CGSociety: Reader Tutorial 'Moonlight Lovers' Robert Chang, 15 November 2005 The older we get, the less likely we are to do something crazy and romantic. I've done some really crazy romantic stuff when I was younger, and I don't regret any of it. This painting is for all you mushy romantics. Yeah, you know who you are. Learn more about digital painting in d'artiste: Digital Painting d'artiste: Digital Painting showcases the work and technical skills of: Linda Bergkvist, John Wallin, Philip Straub and Robert Chang. Each Master Artist presents their digital painting techniques through a series of tutorials which start with the original concept and step through the painting process to completion. Available through CGProShop..

01 - While conceptualizing the piece, I knew I wanted to evoke feelings of classic romance, but I also wanted it to feel modern, so I had him climbing a modern art deco styled building and they're wearing contemporary clothes. Although the piece is a tip of the hat to Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, it's not supposed to be them. Plenty of people have climbed up on balconies to steal kisses--Shakespeare is not the first or the last to have thought of it. Yes, I know about the Dicaprio and Danes movie, and no, this is not a takeoff on that.  I used Painter and Photoshop for this piece. 02 - I have two ways to start a piece.  One is to do a quick line sketch, and then roughly color it to decide what color scheme/lighting is suitable for the piece, the other method is to not do the rough coloring until after I've cleaned up and finalized the line sketch into a final drawing. This time, I went with the first method. I knew even before I started sketching that I wanted to have a combination of cold and warm lights, and I wanted blue and purple to be the dominant colors. The poses didn't feel natural to me, so I shot some reference of my wife, and me and then re-sketched the poses, using the references as a guide. I always work on a grey background because the white of the canvas is too bright and hurts my eyes. 03 - I finalized the drawing with details. I got rid of the climbing vines on the right because I wanted the piece to feel more modern, with concrete and art deco designs. 04 - I blocked in the basic color scheme on another layer, and faded the drawing to about 20% opacity, so I can start concentrating on values and colors, and start leaving the "world of lines" behind. Although drawing and painting go hand in hand, and you never really stop drawing even during painting, but because of my background as a comic book artist (I was a comic book creator/writer/artist for almost eight years), line art has a special place in my heart.

	05 - I added the cast shadows from trees on a Multiply layer--this is now a standard method of mine. I like using the Multiply layer for large or intricate areas of cast shadows because it's easy to change them if needed, and I could paint underneath the cast shadows.		06 - Worked on the wall of the building. Stone Texture - Here's a close-up of how I painted the wall. On the left, you could see that I used a photo as the base, with the color changed to match the scene, and then just painted directly on top. As you can see, you can barely see any of the original texture after I finished painting. If I had known I'd end up		painting over all the textures anyway, I might have not bothered with the photos, but psychologically, it does make a difference to start off with a base, because it fills in the blank and allows abstract interpretation of visual marks provided by the base. Even if you end up covering up the base completely, it has served its purpose as a starting point.

	07 - Finished painting all of the wall and décors, and most of the room interior.		09 - Finished the room interior and sketched in the leaves to test out the arrangement and spacing. The handrail and the banisters are finished. Worked on her arm, shoulder, and legs. Also added the cast shadow from his legs.		10 - Worked on both of their clothing, hands, her feet, his face and neck.

	11 - Adjusted the contrast on the piece with the histogram tool in Photoshop. The histogram tool is a favorite tool for photographers, and since I'm also a photographer, I use it all the time. Worked on both of their heads. The bounced light on his face is especially tricky, because it has to be bright enough to see his face clearly, but not so bright that it looks unnatural.		12 - Worked on the hands and the heads.		13 - Defined the cast shadows from the banister, railing... etc. Finished his shirt, her camisole, worked on their hair and hands, and started adding highlight to her right leg. I emphasized the bounced light under his chin and on his neck because his hand is so close and would bounce a lot of light.

	14 - Defined their hair more, changed her right hand, and added more cast shadow to his right hand.		15 - Started refining the balcony, worked on her hair more, and got rid of the stray strands because they distracted from her face too much.		16 - Turned off the leaves layer so I can see the cast shadows better. Added cast shadows from them and on them, the railing, banisters, balcony..etc. Defined the balcony more.

	17 - Refined the cast shadows more, and added more highlight to her legs.		18 - I wasn't sure how much foliage I wanted or where I wanted them, so I asked Steven Stahlberg for his opinion. He sent me a critique in the form of this paint-over. He's great to bounce ideas off or get a fresh perspective from. I really enjoyed working with him side-by-side at Optidigit, both as artist and creator/writer. He gives excellent critique on writing as well. We still have a collaboration that's not finished yet--the ball's in my court at the moment.		19 - I changed some details on her camisole, lightened her hair in the back, lightened his hand, shortened his shirt tail, tweaked the cast shadows, .. etc.

	20 - Toned down some of the contrast on the rock wall, and repainted the lower part of his shirt, his legs, and shoes.		20a - Added foliages and cast shadows from them.		20b - Variation with foliage only on bottom. 20c - Variation with foliage only on top.

	21 - Finished version. Decided to go with foliage on both top and bottom, as it gave more depth to the scene and filled out the composition more. I refined the foliages and cast shadows, then darkened the foliage on the bottom so it's less distracting, but still provided the decorative effect I wanted. Added a cast shadow from her chin on his right index finger.		Closing Comments - Closing comment - Many people didn't seem to like this piece very much, telling me that it's one of my weaker pieces, while a small minority of people said it's one of their favorites of mine--Linda Bergkvist in particular--which surprised me because she told me that after I had already had a lot of negative response from everyone else. It just goes to show you how different our tastes can be. I personally have mixed feeltings about the piece--it's too clean for my taste and the composition is a bit static, but I also prefer more iconic compositions and I think the lighting worked out well. This is also one of the very few pieces where the result came pretty close to the original intent--we all know how rare that is.