Tiny Tigers

Panthera

Illustration created to help promote the efforts of wild cat conservation group, Panthera, published in the November/December 2012 issue of Bare Essentials magazine (see pg 68 for Panthera illustration).

Speedpaint 25 - Tiger 2

I downloaded some new texture brushes the other day. Thought I'd do a close-up of a tiger to figure out some fur painting techniques. Haven't figured out a technique that works yet, but it's a start. I'll keep working at it.

This time I painted the figure before the background. I wanted to put all my time and effort into the tiger since he was the primary focus of the composition. I used less saturated colors on the background to try to get the tiger to "pop" more.

Photoshop CS3, 59 minutes.

Speedpaint 24 - Tiger

For this speedpaint, I tried a different approach. As always, I work from back to front, blocking in the background before moving onto the figure. The difference is that this time, I started with the lightest colors and built up to the darkest shades (sort of like using watercolors), whereas in previous pieces, I started with my darkest colors first, and worked up to my lightest colors. As a result, the finished piece has a slightly more pastel color palette.

Photoshop CS3, 45 minutes.