New to digital Painting, need some feedback
polycounter lvl 11
I am still working on this piece, but I need to head off to work and would very much appreciate criticism so I don't keep working in a wrong direction.
Things I know look off but need help fixing:
1)Contrast, everything looks muddy and the contrast seems off. How would you suggest I fix this?
2) Where the legs and body overlap it is hard to tell where one starts and the other ends. How do I differentiate legs in from legs overlapped behind?
3)I am trying to put detail on the club face and claw, is that where the detail should go?
Any other critique and advice is welcome. I am always open to read good books, watch good tutorials, and the like. I would appreciate focus though, simply saying study the basics doesn't help me as much as I would like at this point. I am always trying to improve upon the basics, I just need blunt force telling me what is specifically wrong at this point.
Things I know look off but need help fixing:
1)Contrast, everything looks muddy and the contrast seems off. How would you suggest I fix this?
2) Where the legs and body overlap it is hard to tell where one starts and the other ends. How do I differentiate legs in from legs overlapped behind?
3)I am trying to put detail on the club face and claw, is that where the detail should go?
Any other critique and advice is welcome. I am always open to read good books, watch good tutorials, and the like. I would appreciate focus though, simply saying study the basics doesn't help me as much as I would like at this point. I am always trying to improve upon the basics, I just need blunt force telling me what is specifically wrong at this point.
Replies
When you feel your contrast and colors are off, it helps to put the image in black and white.
Pushing the contrast is one helpful way to place focus. Right now there is mostly lower midtone and dark. When you squint, he kind of becomes a little blobby. Thinking about where the light comes from in your scene will help this. Try establishing a lighting hierarchy in black and white before you worry about colors.
In regards to your colors, I like how you are pushing the blue tone on the dark section. I do think you could vary your warms and cools a lot more- a lot of times muddy colors result from the shading relying just on value and not enough on varying hue. I can see you are varying the yellow's hue a little bit, but try pushing it way more and see how that goes.
Another thing that might help- what material is this crab made out of? Would his eyes be shiny? (that might help them stand out) Is his shell different than the spikes? Just something to think about.
He's cool!
A bit more on the taste-side, but since both "claws" seem to be different and the right one is mostly covered in shade, I'd consider moving it a bit away from being in front of it's body so the silhouette and design will read better.
Best of luck mate!
@Drawmaevedraw
I love the feedback about color, I will go and read a little about color theory in particular and then play around with a wider array of different colors. I will try and push more cool colors for the highlights and work on getting the light values into the composition.
The materials are supposed to be sand and rock, any suggestion on how to make that more apparent are welcome. I know one of my weaknesses is that my renders seem to all look like the piece is made of clay. Whether it is supposed to be metal, stone, skin, or other it ends up looking like clay.
@alchemi
The feedback about the claws is brilliant. I have been so focused on painting and shading I completely forgot about the readable silhouette. I have already begun working based on both of your feedback and will post once I make some progress. The shape is already reading so much better.
Depending on what lighting source you think of, you can use either warm or cool!
I would look at a picture of whatever rock or sand you like, and study how the light hits it. Two things can help with differentiating materials: Specularity and Texture- so if something is super shiny it will have a high spec, bright highlight point of light. If it doesnt, like an unpolished rock, the light reacts differently.
Texture wise, sand and rocks can get pretty close, so I think referencing heavily will help!
-If you haven't already, just keep pursuing 'traditional' anatomical practices through sketching from reference and real-life. Google images exists of course, but I also found BioDigital to be pretty helpful in exploring muscles and skeletal structures. Understanding the visual vocabulary of the skeleton would let you avoid resorting to compromises, like the donut elbow and simplification of the skull structures.
-You should look into using textured/custom brushes outside of the basic hard round brush. While using custom brushes won't cover up deficiencies in anatomical, lighting, and composition skills, they are still invaluable when it comes to form definition and exploring materials and textures in 2D. They can also cover up 'empty spaces' pretty efficiently without needing you to do weird scribbly round brush things in the background (I know I've done a lot of those.) If you have the chance, I'd advise looking into Lake Hurwitz and how he makes the most out of his photoshop brush set. If you're using GIMP, I'm sure there are other free alternatives too.
-If you really want to go the extra mile, I'd advise you to actually explore 3D programs. You can use Blender, Daz3D, or even Unity to really speed up your learning process when it comes to light and anatomy. Unfortunately I don't have a convenient tutorial for the process, and going out of your way to learn 3D is a hurdle in itself, but just keep it in the back of your head that it's faster to pose a free Blender rig with a light or two than spending hours figuring out the perspective and forms of a pose that google images doesn't have the perfect reference for. People have been able to do some really impressive stuff with 3D as a foundation for their 2D work.
Hope that's insightful.
1) The closer towards the foreground the more contrast and the further back you go the less contrast (in general), that'll make it appear sharper and less muddy.
2) To differentiate the legs or any objects you should change the value. Switching between colour and greyscale often will help identify this. A lot of artists will use a soft brush on low opacity (like fog) to push objects back from differentiation.
3) The place with the most detail is up to you. The viewers eye will be drawn to the heighest level of detail so use it to draw attention. If you want that to be face/claw put it there but for example you might want the focus on the legs, so put it there instead. Often detail is whatever is in the foreground but not always.
Hope that helps.
Great feedback all around. I need to just grab a sketchbook and do anatomical sketches daily. I know that is a weakness and I need to just do it. I will also play around with a texture brush and see if I can't get better results that way as well. I am actually coming from a 3d software background, and just wanted to see what I could do without painting from a 3d scene. I will alternate back and forth so I can contrast what I am doing wrong though.
@Czepeku
1) I should have known this, but I was struggling.
2)That is a great suggestion, I will try the value change and see how it reads.
3) This makes sense, I think I want the eye to focus on the club more than anything. It is the sense of danger and difference about this creature. Thanks for your time to comment.