So...you all know im trying to get a realistic style, right? and in the process i've come across some really helpfull tutorials about how to paint skin and make it like "translucid" so to speak, cause skin has this weird colours i just really cant achieve right now that im sooo limited and stupid.
anyway...i just noticed MANY of the artists i admire and aspire to be as god as, use references...but...like just buying stock to PAINT over it....is this allowed? i got a bit dissapointed cause...you see, im trying to get there on my way...sure i use references, but i allways do EVERYTHING from scratch, lineart, colours, textures...EVERYTHING is from scratch, i might "copy" poses sometimes cause i find em perfectly adecuate to what i want to do and it helps me study if i "copy the process" (ie. skin color, shadows, stuff...everything legal), but i never TRACE or paint over...and i just find out they actually do paint over...yeah, they like buy their stock...but thats why it looks so amazing an realistic, because it is actually a photomanipulation, not an illustration....:/ and they say it is an illustration...cheating much? im ok if they say its a manipulation, AWESOME but when you say its an illustration...then i have a problem with it.
how do you feel about it?? im sure i can achieve realism without painting over, so...i'll continue my path lol, even if it takes me years to get there.







it's good to just take color swatches from a photo and use them, normal thing, but not dot to dot tracing
In my opinion it's okay to use references for poses and such, that's what they're for after all... But they should act as a guide.
Me alegra saber que tu sí lo pintas todo y esperando que sigas así ;D
I think they call it 'matte painting'. I don't mind for concept work since you have to do so many 'paintings' in short time, but I dont like it being passed off as 'paintings' since its just taking pictures and manipulating them.
try studying older artists? before the internet? I think there is still a few traditional fantasy artists that still paint with oils