Painting Process w/Commentary | Leanne 

Its so special to see your process and while it seems so effortless and impressive compared to my current abilities, it's encouraging even more due to how you took the time to discuss the points where you wished to improve, showed how many different approaches/steps you took to try to get closer to what you originally intended, etc. I personally love how detailed and rendered your work is but I think knowing where to refrain is a very good lesson as well. I love how reflective you are and it's amazing for you to share your insights with us. I'm so thrilled that you're healing and look forward to your future and continued improvement and work!

you're one of my favorite artists I love these commentary videos they're very helpful

Hope your wrist does better! as an artist and writer, I'm always afraid this would happen to me. I began doing stretches to my wrist, before I start to work, in the middle of my process, and after I finish. I never had any extreme pain, but my hand does cramp up, but after I started to stretch the muscles of my hand it doesn't cramp that much anymore. Rotating your wrist left to right helps, also pushing your palm against your other palm like in prayer and going down while keeping the praying hand firm helps to stretch the muscle. I hope that makes sense. Hope you feel better. Love your art.

I love these videos. They somehow always motivate me to practice. Thanks for doing these uploads!

Welcome back Astri! You are definitely on the right track and I hope your wrist heals fast

Woooaah thats amazing

AND SHE'S BACK! WE LOVE YOU

Heeey! Glad to have you back!

Amazing! I love this so much.

It's insane how much you've improved. The jump in skill after you return is one of the most interesting things I've seen. I'm so glad you were able to capture that on video.

thanks for the insights, love your work and good luck on your journey !

You are an amazing artist!! It's great to know that you got very helpful advice! Thank you so much for sharing all the experiences!!

Hi Astri ! I thank you sooo much for your process video and your commentary. It help me a lot with my own art and to go out of my comfort zone and try new things to improve. Thanks a lot and welcome back !

Great job as always!

Thanks so much for this Astri! I'm definitely going to take some of these tips on board.

Hell yes I love watching you learn 😄 also the improvement is very noticeable, I was like "whoa she's getting to the next level now" even before I watched this video. I am excited for your artistic journey to continue!

Whoaa. I love _all_ your art but your studies have immensely improved your hard work

So pretty good job!

you are such an idol to me! keep going girl

Thank you for the guide along. I'm trying to lay down my go-to process and this was very helpful and it'll definitely apply this to my art.

Just tripped over your video, damn, your art is amazing, congratulation on your hard work!

You're amazing and a great inspiration. Keep up the good work and take care of your hand! Cheers from Brasil

Thank you for posting your commentary with this it helps me understand your thought process as i'm learning how to paint better :) Keep it up.

Hey Astri, thank you for sharing your exp with us! I hope you get better soon, fully recovered. And I would like to recommend the works of Mike Azevedo (if you havent known him yet). I think he's a great example of someone who how to handle egdes. Well, hope to see more videos soon!

Wonderful art and extremely informative video! I usually don't watch stuff this long from start to finish, ironically i've had to take a break from art because of exams crunch and hand/wrist pain so that's why i'm here haha. it's good to hear you're getting better. Thanks for sharing your thought process with us again, this was so so helpful. ❤️

It is super helpful to not only see your painting process, but also hear your thought process! Turns out my art totally has the same problem, overly hard edges and over-rendered everything because I also suffer from "unfinished-anxiety". So thank you for passing on the advice you got! And congrats on leveling up your art skillz. :D

Amazing!!!

Oh my goodness that SPEEEEEEEAR!!!!

Thank you so much for sharing! Hope your wrist gets better soon!

Thanks for this video!

*I developed tendonitis 2 weeks ago.* Which sucks because I'm studying concept art & I'm in Cape Town the most metropolitan cities in the country, I constantly run into artistic people which is great [but thinking about my future made me cry because I had no idea what was wrong for the majority of the two weeks] so it's good to hear you're better, it gives me hope for a speedy recovery

I'd love to see how you tackle one of these studies. Love your work.

u are my inspiration !

this is so cool ! she looks kinda like jennifer morrison and jaimie alexander in one i love it omg. amazing painting and thank you so much for the informative voice-over !

Thanks for making video like this :)

This is definitely looking good and shows growth. For materials, I'd suggest looking at doing studies on reflection maps/environment maps for harder surfaces like metal and ambient/irradiance maps for bounce lighting you'd get onto softer materials like cloth and skin. It'll help give you a way to add a sense of grounding your object within a scene by hints of things in front of the object (from behind the camera). Our common illustration lighting is very much artificial and typically floods out objects into standard diffuse/specular with focus on showing form. Just a friendly tip from a internet rando. Keep up the good work.

great video. nice to see your process.

thnx for sharing this video!!

Eutony.

Your story regarding the professional critique you received (thank you very much for sharing!) taught me something that might be really odd and counter-intuitive at first, namely to pursue the opposite direction with confidence and how subjective even seemingly "objective" art ""rules"" (for the lack of a better word) are. I'm very happy that the critique helped you so much and showed you what you really want from your art and I'm glad that you're eager to pursue it in the future. Personally (and please don't read this as any kind of backhanded "pressure comment" that you should do anything else than what *you* want to) almost all the things the professional artist pointed out as problems are what I really love about your old pictures. Especially the hard edges. I absolutely love those. But also the detailed rendering and the fantasty lighting. I'm not so much a fan of the looser edges that are quite popular in concept art atm. I understand what artistic purpose they serve and what problems people may have with strongly rendered images but no matter how much I try to like it, I just can't really get there. I don't feel the same way about them, as in, that they weaken an image because they are a means of overcompensation (in general - I don't want to judge or deny why you personally used them) or because they take the focus away. To me their crispness always increases my engagement and perception of the shapes and makes images much more pleasurable to read. To me those images feel particularly alive whereas soft/loose edges lack that certain "punch" that creates this feeling of strong immersion. They give me a rather "mushy" (meant in a neutral way) feeling and I don't really "dive into" the depicted motive. (At first I was afraid that this would make be a Bad Artist because I thought it was a testament to my lacking taste and aesthetical understanding but I've grown more confident over time and can now embrace that this is something that I enjoy a lot and that excites me.) The lighting point I totally understand and I agree that having an understanding of how things actually work is very important. But I also always loved your fantasy lighting compositions. To me they made your images feel quite magical and whimsical and I always enjoyed this dimension. Again, you should absolutely do what you want and I'm excited to see where your journay will take you. It just also made it clear to me what I like and what I aspire to reach with my art someday and I'm really happy about that, too.

First time to see your channel . Excellent work. Sorry for your troubles. I hope you continue to heal up.

You are doing awesome.

Hi Astri! I like the way you use color in Paint. I often searching good artist . It's always good to know them. I used to draw pencil sketch and make a layer on top of sketch and paint. but After watching your video,, I will try different style. thanks your post! it helps a lot to me!

Wow hahah... God bedring med håndleddet og jeg gleder meg til å se mer :)

Thx for sharing !

This was very interesting video, thank you! As to over-rendering and having a bit of an obsession on delivering a good result to your clients I feel like this is a freelancer problem. Working in a studio REALLY helps with this one (well, helped me and my friends at least), because you have a supervisor who just comes and tells you to stop at some point when you are just wasting time and the objective was already reached long ago. Because the objective is never to do a perfect painting, that's both not possible and not asked of an artist. Even if we sometimes feel like it is.

Lol thats me! Great art btw! I love your art style ♡♡♡

I can clearly see the improvement mostly on the face which looks more 3D more real... So keep it up with those studies 😊👌

perfeito!!

Dang, Astri!!! thank you for sharing all these things (the process, the advices and your thoughts). I am trying to step into the professional level of illustration and concept art and this video's been helpful for sorting out my priorities. I hope your wrist doesn't get bad again in the future. When I'm holding the stylus for four and a half hours straight I normally start to feel pain in my extensor tendoms and I don't want to know how does it feel with the wrist but I figure it's like a punishment every time you try to draw and that scares me

awesome

Thank you 😊

Cool

I Was at Schoolism Florence Too! Im a Nemo Student :D

Wrist healing progress, yes!

Benevolent

genial

Your ability to render and make it continually make your drawing better is both admirable and inspiring. But, I feel if you work through the rhythms in your set up stage it will help make things look less stiff. For instance her left leg could look more life like,natural,and comfortable with more " Zig zag" and not straight hard corners. (e.x. turning her foot out more is the easiest way to get a more life like and natural feel). Lastly I'd say look more at basic shapes in similar perspective(cubes) to the figures you draw and look more on how proportions change in 3-point perspective scenes.It should help your decision making on foreshortening. Also,glad to hear about your wrist is doing better :) Keep up the amazing work!

Hey Astri, good to see you're getting back to making these bad-ass pieces! Have you ever considered getting a large screen tablet? Like a Cintiq Pro 24 or Huion? I find that a lot of people suffering wrist pain are using the smaller non-screen tablets. I believe the limited space you have to draw really forces all of your movement to happen from your wrist - resulting in strain much faster. With a larger screen tablet, you can use your shoulder a lot more, and don't need to rely on your wrist nearly as much. Just a thought, it may be worth looking into!

I noticed you used a lot of muted colors in your art - but I am by no means as good as you so I didn't want to give me amateur opinion, haha. Your art is always amazing though. The lighting in this piece is such a huge leap in your work - I am speechless.

i think one of the things that can help u to get a grasp on these things is using less layer limit the number you use and it should help u alot in making you paintings look more natural and this will force you to get everything right from the start. i recommend u watch this youtuber called borodante he can help u with alot of things lighting and etc

Love your work! Can you please share some process how do you approach film-studies? Want to do thm too, but dont know whats best way to do them to learn as much as possible about light.

Jeg ser opp til deg på samme måte som du ser opp til Karla Ortiz. Tegner nå 4-6 timer om dagen og håper jeg kan nå skillza dine innen de neste tre årene! :) Gleder meg til fremtidige videor

It looks really great except your focal point should have the greatest contrast in the image.

nice work love it! :) for Azeroth!

your either pressing to hard on the surface of your tablet and should adjust it's settings or Another thing that creates wrist pains is. Not keeping your pen in the center area of the canvas. You tend to put your wrist in a weird position and that creates more pain.

most of my freelance is with logo design and more illustrator based jobs but that feeling of never feeling finished sits so strongly with me, I excuse the feeling with impostor syndrome because like you nobody's ever come back to me saying something wasn't finished it was just small edits.

The proportions on the left shoulder (on viewer's right) looks off to me and I can't figure out why I feel that way. I know armor looks odd when the character isn't wearing a helmet, so maybe that's why it looks like the left shoulder is almost disconnected to the body. Thanks for taking the time to share your learning experience and your thoughts as you worked on this piece. That's very helpful!

And would it put the attention to the character saturating her and not the background to create the contrast 🤔 (I always thought your color choice was an artstyle choice. It was Astri colors perfectly recognizable. Important is you like what you do (I like what you do XD) when everyone would do the same all looks the same. That's not the idea of art. Make your art your own. Your are advanced enough to listen to your idol and still go your own way)

Hi Astri, great job really. what is that soft brush do u use mainly ? would love to try it. anywhere I can find it ? thx.

This was a very good video with great commentary. It's great to hear you are back in shape. And the illustration is gorgeous. Well done. The looser edges look good here. It really depends on what you want to artwork for. If it is art for a card game, the image will be so small that is not worth adding all those details that take hours and hours to make. Even if it a bigger piece, other then focal point(s), too much detail gets tiring. Now a few notes from a non-artist who loves fantasy art (and obviously has no idea what he's talking about): The hair we see over her right shoulder feel weird to me. It doesn't look they connect to the rest of her hair and it is distracting, probably because the hair around her head give the impression that they end at shoulder length. Honestly, the character's facial structure looks way better with shorter hair than waist-length hair. Another thing about the hair. I think black hair would look better on that background lighting because the blond is kinda lost on top of the orange. Either that, or you could make the ceiling of the room behind her a little darker. These fantasy buildings with the big arches and domes were fairly tall, so the ceiling should be at least a little darker if not considerably more. I know you said that unrealistic lightning was fine for this piece, but a darker tone would frame her head a little better. I think.

you awesome

do you use a regular tablet or a display one, I think the display might be better for the wrist because you have more accuracy and less unwanted movement

i really didnt understand why you chose those layers (( soft light , overly .... )) instead of a normal layer can you make a tutorial about this layers ??

Absolutely stunning So you prefer Intuos 4 M over 15.6 Pro for further work. Is it a matter of habit or XP has serious flaws? I'm trying to make a decision.

I even wish I would have enough discipline to draw that much to get tendonitis lol rather than slack off. Great painting tho, nice to see how its done

12:10 anyone knows what she did on that part of the video? Seems really helpful to fix the values once the piece has already been colored

Do you still do the sketch lifthing thing? or just use colorize on the drawing?

would you know which brush you use to work out?

How exactly do you go about choosing brushes for various parts of your painting, without interfering in its style and bringing about overall harmony to your piece? I've heard artists say to use just one brush, but you seem to pull off using many of them beautifully.

I hope i can be good as you, do some tutorials pleaseee

About those cinema studys, what did you do exactly yo study them?

How do you nagivate your layes when there are so many of them and they are named layer x?

i feel like i have the same problem of colours with you and i suck at values too!! I wanna ask what is film studies?? i wanna try it out

Hope you're ok

The art is great,but are you for the Alliance ? Or you for the Horde?Horde is a better for me))

When you say film studies what does that mean?

What.s the name of your favorite artist that designed Dr. Strange? I can.t make out the name from the vid. Dors she have artstation?

Try to rotate more the canvas, so you protect your hand.

the problem with the face is the perspective.. you should be able to see under her chin from that angle the neck is to long as well

There is a RU-vid Channel called HM Massage, he has a playlist with self massage, i have done them myself and are very effective. Maybe check out the hand and forearms tutorials

Правую ногу всё же следовало выделить по-четче иначе складывается ощущение, будто её у девушки нет.

One thing you need to pursue is life drawing classes. That's one thing that sticks out as missing here. The pose is a somewhat odd because the various proportions are a bit out of whack. Don't get me wrong, everything else looks cool but the pose and the way the character holds her stance makes the overall image seem a bit disconnected.

>your wrist is in pain >using a tablet for 10 hours with rape grip it's funny because digital sculpture is very effortless, it doesn't cause ANY pain, but drawing on a computer will 100% destroy your wrist

Your painting skills are nice but her anatomy and pose are super weird and off. One leg on a step pose is ok but the other way around. This is not a good pose for illustration. If you actually try to stand the way she is, you'll notice quickly that her body weight is not supported by her legs and you'll tip over. It looks like she's supported by her spear, but her bodyweight is actually under her hip. Also the anatomy of her whole body is off. Going from bottom to top from her perspective: foot is pointing left, shin is pointing right, knee is pointing left, thigh is pointing right, hip is pointing right, belt is pointing left, chest is pointing left, shoulders are pointing right. Moreover the proportions of her body are off: her left/front leg is HUGE. Her foot is the length of her forearm. Her shin is the length of her whole arm. Absolute UNIT. I don't mean to be rude, I hope you can learn from this. Hope your wrist gets better too. All the best.

My god, get a hobby or something, you re too young to have these pains. Work is important but your health is more.