Around 5 hours of work went into each of these spreads. Still not done but composition and colors are are on solid foundation. I’ll be adding more contrast and realism to spread 02 though. And in the end I’d still have to see the proofs to tell whether or not these will print as well as they look onscreen.
My work has oftentimes lacked deep blacks. On Photoshop that means the histogram never has any data on the value of pure black. Trouble is, there is that danger that the colors that look like black aren’t even near black. I’ve read to “never use pure black.” This is to my experience a very Western concept in painting, and it does throw a damper in achieving richer contrast. And besides, this doesn’t mean you can’t mix pure black in Photoshop on a digital canvas ala prima. With pen pressure controls and a lower opacity, the end result need not be pure black even you’ve got pure black as your foreground color.
I have made conscious efforts to spike up the saturation and bright accents for the first few spreads, but now I also made sure I pushed “dark” accents. I have typically understood accents to mean bright spots in an artwork, but the concept of a dark accent has been growing on me for some time now, and I think they are just as important (in my style anyway.)
Pushing the blacks in spread 01 allowed for a more striking sensation of form to be achieved. I’m also hoping that other people besides myself will also appreciate the sensation from Marina’s lovely looking face. I hope it doesn’t come across as too Chinese - I am guilty for opting for the oriental sort of beauty .
Spread 02’s description indicates that the hunchback oogles Marina from the bell tower. But in Tagalog it isn’t quite clear (to me and my poor Tagalog anyway) whether the bell tower is separate or within the dome of the church building itself. I decided it would be simpler if the bell tower was a separate structure. Nothing wrong with that from an architectural standpoint.
Friend Anson Yu mentioned that friars have their tonsure shaven (imagine Friar Tuck from Robin Hood.) So besides changing the color of the priest’s habit, I also gave the priest a shave. I needed to make the priest old-looking anyway lest people think he may have the hots for his flock.
And speaking of hots, I did imagine one possible illustration for this spread showing a closeup of Marina’s lips parting to receive the communion bread. I figured I’d run out of space showing such a steamy and suggestive illustration! For shame. Gotta stick to the story, so I just had our lewd hunchback taking a long lusty look - with matching pinky colors to boot (which probably won’t print very well.)
One of the techniques I’m starting to appreciate is the vertical flip. Under Photoshop CS2 that’s the IMAGE>ROTATE CANVAS>FLIP VERTICAL
. Sure, it flips the whole picture upside down. Sure, you can’t make sense of it. Most artists know that flipping an artwork horizontally can help you tell if there’s something wrong and that’s about all most do. Useful for checking faces and composition. Flipping it vertical certainly didn’t strike me as worth anything. But now from experience I’ve begun to appreciate the upside down artwork as a means of detecting balance or imbalances. You can detect if colors are working well together and if values hold themselves together much like the Yin&Yang do:
. Any way you look at it, if it balances - it balances.
