Robot Metal Painting

This is a concept painting for my other project (Jeromes robot one) and I used the knowledge learned about metal so far and implemented textures etc.

I really like how the final robot looks in terms of how real the metal looks...the rusty, battered look really makes the robot look more convincing and I used darker shadows around the bottom area to really make the top half shine more...I will texture this robot when it is modelled in maya at a later date in the project. 

Tutorial on Painting metal

I found this tutorial on http://www.deviantart.com about painting metal, this helped me a lot with the two metal study paintings. Learning about the different types of lighting on the metal really is what makes the artwork convincing such as bounced light and specular light. A key fact that I did not realise is the less texture on a surface, the more light is reflects and vice versa.

 

Reference photos for metal paintings

These are the metal references photos I observed while doing the metal so I could really understand the material visually.

I also use a very good site for textures called http://www.cgtextures.com 

I implement textures whenever possible within my artwork because its adds a lot of depth and saves time then manually drawing each little detail on a surface.

Studying painting masters

I am a firm believer in learning the fundamentals in any subject your interested in doing, also learning the history of the topic is just as important. I constantly look at the greatest painters in history and study their work and try to implement something from their workflow into mine.

Few of my favourites are :

Alfons Mucha

John Singer Sargent

Anders Zorn

I look at various aspects of their workflow depending on their style from colour palettes to  the strokes. Most professional artists today still reference the traditional painting masters and transfer their knowledge to the digital field which I think is a huge benefit for artists today.

Metal study 2

I decided to do another metal study, I did the same method as the first study however this one was more complexed during to more little details such as the nails on the arms etc.

I am starting to feel confident in painting this particular material and with implement this into the final project.

The final result came out better then I expected I used a lot more darker and lighter tones so there is a good use of contrast within this piece which I think makes metal look more convincing. The ball on top of the suit is something i wanted to add because I did not want to draw another helmet, so I simply created a ball and painted a glow effect so it compliments the lighting off the suit. The textures is really what makes this piece believable. So now I will look into finding the metal right texture for our environment. 

Different textures

I then started to collect textures and materials to see what would suit our project...deciding if the floor would be sand or grass etc.

I also wanted to mix and blend certain materials to experiment on potentially a new material e.g wood and metal combined. 

Concepts for the project using Textures

I Then started to use textures on the concepts I created for the project since a lot of the structures will need texturing in 3D