I remember seeing Ruan Jia used 20k+ layers and later realizing

I don't know how the fuck these artists get this level of detail in the first place.

>>2987597
pretty much all of it, pretty much all of art

It doesn't really require that much, but they should be the right layers from the beginning, knowing what layers come next, because adding more and more layers will increase the chance of a paint film cracking. It's best to limit the layers to the effect that the artist is going for. Some parts aren't much layers, such as the column and pedestal. Most of the layers would probably be in building up the lights in the flesh.

I would not say it's necessarily fiddling, because it depends a lot on the painter. If you're starting with paint without a design then it's more fiddling (with paint at least) than if you have your design in full before you paint. The traditional layered method which I suspect Currin to be doing a variant of is different than a lot of the modern layered methods.

>>2987608
>How much of painting is just fiddling with shit until it looks good?
For me about 70% percent. That time is spend looking for the hues, the edges, the values, the composition. I deliberately stop myself from making it look polished so I have the freedom to fiddle with it.

Only after I'm satisfied I can start cleaning up.

>>2987597
first of all, it's traditional so technically only one layer, maybe 2 if you count underpainting

second, it's not the number of layers that makes a work of art or even determines the quality of it, but it is an extremely autistic way to think

20k layers is bulkshit and pointless

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>How much of painting is just fiddling with shit until it looks good?
Yea once you fucking understand color, dude everything becomes easier. For the longest time I never understood how people painted in photoshop but once I learnt about the different colors in the face,lighting and that soft brush/chalk combo . shit got a little easier.

>only looking at the surface of finished paintings
>not layering paint properly and planning ahead
>>2987674
>>2987670

>>2987684
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_VPttA0i-6k

>>2987670
One layer in traditional, particularly in oil painting, is at understood at least to be a dry layer of paint followed by wet paint. If that wet paint dries and is painted over again, that's another layer. The amount of layers varies throughout the painting, however. A highlight for example can constitute as forming a layer that is separate from the layer under it, and glazes painted over the dry layer often have different medium in addition to the oil. That constitutes a glaze layer. Under paintings are not necessarily one layer, either.

You're wrong in the regard that a physical painting consists of one layer, but the amount of layers can't really be quantified easily as saying a painting consists of a certain number of layers because it often varies so differently throughout the painting. There are paintings that are done in one layer. This is not one of them.

>>2987676
Tell me about this soft brush chalk combo and also how to get to your understanding.

>>2987684
Ssriously, do you understand how complex 100 layers is? 20,000 layers is unfathomable and pointless. 10 layers is more likely than 20k

>>2987703
well this video by knkl really helped me understand/see what colors do to the face. (As of right now I use the video as a guide.) I also downloaded his brushes, which now I can't live without. I only use the hard brush, soft brush, and the chalk brush. Also I'm watching ctrl paint's videos on color theory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DMND846yjU&t=635s

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traditional paintings provide a smooth texture that can't be replicated with digital media thus making it look more unique and complicated when in reality it probably required less effort (but not less skill)

Where the fuck do you guys get the info of RJ using more than 1 layer. He literally works on a shitty 2010 macbook that cant handle extreme resolutions

>>2987824
It's not so much teh smoothness of their paintings, which is a factor, but it's mostly that they're layering color over other colors with extremely thin layers of glaze, which mix optically in the eye. This can't be reproduced in print, or digitally. You can get close digitally, but it will never have the same "glow" as a painting, when seen in person.

>>2987849
A lot of modern masters don't use glazing at all and paint everything alla prima. Most digital artists try to emulate that look, not the old candystroke glazing look.

>>2987597
Photoshop has a hard cap of 200 for layers, it's literally impossible to have 20k layers.

>>2987853
The example you provided most certainly did use glazing.

>>2987839
>le you need a powerful computer for art meme
I painted in extreme resolutions on a fucking atom processor tablet

>>2987862
I'm not that guy and obviously Bouguereau is a prime example of candystroke rendering with glazing. But not that many digital artists outside of some chinese illustrators try to emulate this look.

>>2987597
>fiddling with shit until it looks good
this is my only approach to drawing. I have to draw and erase the same lines 50+ times before they begin to look good, and then I'll erase and adjust as the rendering moves forward as well. No way am I able to nail a line before I start rendering. Now, how the hell am I supposed to paint Alla Prima when I do this?

You can't erase paint that much, right? and I use a long ass time to get things going, light has changed a lot in that time.

>>2987597
A lot of what I learned was just trying everything I could think of, fucking up constantly in different ways and listening to other artists talking about the same exact thing over and over in different ways until something clicked inside me. The toughest part of this art thing is that it requires your unconscious to learn it so you can do it automatically and have more free RAM in your brain to worry about other stuff that's built upon it, so really just keep trying and that mileage will eventually accumulate in something valuable, eventually. Listening to other artists and trying to learn from books and tutorials speeds the process along, although nothing replaces practice, feeling like shit and trying again until it's not shit.

>>2987685
Oh I get what Ruan does now, he simulates the effect real light has on photography. The insane amount of detail is supposed to get filtered through image compression the same way as the infinite detail of real light gets filtered through the camera lens.

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>>2987839

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>>2987939
is somewhere in between step 2 and 3

>>2987939
>2467 layers
>50%
>cintiq companion
so to be like Ruan Jia you need to work on a canvas of around 10,000px+ and work on the same shit for months with literally thousands of layers. cool.

>>2987849
This is the correct answer

>>2987597

This oil painting in OP was made by John Currin and was displayed in 2003. He made it over the course of 9 months of his wife pregnancy.

Looking at the finish in OP, it's certainly not Alla Prima (it has very visible brush strokes), looks more like van Eyck and other Rennaissance painters - which is accurate because Currin takes from them in his work.

So assuming that it was done in Flemmish technique, we have:

1. Imprimatura layer
2. Brown underpainting
3-? Color layers
Finishing layer
Varnishing

Now let's not include varnishing in our time calculations. Assuming 2 weeks drying time for color layers and knowing that painting is fuckhuge in reality and also looking on the palette, I'd say we have to deal with maybe 10 layers?

Remember that the initial drawing for underpainting also had to take time.

I am guessing around 15 layers for that painting, but I might be wrong.

Also digitalfags don't work like that. I was honestly amazed looking at some high-res digital pieces, they look like absolute shit up close and are nice because of very, very big resolution. If anything, someone like Craig Mullins would paint something imitating OP in very few layers, but as I said - on fuckhuge resolution.

>>2987948
If it's that easy, why aren't you capable of doing it?

>>2987970
That's even the point of his post, I think. He's saying how impossibly tedious it is if one wants to be someone like Ruan Jia

>>2987976
Enjoy being lazy and shit

>>2987970
because i don't even have 1/50th of his patience.
>>2987976
exactly.

>>2987976
>>2988012
Nah senpai, knowing that he doesn't use anything you wouldn't understand theoretically is not enough.

I'd go as far as say that drawing and painting is pretty easy to understand and to grasp. The hard part is putting in thousands upon thousands of hours of tedious practice to sharpen your intuition and speed up your workflow.

>>2987954
Flemish technique as it taught as the technique of old masters is not that accurate. He's probably closer to some variation of Italian.

>>2987939
where is this from?

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>>2988261
His blog on weibo. Here's his workstation. Rather humble one.

>>2987861
>Photoshop has a hard cap of 200 for layers, it's literally impossible to have 20k layers.

I assume he merges them when he gets to the cap. I bet it's something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBUt9tHBw_k

Lots.

>>2988285
Should use trad methods instead.