Theda Bara - silent film star. Theda made over 40 films between 1914 and 1926 but only 6 prints still exist due to a Fox Film NJ warehouse fire in 1937. At the height of her powers she was making somewhere around $4K a week (almost $100K in 2023 dollars). Theda Bara is an anagram for arab death. The name was given to her by a movie studio exec who wanted to market her as some kind of exotic Arabian woman. Her real name is Theodosia Goodman born in Ohio.
Hand painted with Krita on a Huion drawing tablet. Based off a reference photo I found on the web. I consider it a fun challenge to replicate the “oldness” of these silent film era photos. The graininess comes from choosing the right digital brush. Part air brush, part bristle brush and part texture brush. The area behind her was mostly done with a bristle brush and a special blur filter. Facial features were done with the airbrush and hair was done with a bristle brush. A texture brush was used to give it that grainy look. Total drawing/painting time was 1.5 hours. My confidence with Krita has grown a lot since I began using it two years ago. I still have a lot to learn but I no longer worry about how to accomplish things. Muscle memory has taken over a lot of the mundane stuff lol
Oh, I love silent film and those utterly expressive faces! You did an excellent job.
And 1.5 h only?! Seems that I will have a decent amount of practice in Krita ahead …
Thx everyone. I’ve done a few of these “grayscale” type paintings now. They started out as a challenge but now I’ve got my brushes and techniques more defined and ready at my fingertips. I guess I could point to Bob Ross as a sort of inspiration for banging 'em out. There’s a lot of “dabbing” going on here. However, if it took me an hour and a half of actual drawing/painting, then there was at least that same amount in pre-production. One of my tricks, when trying to reproduce a photograph, is to chop up (crop) the original photo into smaller sections (eyes, mouth, hair, fingers, legs, etc) and then pin/position those smaller JPG images directly over the canvas so I can color-grab and determine sizes and shapes more easily. What appears to be grayscale actually has some amount of color (the face for example has a tint of blue in it). It’s simpler and faster to color grab than trying to blend or pick from the color wheel. If this was going to be an abstract then color-stealing isn’t the way to go. I’d spend the time to find the right colors.
Another thing too is the facial makeup effects in the original photograph. We’re talking about early 1900’s makeup. Silent film actors usually wore white face makeup and what’s called kohl mascara around the eyes. Those makeup techniques pre-date motion pictures and were used for stage actors who were dealing with candle light and oil lamps. In early motion pictures plain color skin looked grey on camera so they applied that thick white pancake makeup. The kohl accented the eyes. Kohl was banned here in the US because of lead. The effect is a ghostly white complexion. I mean… that doesn’t require a lot of talent to reproduce lol.
oh one last thing - be sure to check out FizzyFlower’s ESSENTIAL brush bundle for Krita. I used a couple of her skin/pore brushes to create that grainy effect. Also Bristles 3 Large Smooth brush (which I think is one of the bundled Krita brushes) for some of the dabbing around the eyes and hair. I used that brush for the background too. And the neck shadowing under the chin
Seems that I will have a decent amount of practice in Krita ahead …