Very impressive! The scarred look of the wooden shield really caught my eye - followed by the design of his sword, and then the details of his fur. I think you're about to find a lot of success here :)

Thanks for the kind comments!

I think I may be painting more conepts like these. I'm pretty inspired by Blotch's painting work and aspire to get to that quality with the digital paintings...eventually. It's tough to reproduce the texture of waterpainting in photoshop, though. : )

Hoily crap. Faved

Oh wow, so much texture! Between the wood, the fur, and the background the textures are amazing, and it's a great set of colors, too!

Errrr wow? How did you do that? I need a word better than stunning to describe it.......nope, stunning it is

Very-very nice work. BeardedWolf up there pointed me at you and i'm grateful to him.

woah, amazing work, luv the detail on the fur and shield, and the lighting and shading is really well done :D

Any particular tips you got for adding colour to a greyscale image?

Heey, glad you like the painting.

Color? Not a problem! I think the best way to go is to make sure the greyscale image is painted properly. If you scan in a graphite sketch and paint color over that with a multiply layer, things tend to not look quite right since there's a lot of noise and white speckles throughout the scanned in graphite sketch. Usually, there tends to be a lot of 'scrathiness' as well.

Usually, I'll smudge the graphite sketch and add brushwork to it until I have a smoothly painted greyscale image. Once that is done, I'll go in and add in my base color with a multiply layer. Any extra highlights from the lighting will go onto a separate overlay layer.

Once everything is painted in, I'll use whatever tricks I can to get the the colors right. That includes hue/saturation adjustment and curves adjustment layers. Sometimes, I'll copy previous color layers and change the blending mode over. After plenty of voodoo, the final touches are put in and the image is done.

Features like bevel/emboss worked great for the sword and I'll be sure to use those again. Whatever tools are available, I'll use : )

- Matt Hein

hey great advice there, multiply layer for bae colour, then overlay for highlights, then a bit of voodoo, got it XD Would never have thought of using the bevel and emboss effect for adding that bit of 3-Dness on th sword :D

Thx for the tips, im sure they'll come in handy :D

wow, totally über awesome! +fav

Yes, the lighting, shading, the fur, the details, the quality...very nice! And of course.. FAV! }:=)

*would speak if he could get his jaw off the floor*

Turned out great! ^_^

I love the coloring in this.. just has a real depth of value :3 I <3 it

Wow, you've earned a favorite and a watch with such artistic quality. Truly a cut above sir fox. *bows*

I wish I was as awesome as you........ :3

Hey, just saw this pic in a YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LqlUrwswGc
That's pretty cool :P

Thanks there! It's pretty cool to see a tribute like that. : )

You know, I've got to go back to greyscale painting again. Your painting should have that same level of quality of this pic once its done.

- The Desert Fox

I love this such depth to everything the textures don't bleed into each other, there seems to be alot of emotion from the char...... I luvs