Video Game Painting by ShampooTeacher

[Asinine]

Just last night I was perusing this thread (I think it's one of my favs here!) and was wishing you'd post more stuff. Great job!

[ShampooTeacher]

...wishing you'd post more stuff.

I'm only one man!!! lol
I should have a big one done this week. Twilight fans will love it.

[Cerity]

Bwahaha! Be afraid! This sounds like it'll be good

[crazystrange]

ooo I am intregued...*waits impatiently*

[ShampooTeacher]

ooo I am intregued...*waits impatiently*

It's not video game themed, but here it is:

About half-done.

[Asinine]

I've yet to be sucked into the Twilight phase (then again, I'm still waiting for the Harry Potter phase thing to hit), but that is simply incredible! Like it or not, I think you're a very talented painter.

[LiquidKarma]

Nice!! That is really good. Every work you do is better than the last. Keep it up!

[Cerity]

Absolutely beautiful! I love all your work, and Edward is no exception! (Although I wonder... why did you choose to paint him?)

Do you have any advice for someone maybe thinking of doing some kind of painting like this? I don't think I've seen canvases like these, but your lines are crisp and beautiful. What kind of materials do you use?

[ShampooTeacher]

...why did you choose to paint him?

I was originally going to paint this for a gallery since Twilight's pretty popular right now and it would likely sell. (I'm a sellout! haha) I only gave myself a couple of days and didn't have enough time to complete it. Luckily, my wife is a big Twilight fan and she wanted me to finish it for her to put on the wall.

Do you have any advice for someone maybe thinking of doing some kind of painting like this? I don't think I've seen canvases like these, but your lines are crisp and beautiful. What kind of materials do you use?

The canvas was made by a friend of mine who is an art graduate, but you can find ones of higher quality from an art store. In Canada there's a chain called Deserres that sells quality canvases at very low prices. I'm sure there's a US equivalent where you can find good deals. I use cheap brushes I find at WalMart and medium quality acrylic paint. I even use Latex Acrylic house paint!!!
As for how I do it, I'm a little embarrassed to say that I cheat a bit. I draw a grid on my canvas, then grid the image on my computer. Then I just draw square by square. It doesn't take too much talent to do it that way, but I can't argue with the results. It nearly eliminates any distortion, gives me a finished product I'm happy with and keeps frustration to a minimum. If you want to get a cool black and white image of someone, take a photo and open it in Photoshop. (I use Gimp) Then simply change it to greyscale and apply a photocopy filter. It takes a bit of tweaking, but it gives a pretty detailed image with minimal lines and doesn't involve any mixing or blending.
The most important thing is to just go ahead and give it a try. It gets easier the more you do and as long as you have fun doing it, who cares about the results? The nice thing about painting is if you mess up, just paint over it until you like it.
Sorry for the long post. I imagine for most it'll be a "too long, didn't read", but hopefully it answered a few questions. I think I'll make a thread in the non-video games section of the forum to post any more progress and of course the finished painting.

[Cerity]

It certainly wasn't too long to me! Thank you so much, ShampooTeacher! I've been a fan of your work ever since I ran into this board, and I'm an avid learner . After I wrap up a few of my projects, I'll see what I can do at the local craft store. Thanks again!