The much more clever way to do shading is to make a 3D model, and then move the light around to find the perfect angle. But doing it the clumsy, old fashioned way is good practice, and this piece is just about honing my skills. The shading made the bat lady more 3D, but it needs more work. Right now I like the image better without shading, but I haven’t done the highlights, the rim lighting (which will bring back out what’s getting lost in shadow), or added textures yet. Then there’s the background and final painting. Me thinks the shading is a little too soft. Might wanna’ redo it with a slightly harder brush setting, and a little more conviction. There’s also a cast shadow on the body. I’m not satisfied with the shape and angle, but am planning to crop it a bit.
Yap. I’m going to have to redo the shading tomorrow.
Below is the original line drawing, and then adding local color. I switched the pink around the eyes for a blue, but looking at it now I may go back to the pink. Also gotta’ change the eye colors. Too much red and yellow going on there. And this is how the process goes along. There’s a lot of trial and error.
~ Ends
Art & Crit by Eric Wayne 
Good piece. I like the shading. Your ultra reality style is interesting. It has an impact. (I’ll stick with my impressionistic, expressionistic ways. Is reality all its cracked up to be? Believable. A familiar realm.) Who is this creature? I can’t quite shake the CoVid19 bat connection. Bad bat? Innocent bat, used for evil? Bat on a mission to clean up the world? Bat, rhymes with cat but more importantly with rat. They bring pestilence too. Year of the Metal Rat. Bat and Rat make quite a couple. Keep going. Keep us posted.
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I take no credit for this style. It’s standard illustration practice with digital painting, and not my style. It doesn’t come easy for me, because I like to be much more spontaneous. But if I can learn to do this kind of work, than when I am more spontaneous, I can do it with more accuracy and naturalism. This is like training for a fight, so to speak.
I don’t know everything about this creature yet. She’s not about pestilence or infections, at least not yet. She may be evil, but very subtly so. I’m not sure. What I do know is that she’s very intelligent and sensitive: her mental acuity matches that of her physical senses. She also has a beautiful voice. She whispers, hums, coos, trills, and clicks in people’s ears while they are sleeping, though people are never consciously aware of her presence. I’m worried about her teeth. She’s definitely equipped to bite, and those are carnivore molars. Humans may not be her prey, at least not in the conventional sense, otherwise she’s just get on with the business of devouring us. Instead, she hovers while we sleep, sometimes wrapping her bat wings around us, on another plane of existence, like a chrysalis. She can watch our dreams, and easily remember them, and so knows much about us that we do not. But I don’t know the reason yet.
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Nice blog
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