Back in college I got into painting portraits, after seeing a friend of mine post some of his work on facebook. I was super impressed, but had no idea where to begin. I found a tutorial and got to work. I really enjoyed working on portraits, but then life got in the way. Seven years later, in the middle of a global pandemic, I decided to paint a portait for the first time since college.
As with all portraits, the first thing you need is a subject. I decided I wanted to do a series of portraits of characters from some of my favorite TV shows. So I began with The Good Place, one of my all time favorite shows. Specifically I chose the character of Eleanor Shellstrop portrayed by Kristen Bell. Eleanor is the first character you meet in the show, so it seemed fitting that she was my first subject.
To begin, I started with a sketch. This would provide reference for me as I painted, and it also makes it easier for me to start, since I feel more comfortable drawing, than painting.
The sketch didn't have to be perfect, but it got me started. Now that I had it roughed in, the next step was to add some base colors in and some indications of where I would need to shade later.
At this point the painting vaguely resembled my subject, but I knew that I needed to seriously refine the face if I wanted to get anywhere, so thats exactly what I did next.
At this point, the painting was finally starting to come together. I showed some friends this step and people were able to recognize who it was! Success. Now I could really get to work.
With the face refined, I began to work on the hair and continue working on the shding. I also was pretty much no longer using my sketch at this point, as I was focusing on getting everything as accurate as possible.
After a total of 5 days of painting, and after numerous refinements, touchups, and details, I finally had the finished piece done! You'll notice that I ended up making a few other adjustments to the face, to really get it to look recognizeable
And there we go! A finished portrait of Eleanor Shellstrop! Overall I'm pretty happy, considering I have painted anything, let alone a portrait, in over five years. There are a few things that I could still work on, but I was getting to that place where if I noodled too long on the piece, I would hurt it more than help it. I learned a lot while working on this, and I really pushed myself outside of my comfort zone with how I approached it. I already have my subject chosen for my next portrait, so I look forward to be posting about it in the near future.
~Josh
P.S. for fun, I thought I would include the last portrait I did, seven years ago. It's a bit embarassing now to look at, byou can really see the improvement between the two, which makes me very happy!
