Art Critique please. Any help. :D

Haybie

Hello. So I currently unemployed and trying to give myself the task of building a portfolio up for maybe the next 3 -6 months. Probably like a lot people are. I started with landscape composition. I created one of a Asian Winter temple in mind. I finished wasn't happy with it. So i did it again straight away thinking more about  composition. However it still feel a bit flat and just not right. Not sure why. Any help you can give will be great, you can be ruthless i do not mind need to learn.

RN

I agree that the perspective feels flat, especially on the second one.
Try making a 3D blockout of your scene, the realism you get from that is priceless. Then you screenshoot or render it and use that as reference, you're after the "recommended" perspective that the virtual camera gives you.

These images used 3D as reference:
http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2444770/#Comment_2444770
http://polycount.com/discussion/comment/2392281/#Comment_2392281 (the first one of the linked post)

beccatherose

RN said:

...
Try making a 3D blockout of your scene, the realism you get from that is priceless. Then you screenshoot or render it and use that as reference, you're after the "recommended" perspective that the virtual camera gives you.

This is hugely helpful! I really recommend this. 
Also, throw a Hue/Saturation adjustments level on top of all your layers and turn the saturation all of the way down. Make sure that your values still read!

Greg Westphal

RN said:

I agree that the perspective feels flat, especially on the second one.
Try making a 3D blockout of your scene, the realism you get from that is priceless. Then you screenshoot or render it and use that as reference, you're after the "recommended" perspective that the virtual camera gives you.

Im actually a bit opposed to this tbh and I'll explain why.  When you block out stuff in 3d it basically takes away any understanding of the underlying fundamental of perspective, which, in my opinion is the most basic fundamental.  Perspective is often thought of as some tedious exercises involving cubes and grids but really what that is representing is the way we see through our eyes.  If you don't understand how you look at something and use a tool to take away that understanding and then do design over the top of a template, it'd be like trying to design a car without understanding the principles that drive the car.  You will only be able to use the templates that someone else teaches you and you're ability to generate work or art will be dictated by what template you're copying, which would be a bummer.  

Easiest place to start is to draw a horizon line in your piece.  The horizon line represents the eye level of the viewer looking into the piece.  If you're having trouble picturing where to put the horizon line imagine you're somewhere in your scene looking back at the camera and go from there.  If you just rough in a horizon line though you could see that nearly every every image plane you chose to draw is all drawn in regards to a different camera.  They either vanish to different horizon lines or have different camera angles. If you're using more than 1 horizon line and camera per shot you have to explain that in the shot or else our suspension of disbelief falters and the piece just looks wrong.

edit: I forgot to add that I'm all for using 3d once the understanding of the principles of perspective are there.  Even though I use 3d now to generate grids I'll still go back through occasionally and work from scratch just to relearn the tricks of camera.

Haybie

Hey thanks for the feedback. Yes next time I should  use a 3d model. It will been much more easier. I did tweak again because of the values wasnt very good. It is a bit better but I agree it would be much better with a 3d model first to get the right perspective,

ifuxedup

Work on your values. The background and mid ground have the same values, and it just doesn't give the illusion of depth as well. pce

ifuxedup

Also your image implies that it's very windy. So your fires should be blowing in the same direction, ya know what im sayin bra?

RN

That's a nice tip about the wind and the torches, it makes sense.

I agree with @Greg Westphal that using 3D is not meant to be a way for you to skip on learning about perspective drawing. It's best used when you already know enough of it to draw, because you usually complement the 3D screenshot with your own manual drawing in perspective, like props and details.

I remembered another artist that uses 3D, they mentioned using Google SketchUp for these concepts:
http://vatsel.deviantart.com/art/Kitchen-Concept-Art-399974129

Haybie

yeah that all great advice. thank you everybody. I going to have another go and I think more composition,value, perspective before starting painting it out. It the standard rookie mistake of trying to add details before it is even finished. Another question what are you general views on using photo textures?? I still cant decided to start trying using it or understand how to paint thing first beforehand 

Greg Westphal

The catch with photo texture is that it can dominate your painting like an amateur matte painting where it looks like collage, or it can be used like Kang Le does as just quick noise.  It really depends on how much you want to rely on photos, but it goes back to the point I made about 3d.  The more you use photos in your process the more you'll rely on them to cover fundamentals that you yourself may be missing.  Your entry level college course will teach you how to combine photos together but that won't achieve the same result as a person who has done plein air practices while working towards matte paintings.  Photo texturing is something that can be implemented in your process later super easy if you could already otherwise paint it.  

I know on this forum I sound a bit curmudgeonly because I'm opposed to learning on 3d and with photos and everything initially but that is because I look at thousands if not tens of thousands of images a day.  It's painfully obvious to anyone who is a pro (and I'm just an entry level pro) when someone is using shortcuts without understanding the underlying reasons they are using them.  Of course doing a nice perspective drawing from scratch and then painting it with the hard round brush blows ass and takes a ton of time.  But doing that over and over many times will give anyone the understanding they need to implement any trick that a gumroad can teach you.