Connections - Flats

Having a productive weekend and able to spend some more time painting than I'd expected to be able to.

Here's the 'flats' process completed - where I've isolated each part of the picture (characters, background, various layers of props) and then coloured them in with big, flat blocks of colour.  Then, I've broken those down into more layers of clothing, etc so I can lock the transparency on each layer, and, say paint over all of those props on the bookshelves without painting over the bookshelf behind it or Matron standing in front of it.  Or, for example, I can paint just the flesh parts of a character without accidentally overpainting their outfit.

I normally post my 'flats' to here as a greyscale, but thought you'd appreciate the chaos as I reach into my palette and slap any distinct colour I can find into the image to create these separate islands of colour.

Speeding Up My Flats Process

For those of you interested in the technical side, I've tried a few things to speed up this process on this work. First, I'm working at a slightly higher resolution and making all of my line art so it's non-anti-aliased - which makes filling the areas with colour, much, much faster. And secondly, where normally I tend to paint the background pretty much in its entirety and then overlay the characters, today, I've aggressively deleted any pixels in the background layers that are hidden by characters - that'll save me getting a little carried away and painting background details that no one will ever see in the final piece.

Speeding Up in General

All of this comes down to helping me speed up my process.  And, for as refined it was before I started this project, the work I've done since April 2020 has gotten more complex but quicker to paint - simply the act of painting many pieces back-to-back using the same tools, in the same format, exploring a deeply personal subject has taught me so much.

Things I've Learned About my Process since April 2021

Major learnings so far:

• Clean Lines = Good
  If I can get a clean, sharp set of lines together before I start painting that saves me ages - in previous years I've spent a lot of time while painting trying to fix the anatomy with the paint - if I get it right at the outline stage then I don't have to worry.   (Although depending upon my confidence during some works - for example the 'subject' in the last painting 'The Discovery' I was confident I could go with a looser sketch than I would have for the other elements in the picture.)
  
• Flats Make Me Faster
  Flatting the art like this saves me lots of time during painting - I'm no longer spending half my time accidentally overpainting clothing and background elements and then spending more time cleaning up and painting back.
  
• Insta-Proofing
  Planning for Instagram - Instagram can be overly prudish so I need to plan things like nipples, other intimate parts and particularly restraints so I can easily switch them off or cover them up easily when it comes to the final exporting. So I plan those things ahead from the linework stage forwards.
  
• Variants = Fun (And you guys rather dig Heavy Rubber)
  Additional variations are fun - by layering up my art it's relatively easy to add in extra fun elements - like gasmasks, etc for more Heavy Rubber images. Not all my paintings are de facto Heavy Rubber - sometimes it feels right not to have everyone masked up, but it's fun to switch those things in, and judging by everyone's poll results, I can see I'm going to keep that trend going.
  
• No Longer Fearing Backgrounds
  I am gradually getting over my fear of painting backgrounds - so pleased that I'm making myself paint backgrounds on all these pieces - sure it's fun just painting hot ladies in rubber, but I still feel it's a bit of a cheat to avoid doing a full scene.  (Although I have a couple of single character paintings I want to do next just to vary things up.) I am however finding that I'm starting to pack more and more characters and items into the backgrounds now...which does mean it takes a while longer to paint, but hopefully creates a more interesting scene for everyone to explore when they're done.

I'm sure there are other things I've learned along the way, but those are the standouts.

One thing I know is that I haven't had so much continuous fun creating works that I'm really rather proud of...ever.  And I really appreciate the support of you guys as the financial contributions are helping me with the webhosting overheads but also also knowing there are folks out there cheering me on and encouraging me to explore my art is that little extra boost that means that every day I'm taking the time to grab as many minutes as I can to paint, to explore my ideas and to get better at depicting them.

Thanks once again - time to fire up a fresh cup of coffee and start painting.  As ever - backgrounds first!