The Mountain and the Mother of Corpses

Sketch

I wanted to paint Cersei squaring off with a Gregor reminiscent of the Hulk. Thanks to thehyenagallery for suggesting the title. This is from the scene in Game of Thrones season 4 episode 7, Mockingbird. You can watch a timelapse of the painting process here. Photoshop.

 

Black and white values, either from your pencil sketch or speed painting. I usually do shadows on one layer and highlights on another. 

If you skip this and first paint in color, it’s wise to check your values by adding a B&W adjustment layer. 

Inks

Then base colors that we’re going to put our highlights and shadows onto. If you’re separating stuff into layers you can change the base colors later without altering your shading hues.

What you don't want to do is just use black to darken areas and white just to brighten. You may notice the result looks dirty and the color starts to fade. 

Sometimes doing it wrong is okay if the result is something desirable. But with ‘art’, you should learn the rules before you can break them. 

Base colors

For yellow hair, I used red-orange for the darker areas. Choosing a yellow that’s not too yellow for the base color left me room to make the highlights really yellow. 

Other areas to compare to the previous image: under her chin, the light areas on his beard, the vibrancy of his tongue, and the pinkness in her lips.

Shading with color