Sketchbook: Malin

Malin

Hey guys and gals!

Lurker finally posting in hopes of getting constructive crit and improve These are combined value studies and rendering practice since I'm new to Photoshop. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

I found a black and white photo of an elderly lady sitting by a window and did a closeup study of her hands:


And an attempt to do a still life:


Anatomy practice:

ErikNilsson

Looks really solid matey, dont have much feedback to give. I guess that the anatomy practice is done from a ref? I was thinking about getting some bounce light in, just above the eyelids, and maybe using your background values too push back the "left" leg a bit. But really it looks great, nice depth in there.

Malin

@Erik: thanks for the feedback! Yep, had a reference pic for the anatomy study, and looking at it I see that the eyelids should indeed have been a bit lighter. Good point about creating more depth by pushing some parts back a bit, will definitely keep it in mind next time

@Teuta: tack sötis! Börjar se vettigt ut nu iaf

Malin

I wanted to try a modular approach to creating thumbnails, so I made random marker squiggles that I scanned and then just played around with in PS. Here are the first results:



Good old pencil and paper studies

davidosterlind

Wow! Great job! You have really improved your PS skills! Your Values are really good, Maybe you should try working with harder brushes or different opacity to achieve more definition. I sense you have done just that working on the still life, its more crisp in a way.

Fortsatt trevlig sommar, och tack för senast! Vi ses snart!

Malin

Thanks! Also, thanks for reminding me about hard brushes, I'll try to vary the hardness and opacity a bit more in the future I used a mask when working on the still life, maybe that's why the outlines look a bit sharper and more defined.

ErikNilsson

I agree, you might wanna try a hard square brush? but the round default brush is of course just as good. Liking them thumbnails, now do one of them as a finished illustration!

Doit!

SSquir33

i like

Windfeld

Awesome work there! Keep it up!

Malin

Thanks a lot for feedback and comments guys!

Been doing a colour study of faces. Argh. Hard! If there are any colour masters out there, please don't hesitate to steer me onto the True Path Feedback would be greatly appreciated!

kaktuzlime

Heya there Malin! Long time no see Sorry for not answering my e-mail, it's not cause I don't love ya, just being distraught is all ;P I'll do my best to offer you some constuctive feedback grrrl!

One of the main issues you have with color is that you seem to simply be adding white to the light, and black to the shadow. This might be physically accurate, in some instances, but it looks boring. You have to consider the ambient color of the scene in which your object exists, and how that influences the color of your shadows. For example, in space, there is no ambient color, there is no light to fill the shadow areas, therefore they become black. On earth however, we are surrounded by a big blue dome, unless it's cloudy and grey, or nighttime, and this blue ambient light fills the shadows! In essence, as a general rule you want to pull the shadows towards blue. In contrast to this, the light from the sun, which is in fact white, will seem warmer, more yellowish. In my opinion, it's beneficial to emphasize this.



Check out the eminent tutorial at this page, and browse to tutorials> http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/

The eyeballs are too white.

The "terminator" is the "line" where light moves into shadow. It's kinda similar to the "core" of a shadow. I find it's nice to make this line, on human skin in strong light, more reddish. This happens because light passes through the skin, and bounces out, and because of the blood under the skin, creates a Sub Surface Scattering (SSS) effect.

Example of SSS>


A very, very, very important aspect of color is reflected light. You're hardly using that at all. in essence, light and colors bounce around, changes hues and values. You have to start thinking about planes and which light is reaching them. The bounced light from the upper lip reaching the lower plane of the nose will make its hue warmer for example. This happens under the chin, and the downward-reaching planes around the eye etc. Upward-facing planes in shadow will again pull towards the ambient color of the scene.

You're being too contrasty sometimes. Use less harsh value transitions. Are you familiar with how Scott Robertson uses numbers to assign his values? Halfway to black? Check out his DVD's otherwise.

Local temperatures. You're being too monchromatic, consider amping up the different color zones of the face. Noses, ears and cheeks can usually be pulled towards red, forehead towards yellow, and the chin area towards blue/green. Just a general simplification.

As always, I have been wrong many times in the past, and I consider myself mediocre at best. I may very well be wrong in one ore several of these instances, and I implore you to toss aside any stupidity or misinformation on my part. Cheers!

If you're looking for the true path, check out> http://www.huevaluechroma.com/index.php
It's complex, and took me several weeks to work out the first time around. I still haven't comprehended more than a third or some such amount

Malin

Heeey! Really glad you found some time to stop by, I truly appreciate it, I know you're super busy! THANK YOU for all the feedback and the very useful links! All the ref pics I had for the faces were either indoor or outside on an overcast day, so there wasn't much colour going around, doh. Didn't think about that, and you're absolutely right in that they look kinda flat and boring!

I've finally had time to sit down and try to rectify the mistakes I made in the last portraits. The ref I used was also indoor so I pretended I actually knew what I was doing and tried to get an outdoor-and-sunny-day-look. This time around I also tried to exaggerate the colour zones of the face as well, although it seems I lost it somewhere along the way




I did two quick rendering exercises, one with direct light and one with ambient light:





Having done this, I experienced that awkward moment when you realize that you really should have done stuff like this from the very beginning... Gah! Oh well. Better late than never.

Some quick cyberpunk-ish doodles to round off:

kaktuzlime

Much better, you're on the right track now. Keep up the good work, and make many ugly pictures! ;p