2DArtist — April 2017

2DARTISTMAG.COM

2DARTIST MAGAZINE | Master the Art of Speed Painting: Speed paint a dramatic fantasy scene

This tutorial will show you how to create a
speed painting with a painterly traditional
feel. Speed paintings are a great way to
help improve your skill level because
they force your imagination and also
show you which techniques are best
to use to realize your ideas quickly.

The techniques you will use will help you
take any photograph and turn it into a
fantasy painting. This will be done by
utilizing the colors and textures from the
reference photo. You will start off loose,
gently and slowly bringing the forms
to life in order to give your painting the
atmosphere and narrative you want.

01

Reference images: It is so easy to find
references. You can take your own or
you can do a quick online search or use image
collection sites such as Tumblr and Pinterest to
build up a reference library. You can also buy
(quite cheaply) big packs of reference images
on websites such as http://www.photobash.org.

I look through my collection of images and
choose the one shown in image 01 for its
interesting colors and atmosphere – it is taken
from Ben Mauro’s Matte Painting reference
pack, available from his Gumroad page.

02

Transform the photo: The first thing

to do is resize and move the reference

This is the original photo that caught my attention

for the colors and diagonal composition

Transform the image paying attention to the composition and

the quality of the textures that you will probably use later

Use the Mixer brush impulsively and with energy to

create realistic brushstrokes imitating traditional media Sometimes the shapes just appear as you are painting

Image printed courtesy of Ben Mauro

(https://gumroad.com/benmaurodesign)