Black Canary DC (upgraded)

Small Upgrade – Blonde Blazer

A small update of one of my older illustrations.

The interesting part is that the original version was painted while I was trying very hard to imitate Artgerm's rendering. I was looking at his lighting, edges and colors, but I didn't fully understand why they worked.

Recently I've been doing daily value and lighting studies from sculptures and photos. Instead of copying the result, I started studying the reason behind every light shape:

where the form turns,
where the light reaches,
how different materials react to light,
how to group values into larger masses,
and how to control the viewer's attention.

When I came back to this piece, I wasn't trying to paint like Artgerm anymore.

Ironically, the updated version feels much closer to the quality I was chasing years ago.

Sometimes understanding the fundamentals gets you closer to your favorite artists than trying to imitate them.