shows my palette with the colors mostly applied.
I had started with the lightest color, fully sprayed to reach 100% coverage, then lightly started to fill in the next darker hue, building contrast between shadows and light according to the model´s photoreference and my detailled sketch. I also used some loose masks for the fingers, shadows bellow the arms and some parts in the face (better shown on the second picture).

[Claudio Saes]

I then go back for lighter hues and try to apply some nice color shift tips gave by Profesor Tim ( I wish I could master that, damn it!! ). But that is ok. Let´s leave the human part rest for now.

Let´s get some focus on the tail: For the tail I decided to go with transparent approach. First I diluted ultramarine blue like 10 parts water to one of paint. I did like 5 hues from lighter to dark, and with a number 3 sable brush (those used for watercolors) I started to add small strokes to simulate a fish appearance. Waited for paint to get dry and...
Then, applied a darker hue waited to dry, & so on
After the last hue dried I then loaded the airbrush wit a middl hule and slightly created volume for the tail.
Darker hue helped to get a sense of true volume. Very important thing: When working w/ transparents you should always save the white of the board.

[Milo]

Wonderful thanks for sharing this looking forward to the completion. Could you post the formula for the mermaid colors you used, I can't quite make it out under the color chart.

[Claudio Saes]

Milo,
Base color was built using createx opaques: 1 part red, 4 parts yellow, 2 parts white, 1 part water and 1/2 part extender (both to thin it and turn slow dry).
For the darker hue (5th on the right) I added same mixture above + 1 part o opaque black.
For the variations, createx opaque white was added.
Since you´re dealing with createx you need to make sure to thin it, otherwise it will really clog your AB. A good proportion is 2 parts of water to every 1 part of opaque paint.
For the tail partI had used transparent golden airbrush acrilycs.

[Claudio Saes]

Let´s work on the face now:
Fine line brush and colored pencils for the small details such as nostrils, lips and eyelashes.
Same done for hands and small body details.
Apologies for the out-of-focus picture.

[Claudio Saes]

Ok, folks...
This is how the mermaid girl looks like after frisket removal: doesn´t look quite naked??
Ok, still a lot to go...
Hope you´re enjoying this.