It's not that hard. People tend to think artists like Leonardo were geniuses of superhuman talent, but they were just people like you and me. It only takes some effort to recreate the Mona Lisa in a painting like the one I made here:
In Painters Guild you will learn more about the Renaissance. The idea behind this painting is simple: you're seeing through the eyes of Leonardo at the time when he was painting La Gioconda. I tried my best to make her look like the original, but I'm evidently not as good as Da Vinci. There were intentional changes as well, mainly the colors. Instead of trying to replicate the old colors of the original, I used a copy with better preserved colors as a reference. Afterall, the idea was to make it seem like Mona Lisa is really sitting there.
Here's an image with the painting process, from the first sketch that established the composition and blocked in the colors to the detailing and final touches:
This is what the painting looked like after my few first brushstrokes:
Then I decided to focus on getting her face right, since that would be fun to do and also the biggest challenge. People have seen this painting so much that they can easily spot mistakes in a copy. This is an early zoom in the face:
After I got the face right it was just a matter of time until I detailed everything else to a satisfactory level. I'm still not happy with the hand, but after about 8 hours of work on this painting I felt too tired to keep going. You can see a higher resolution final image here. This painting will be used to promote Painters Guild and perhaps as a main menu image.
Follow the game on twitter for more paintings and updates!
We learn exactly the same thing in my academical art school. Never think that great big artists are unreachable. One of our holidays works was about that, reproducing a great painting, to prove ourselves that it was easier to make those painting than what we can thought.
Anyway, great to see your goals for that game. I loved the prototypes. Tracking !
Thanks you! Where do you go to school? There aren't many academies left.