Speedpaintings

Here are some speedpaintings I've done recently. I've been working on my portfolio so the only time I have for personal art is just a few hours which is perfect time for speedpaintings. What are speedpaintings exactly?

Speedpaintings were invented by concept artists in the film and video game industry. Everything you see in a movie or a video game, down to the lighting and colors used in the shot, started with an artist. In the entertainment industry there is not a lot of time, and a lot of deadlines, especially for artists. So in order to crank out more artwork, artists started doing speedpaintings. Speedpaintings generally take from 30 minutes to an hour or two. The point is for a painting to be finished enough to get the point across. Not a lot of detail, mainly implied detail. The things artists need to get across in this amount of time are design and mood usually. Sometimes one over the other. So colors and shapes are most important during this process, not details. Over time, artists learn to imply details using quick textures or brush strokes.

If you were to zoom in on the speedpaintings shown here, there really wouldn't be very much detail at all. Each of these paintings was done in an hour or two. Speedpaintings are also great for practice, and warming up before doing other work. In the examples shown here, I was mainly practicing lighting, color palettes, and composition. Three very important things for production work. A lot of times, an artist will do several speedpaintings to help decide how their final piece will look. For example, I could take one of the paintings shown here, use everything shown, color, composition, and lighting, and just refine it to the point of being a fully finished painting, details and all. All of the hard work is already done for me, it'd just be rendering and detailing from there.

So speedpaintings have many useful purposes. For another great, more in-depth article on speedpainting with some other great examples, click here. Remember, a speedpainting's main function is to get a point across, and not to serve as a finished painting. Use it as a tool, and not as a crutch. Keep drawing!



-ZhouRules (Chris Shehan)