In a Tavern

My third sketch was created because of temptation of trying something different than before. Main action was always happening on a ship and this time it screamed for a change. This is why I decided to draw a scene on a shore. There is also a slight change in presentation of my character. Until now I was focusing on creating perfect image of my character. My new drawing presents a bit of bad habits of sailors, berthing to the harbor. Clarice, as a part of a crew, does not stand out from guys and starts drinking contest, emptying mugs full of ale. 

This scene seemed quite interesting to me and I really wanted to show interactions between sailors. Their profession requires a lot of trust to each other and this is why they fell comfortable to celebrate with their mates.

I’ve always wanted to try drawing a scene like that. In my mind, I had a vision of lighting and it made me really excited to start working.

As always I found some references that became my main source of inspiration. 

For lighting in old taverns usually is pretty poor, I immediately thought of very high contrast between light and shade. Automatic response to that was me looking at light and shade master’s work – Caravaggio.

 His paintings always intrigued me and I felt even more encouraged to start.

Here are also some references I was using for designing tavern’s interior. Although you can’t see much of it, it still needs a proper atmosphere. 

With a constant use of references, my work has started. First thing to do was adding a base color and some highlights for candles’ glow.

 First layer at the background turned out to be too dark so I added slightly lighter marks on a walls. I was also considering another light source so I’ve placed a draft of chandelier to check if that will fit or not. To me, it definitely brightens the whole scene.

Starting to add colors. I set the blue jacket as a uniform for the ship’s crew. It’s an English ship and it’s sailors used to be well dressed(or at least the same).

 More and more layers added to bring shapes to life. I added some glow on characters, which will be my guide for the future painting. Now my focus stopped on Clarice. Here, I was changing her facial features and tested colors on her hair.

Then I decided to darken her whole silhouette for the previous one looked like pasted from another picture. At this point I was also establishing which parts of her body should be hidden in a shade and which lit. As candles stood on a table, the front of her body should be bright, once the back remained dark. At this picture you can see my guiding line running along neck and jaw’s shape. These are parts where the light can reach. The rest of the face is hidden behind the mug and according to candles position,  it will cast the shadow on face. For now, I left the chandelier as a possibility and I’ll see what it will look like later.  

On the next stage I thought that the image is missing something. I considered another, stronger source of light which could be a fireplace. As this new light appeared in a scene, I quickly marked it’s glow on a characters.  This simple action really helps in future painting.

 At this point I realized that I’m going in a wrong direction. I asked for feedback to solve my doubts and my objections proved to be true. One of the problems was darkness, which I was insisting on so badly. Now the picture was too dark and it also might be confusing for the audience. Dark colors suggest bad intentions and the tavern looks like the spot for criminals, not like a cozy place for right men. I decided to change it and layered different palette of colors.

Although brighter, the picture looked terrible.  I started working on character thinking that I can still fix everything but the more time I spent on this image, the more I hated it. Clarice looks flat and has no shading on herself. All of a sudden candle glow disappear and at the moment no one could tell where the light is coming from. It looks like 18^th century tavern had electric lamps in a ceiling because the whole room is lit on the same level. This was not the effect I wanted and my decision was to abandon this version of a picture and start it all over again. Otherwise I would be sinking in a wrong conception and wouldn’t be able to move over it.

Before I started again, I did another research on tavern lighting and tried to get deeply into it’s atmosphere.

 These references present mainly interiors so I used my imagination to place characters inside the scene and tried to figure out what kind of shading would be proper for them. I looked at different kind of light than previously. This time I’m planning to make interior brighter and more “orange”.

I also did very quick tests, based on references, just to try if my new point and idea has more potential. It doesn’t seem that bad so I finally was ready to give it another try.

New starting point with different color palette. 

This first image presents base for establishing main features for the image. This time, decision about light sources was made in advance. I chose the fireplace as a main source of light and candles for brightening characters’ faces. There are also marks for details like a trophy on a wall, candles and mugs on a table.

 I wanted to keep style of this image pretty raw. Concept art doesn’t always look polished to the last detail, more important is achieving proper atmosphere of the scene. Keeping that in mind, I did stop myself from covering all the lines. I wanted to avoid the flatness from my previous attempt and really worked hard, with an eye on references, to understand shading and lights. Very helpful to me was also establishing a color palette.

 I played with different brushes and it’s best result can be seen on a fireplace. I had a very great reference of fireplace and that was probably the major factor that helped  me to improve this asset. There were also constant changes in table surface. I was making it to look like wood but every time, it had a wrong tone. That’s the reason for it’s transformations. I made a base for the rest of the crew 

Here I started working on characters. I’m not posting in – between painting pictures but the final ones. There was simply too many of them and the only thing that changes were layers and textures on clothes, which can be described by looking at final piece. Just for the comparison, previous image was my seventeenth copy and this one is twenty fifth . I was spending quite a long time on adding textures to jackets. Now they don’t look that annoyingly smooth and can imitate a fabric.  If you noticed, I changed position of the man on the right, before he was rising a hand, now he’s holding a mug. Erasing his arm revealed some empty space that slightly distorted the composition. To fill the gap, I added some logs. What I don’t like at this image is the captain’s head in the middle of a picture. He looks like an ancient Egyptian art, where every character’s head was pictured from a profile. I’m planning to change it a bit later.

 Some characters turned out to be quite small so I had to rescale them.

Cleaned shape of the table and some details on it make much better impression in comparison to previous chaotic lines. I’ve got to say, I’m really proud of the texture of the wall. It became my favorite piece of the drawing. I darkened it slightly and added shadows on the edges, where light starts to fade and I think that small change, really improved  atmosphere of the picture. As you can see, I tried to make each character individual and gave them different facial features. It was quite a great fun and chance to practice personalization. 

 At this point I was playing with a floor and fireplace for their perspective was a bit wrong. I scaled the fireplace and started wondering if it’s actually looking better to the big one. Again, in such a situation, I asked for feedbacks and voices were divided. The decision was up to me and I had a thought time to pick. A small fireplace added more depth to the room but the big one made it more cozy. The bigger one was also closer and it gave better impression of light. Struggling between options, I decided to keep big fireplace in a scene.

Again, my characters turned out to be slightly too small so I rescaled them. 

The image was almost finished, there were still some details to draw, like mugs. I was looking at some references that showed examples of shading, colors and designs.

 And this is my final picture. I am not fully satisfied with it but I think, I made an improvement. I think, I met my expectations regarding atmosphere in the scene. I can imagine the warmth of the fireplace and cheerful voices. Clothes and poses of characters, on the other hand, look quite bad. I really need to do some additional drawings of clothes and research how they lay and fold on body. Now it looks cartoonish and I’m planning to draw things that look real. When I find some time, that will be first thing to work on. I think I also need to make some small changes. The mug, hold by a captain has quite undefined shape, which is far from a mug. I wanted it to be a wine mug but it didn’t worked out as I intended. Also Clarice is out of size, comparing to the crew. I’ll have to try reducing that mistake. Summing up, there are some things I’ve improved but there is more to work on if I want to meet professional standards.
Improved picture

Here is the new version of my picture, with all changes pointed out earlier. I'm not sure about Clarice size at the moment. Now, the viewer doesn't know that she was the main character and the whole attention should be focused on her.