Thursday, September 13, 2012

Day 31--Coyote Skull (again)

A better result, at least in terms of finding the bone texture more clearly defined. It's always tough to paint thin, highly contrasting things like teeth in a decisive manner. You have to get it right on pretty much one stroke because any adjustment is really obvious and usually makes things worse, anyway. If you've thought ahead, or if it's really central to the painting, you can paint the teeth and other such shapes by using the negative space. In other words, put the small tooth down boldly, but then go back and make it smaller and clean up the edges by going around it with refining strokes that whittle away at it until you've got the right shape. Of course, this presupposes that you're using opaque paint (I usually do, but some colors, like some people, are more opaque than others) and that your shape isn't surrounded by other, equally small and tricky shapes, as teeth tend to be.

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