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By  Danny Staten
Conclusion
Table of Contents | back | the end.
Finishing touches.
After I got the elements all finished up I used a final layer for the finishing touches. On this layer I went back and touched up things like bad stars, or rough edges. I also enhance any highlights and shadows I think need enhancing and do other really subtle tweaks on this final layer. Then once I get that done I add a signature. I recently decided to change my signature from my full name (Danny Staten) to just my last name so it doesn’t take as much space. You decide what you want to do with your signature. So with that, we now have a finished painting. I am happy with it because I grew and improved when I made it. I still have a long way to go but that will always be the case.
Final thoughts
I hope that whoever has gotten this far has found some useful things from this tutorial. It is a lot of work to put together, but I enjoy the chance to try and be helpful to other artists. There are a few things I wish a reader would get out of this tutorial. First, the commitment and effort it takes to produce professional illustrations. Working digitally doesn’t make it any easier. It resolves some challenges but introduces a different set of challenges. Second I hope that perhaps some of my enthusiasm for doing this is contagious, and perhaps you can in turn infect me with more enthusiasm too. I love art and really wish I could dedicate all my time to it. Third is the idea that you should never stop learning. Even a failed project is a success if you learn from it and are better next time. Don’t be depressed when others are better than you. I would have stopped long ago, and would find reason to stop every day if I were to let the fact that other artists are better than me get me down. Art is a journey not a destination, so enjoy the amazing voyage while you can.
Table of Contents | back | the end.
FARP Article Guestbook
| Date | Name | Comment | | | 14 May 2003 |  Kelly ´xeno_girl´ Wright | Wow! What a tremendous tutorial! For the past year or more I've been feeling rather lackluster in my art, like I'm so close to making an artistic breakthrough but don't know how! I think this tutorial has helped me realize how to make that breakthrough. You've helped me understand that it doesn't matter how good others' artwork is compared to mine, in fact there's no point in comparing, but that I can learn and better my art if I just try hard enough and devote the time. I can't wait for the challenges that lie ahead of me. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with all of us! | |
| 15 Jan 2004 |  Sandra J. Luthi | Thanks very much for this tutorial! It was great and very inspiring, I'm just about to start with a major artwork (for year 12) and this has been a very great help for me, so thanks! | |
| 10 Apr 2004 |  | I think you should stick to your tutorials.. much better than many others i've seen.. 5 stars | |
| 31 Jul 2004 | Anonymous | This was interesting, but it showed me how impatient I am. I have so many ideas on the run that I would never be able to finish anything if I followed your process. Any suggestions to satisfy my muse and be able to spend a proper amount of time on my artwork would be helpful. | |
| 28 Apr 2005 |  Amanda Jane Penrose | A very well written and detailed article. Like others, I realise now how impatient I am. Actually, I already knew it, but you might just have inspired me to actually do something about it  Thanks for all your hard work. | |
| 14 Jul 2005 | Michael <mmcclure79@gma...com> | OMG! This was absolutely amazing tutorial, just the type of thing I've been looking for. In fact the piece you used to illustrate your points has inspired me to do something similar. It really taught me alot and makes me want to do better. | |
| 5 Aug 2005 | UnKnown | Amazing article! I love it!  It has a heck of a lot of very good points (and very good artwork!), and it's clear and everything else...wonderful picture, and wonderful article! Thank you! ^_^ | |
| 11 Dec 2005 |  Emily Clarke | This is a really useful tutorial. I have recently started dabbling in digital art and found it great fun, although i have to admit, nothing beats being able to actually touch real paint and feel the layers through it. I've been using PSP7 for my pictures so far. Not having a perminent palette tool is quite annoying (if there is a tool i haven't found it yet) but i got round it by keeping blobs of colour on a new layer which i could delete afterwards. | |
| 24 Jan 2006 | Anonymous | Excellent work on this tutorial. But I would say that you should have been worked a little more on the legs of the human creature. | |
| 22 Aug 2006 |  Ele 'Beruthiel' J. | Whoo... best tutorial I've seen here on FARP so far!
I'm not terribly interested in digital art (for the moment, anyway...) but I have to say the most useful part of this tutorial was the first few sections where you talked about references and so on. I've been using references for most of my pictures, but not very confidently... and until now I thought lead-up sketches were a waste of time.
I think I'd convinced myself that professional artists just launched straight into artworks because they "knew" what to draw. Your story about your teacher was really helpful. I'll start doing proper lead-up sketches now... | |
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