Bird of Paradise wip

Painter 11.

Preliminary stage of one of the paintings for my in-progress "Wings" calendar. Just laying down color and giving the elements basic form.

This is one of the pieces for the calendar that I try to explore the wings theme without the figure being an angel or a fairy. At least not a traditional version. Inspired by my "Majesty" paintings and brainstorming wings, I wanted something colorful and tropical.

I was dreading how complex the background might be given the concept, but it won't be as time-consuming as I thought. I hope.

Not sure about the birds. I think it does need at least one (probably the flying one) but I don't want them to too distract from the figure. And the leaf design I'm planning on reworking, a lot.

I'm looooooving Painter 11 and the Real!Pencil brush in particular. This stage of my digital painting is going much more smoothly using the pencil brush than my old method. I can get more detail early and quickly and the texture is very interesting and allows for more undercolor bleed-through. :) I may try an entire piece just using it. But probably not for the calendar.