Playing with Freddie

With nothing else springing to mind and boredom edging dangerously near, I resorted to my nine-hundred-and-eighty-seventh attempt at Freddie Mercury, here taken from the Princes of the Universe video. This was drawn not in Photoshop but this time in a program I’ve never tried before: Corel Painter.

I’d heard a lot about it, and how excellent it apparently is for digital painting. I mean, I was just wandering around pressing buttons and not really having a clue – no change there! ahahaha – but it’s clear that such comments aren’t without foundation. There’s a huge box of tools for you to play with, but it’s when you start putting marks down that the fun begins. Unlike Photoshop, where layers are standalone, on Painter your brush strokes actually react to others as per the traditional medium. This means you get the pleasing mid-tones and also the terrifying, grotty, how-on-earth-am-I-going-to-rectify-that mistakes that are the norm for those woeful at traditional painting, as I am. Thankfully, like Photoshop, they have given you an eraser.

As I’ve said in the past, I don’t tend to call the works I generally put up here ‘digital paintings’, because they’re not really digital paintings, they’re digital sketches. I just create shades or highlights all one one layer (usually), and then optionally use Photoshop’s blending magic to place colour over the top. Having to switch tack and work like a painter is a bit of a kick up the arse, and a reminder that I’ve a hell of a lot to learn.

This was the product of me playing around with Corel Painter for a little while. Forgive the background too, chalk it up to experimentation. It’s not my best Freddie by any stretch, but it was a lot of fun watching the program blend the colours so intuitively, and it’s at least produced something different to the usual. I have thirty days left to break it, so we’ll see if anything betters comes of my dabbling. As for Painter, I’m not sure it could ever take Photoshop’s place in my heart, but I would definitely recommend a look to anyone interested in trying digital art. The trial is fully-functional and free for thirty days. Any artist who has cut their teeth on Photoshop won’t take long to settle in and it looks incredible – this is just scratching the very surface. If you know what you’re doing, you’ll have a blast!

• Art
• corel painter
• digital painting
• freddie mercury
• painting
• portrait
• princes of the universe
• queen