I'm not much of a digital painter but a few things stick out for me in this park picture.
The perspectives seem to be all over the place. I just drew some lines on your drawing to show where I thought maybe some of the lines would be. And I think it makes my point obvious enough.
The other major thing that sticks out to me are the trees themselves. It seems as though you drew one tree and then copied the layer and pasted it over the image. Specifically the 4 main trees in the middle of the picture. Their lower trunks/roots all look exactly the same. And the way the branches 'branch' out makes them look identical.
I think also it might help to paint less detail in the background objects rather than running a blur filter on them.
Saidin: Fyi the vanishing points of objects aren't always the exact same unless you are doing an orthographic projection, or they are all in the same plane and at the same orientation.
So the vanishing points of the road and the chair should generally line up, but everything else is pretty well on its own.
Indian Boy: You're handling color and composition better in this one, but it is still quite flat, as was mentioned. Part of this is (again) inconsistent application of lighting. The snow in the crook of the trees is brighter than the snow in the shadow cast by the tree. HOw does that work?
Also based on the shadows the sun is at a fairly low angle, which is going to result in less light hitting the back of the trees than what you are showing.
I'm not going to say the perspective is off, because from what I'm seeing in the painting the lay of the land is far from flat, and I don't know that these trees are actually in a line. The presentation looks plausible.
A note on composition: Right now the whole scene has about equal interest.. making it boring.
Did you want the people on the bridge to be important, the tree with the hole, or the empty bench?
this is where artistic application of lighting comes in handy.
There are a number of ways to do this, either via saturation, lightness or even hue/color shifts.
The first thing to work on is the lighting. Lighting sells your forms and their placement in the scene. It tells you what is going on shapewise. Assuming you are going for a piece with a painted sort of look with impact, rather than a flash animation cutout look.
so as I was reading your colors here's a paintover for the shading to take it a bit more into the proper physical realm The shadows from any object will be darkest close to the object and will have a darker core penumbra in a light environment like this. Its just how light scatters off of things. The further from the core of the object the more light can hit it from a random scatter. Also the objects going back in space loose saturation as well as get lighter due to atmospheric perspective. Even though the backs of the trees are in shadow the closer trees have more saturation, and this helps sell them as being closer. ONe other note on the shadowing, is that I started with a warmer brown tone in the cery core and where the trees are close to the ground and moved to cool where the base of the trees are further from the shadow location. The subtle reflection of the bark color is responsible for this, and it also helps to ground the trees to the snow better.
Once you have the painting reading right then it is time to direct the viewer's eye within the piece. NOrmally we focus right in the center of a composition, if everything else is roughly equally presented, like in your original.
So we have this tree. The tree is really rather boring. The biggest point of interest I see in your scene is the couple on the bridge, followed by the bench. Something needs to be made a center of interest depending on how you want to set the mood of the piece or what story you want to tell or imply. I mentioned before you can do this with value, this is basically vignetting, but can be extended to more creative, unrealistic lighting situations to create interest in the piece.
Also the same basic principle can be applied to color or hue. Via blending modes you can make the effect subtle or vibrant. Try different things out. Remember cool recedes and warm pops.
woah shit!
thats really all i can say. i cant go in and reply specifics for all the crits, because they were all real helpful ones overall. amazing stuff. but yea: the trees arent in line, thats right. they're not perfectly organised. And i only copy-pasted one tree. i guess its noticeable even after the changes. damned good eyes!
k so ill work on perspective.
and composition.
DAMN thats an awesome set of paintovers! thanks man! thank you very much. wish id done sommin like the last one. the colours add a bit of a message [warmth of love vs the cold of winter] hot-god-damn!
well, i'm working on the projects and stuff. so thats not to worry about, but like id said, the art classes have started. and in one of todays 2 classes, we were to draw "anything we want"
i naturally jumped to 'character' and this is what i got:
Sir Small in the Pants
its a 10 minute drawing [the time we were alloted]. And this is what i got done. i dont think i did too bad, then again, im still learning the whole 'self critical' thing [though i can tell u that i adjusted alot on my own].
so yea, open for all kinds of crits and suggestions.
structure it first!! that way you can get your proportions and perspective correct. ya rushed him and now he's got an ass crotch. Unless you're really good, don't cookie cutter draw stuff.
A good way to get fast, and good results out of drawing, (especially fast results) is to look at how cartoon and comic characters are constructed. Lightly sketch the whole figure in basic forms of their mass, even start with a sort of stickman to get the pose and lengths of things right, then add on mass, then connections, then inner detail.
What this gets you is at least a well structured piece in 10 minutes, or less, that communicates what the picture is, and gives you a base to work from later, should you choose to.
Plus, as mentioned above, structuring everything out as squashed or stretched primitives, spheres, cubes, cones, cylinders, makes getting the proper perspective on all the limbs and such much much easier, especially when you start to push your poses and camera angles etc.
thanks for those tips guys!
won't reply to them in too much detail [cuz im off to bed soon, and as of now, i've had only 10 hours of sleep over the past 72, so its time for some Zs], but thanks for them, and i assure you i understand what you're getting at.
Now then, i assume that any of you who'd been watching my dom war WiP thread notice it die slightly? well thats cuz the workload from school kicked in. i was planning on doing something this weekend, but even that got screwed by "overdoing the homewrk load."
anyways, i decided that i could at least upload SOME art.
so here's one that was due in today, and i made wednesday night [thursday morning? 0100 till 0430 i think].
It got me a 10 / 10, cuz the teacher was really impressed by all my thumbs, and the final product as well.
It was done by putting down a layer of black conte first, and then using a kneadable eraser to do 'subtractive' art. Different shades of gray -> white attained by different pressures on the eraser, and depending on how many times u rub a spot. And it was supposed to be 3 fruits and/or 3 vegetables, used to tell a story of sorts.
"Light specks"
My story was that the capcicum [big thing to the right] is a vehicle representing human civilization. I used the capcicum as the body, and half a tomato as a wheel. The other wheel is upside down, and is another half-tomato. To the left is a brocolli, representing a tree. It shows the human civilization destroying trees to get further, but then realizes it cant get any further, and so it breaks down [which is why one wheel is so far off].
Let me know what you guys think!
i'm personally proud of the piece!
spring break commences... lets see if i can get back to dom war... tll then, a quickie wit a message:
Letters.
All u ever need.
A simple piece of paper in which you can pour out all your emotions, all your thoughts, and let somebody particular on the other end know of them.
Something we lack in the fast paced world of e-mails, and IMs... people no longer take the time to write out / think about wat they feel.
Things seem empty.
Maybe this is one way technology has hurt us?
tell me what you guys think, apart from 'it looks empty' which was on purpose, not lethargy
haha.
Elysium, am i missin out on a brilliant diss cuz ur might be hinting at something?
lol j/k. its the 'too much white'. tru. i have to add some contrast to make the letter pop out.
As for moving this into the sketchbook section, wouldnt that imply thisd be the only thread where i could put both 3d _and_ 2d? i dunno, i would prefer this to be 2d only. "Gotta update that thread" makes me want to do 2d rather than 3d scribbles and stuff.
just a thought.
yea next piece is dom war dammit.. argh! must finish it!
thanks for the sugestion about a sketchbook thread. i might make one for all my work when dom war ends. so it has more varied 'media' etc?
and good point about the contrast.
i'll fix that up
thanks guys
EDIT: edited the original post wit the increased contrast. this is it:
[so that u dont haveta turn back]
[ QUOTE ]
haha.
Elysium, am i missin out on a brilliant diss cuz ur might be hinting at something?
lol j/k. its the 'too much white'. tru.
[/ QUOTE ]
my comment can be taken two ways. yes, there is too much white within your latest image. and it doesn't display emptiness. only brightness. which can be interpreted as happiness. which is the opposite of your intent. and that is why you fail.
the second way. i simply suggested you paint an image of "a polar bear drinking milk in the snow", and you assumed it's an insult towards your latest image. well it is. but what's important to note is, your immediate mental image of the polar bear idea as being a completely white environment. you're not considering how light affects a scene. be creative. what if i said a "polar bear drinking milk in the snow...at night". i would imagine a calm winter scene, with shades of blue lit by moonlight, and a bear sitting in warm candlelight, which adds contrast to the cool blues, telling the eyes where to focus. would you? use light and color to give your illustrations meaning.
your image has an envelope sealed with wax. where's the candle? what is it sitting on? why is it floating in air? how was it written? quite frankly, your illustration of a letter carries no message. so don't write a poorly revised block of text after your paintings if your intent is to explain the importance of letter writing in our modern society of fast paced thoughtless messaging. this goes double for YOU. let the image tell the story itself. that's art.
honestly, your illustration is more of joke. perhaps you missed it. you have a letter inside a letterbox. HAHA [lol]. funy.
seriously, save the cheap dramatic effect of a letterbox for widescreen film.
i like your sketchbook illustration of vegetables. you should try more like that. but stop trying to place complex meanings behind your work. for now, just practice proper technique. otherwise you'll always fall short of your goal.
Interesting progress, it really does belong in the sketchbook thread.
About the polar bear drinking milk, there is a lot you can do with that scene. There are more colors then you might think about. Try to break out of what you know about objects; "what color is grass? Green. Reaches for the green paint" "what color is pollution? Brown. Reaches for brown paint"
When the answer should be, "it depends".
Take a look at some ref before committing to colors. In this case using a pallet of colors you relay heavily on might be too much of a crutch. It might be better to pick colors each time instead of falling back to what the swatch holds.
Once you pick a color you don't have to stay with it, for everything. look at the colors involved not the colors you know. Are envelopes exactly white? Does the background need to be exactly white? Are polar bears pure white or are they kind of a dirty yellow? Is snow pure white or does it sometimes have a blue tint? Is a glass of milk always pure white? How is snow different then milk, then polar bear fur? How does the color of the sky interact with these objects? How would you treat the reflection on the glass, knowing that the sky and snow are not pure white, do you think you could paint the difference in the reflection while still keeping the milk separate and readable?
And yea not every piece needs to be a window to your soul...
-speechless-
those are amazingly eye-opening crits!
i dont quite know wat to say in response to them, except:
"wait and watch for my next piece"
cuz i swear im gonna do something which is "all one colour", only 'not'. or try. The polar bear thing was a nice revelation for me, so thank you!
thats all i can really say: thanks!
as soon as i get the chance to get back to 2d [after dom war probably] i will come back at it with full force, and a plethora of new, non-window-to-my-sould ideas.
Set Free
About an hour and a half spent on this piece. Wanted to take time out from homework and everything, cuz i wanted to do this =D.
Meaningful?
Very much so... for me at least.
Hopefully for somebody else out there too [cough]... meant to be be one of those vice-versa things, which i hope it works out as lol =D!!
yea, i won't elaborate its intent. it might be kinda' obvious, and if the image is _that_ clear, then im happy.
My girlfriend had a real cool dream, and it inspired me to make this.
Lol, may seem weird, but he's a warrior who uses matchsticks, and his ability to flick em fast enough so that air-friction helps attain ignition temperature .
the idea of a warrior didnt come from the dream.. the use of matchsticks sorta' kinda' did lol
NOTE: pencil lines not yet removed on purpose... i MIGHT digitally paint this
I might be alone in this, but I can't see the purpose of inking over pencils, certainly not at this stage. It just promotes a feeling of being able to 'fix it in the inks' for the pencils, and it makes your inking less creative. Working with strong ink-lines can be a great way to learn about portraying volume with simple lines, but here it's just tracing a sketch, and not actually making it better. Work on defining the volume with primitives, as you have a fairly wonky perspective going on here.
If you're going to do characters, there's nothing better than starting small (or using big brushes/markers)
Ever worked with markers? I used Tria markers, and I loved them, but basically all graphical markers will be great to start from. Fairly light ones are lovely for sketching with, and then you can apply some darker shades on top of that, and use white gouache to 'delete' or put in highlights
For the "Set Free" painting, your colors still appear washed out. Nothing is in focus. Your use of light exists, but it needs to direct the eyes. Let it shine on the subject. Contrast. A quick edit:
One other note on consistency. Your background appears to have structures lit from the right, but your foreground receives more light from the left.
ah kk thanks for the tips and suggestions guys.
sorry i didnt reply earlier, even though i _did_ read em hehe.
but k, i'lll work more on lighting, and ill try messing with other ink media.
as of now:
This was a project for an art class.
Take a pic of yourself, make yourself look like a certain mythological person from any culture, and then vector that image.
I chose to depict the God Shiva [the Destroyer] of the Hindu religion.
First vectoring job _ever_.
Tell me what you guys think!
the image is too busy, with no composition. is that a puddle of water? is that fire? is the fire coming from his hands? what is holding the trident? I can't see any of this being answered. a slight improvement over your earlier works. but it appears as if you're still putting too much thought towards your intended results, and not enough thought on the steps to get there. it could easily be a mix of images your photoshopped together without purpose, and painted over, then vectorized. practice technique, and keep it simple.
wel, now that i have time again, and i'm not in the mood for 3ding quite now [feeling very ill]
i decided to improve that which has needed work since i first joined polycount, which i have been pushing off
figure studies
i'm gonna start off clothed, and maybe some taken out of references in medical books, and then gonna go into nude models
as such,
figure study practice 01:
its clleeear that i need lots of work
but everybody has to start somewhere.
i hope to get much better, as fast as possible
any help would be appreciated greatly - as always.
I think your biggest issue is that you seem to be looking at life and reference as a composition of lines and shades of value/color, rather than shapes. I could very well be wrong, however, but judging by the way you paint and draw it seems it.
When you look at a picture or a model from real life, assess the shapes that make up the thing is question. Think in terms of boxes, spheres, and everything in-between.
hm no i think you were right zephir.
so i tried this using those 'spheres , cylinders etc' as the base before i went in for details.
ive got mixed reviews, some ppl were able to identify him, just as many had to take a few more guesses, and one saw no resemblance at all
personally, i feel i made a mistake with the angle i chose to replicate x x
Great stuff Indian Boy, you are comming along very nicely. It has been great watching you evolve as an artist. You still have a long way to go but you have already come a very long way from your first pimp here on PC.
You still need to work on rushing into the detailing phase. The last drawing is showing a lot of promise and I can see your understanding of shapes is improving a lot with each successive drawing you post. Keep it up.
hey thanks guys! happy that you guys could recognize him -D
and yea its from the scene in i am legend. spot on vitor
and thnks xaltar, for the expression of faith =D i'm glad people can see that i'm improving. that's the biggest incentive for me to keep pushin myself these days!
heres another one. i'm posting it up even though i 'gave up'.
didnt get lazy or anything, just realized that its a terrible angle / pose for it to be identifiable...
it's
Brendan Fraser in a shot from the new mummy film
.
doesn't look much like him, unless u have the reference shot open right next to the painting.
i'll keep in mind to use better references from now on x x
looks like your just painting on top of an image. Not sure if your learning anatomy and structure by just copying. Just seems like your painting is real shaky and not a smooth process of getting good form. Maybe show sketch work before you get into the painting?
@oobersli: dont worry, im not tracing the image. i have it open in a window beside which i'm working to use as reference, and will occasionally drag the source image below my progress to ensure that im not screwing up terribly [which happens occasionally when im drawing the features' outlines]
I think it's good that you're working on figure studies, but you need to work on your knowledge of anatomical structure as it pertains to drawing humans. You don't need to memorize muscle groups or anything as boring as that, but you need to spend more time on shape and form. IMO, what you're doing now is just a waste of time. I think you have a good attitude, but you're not good at listening to friendly advice. Start listening to what people here kindly tell you and stop trying to freestyle.
Stop drawing famous people and just start drawing people. Work on recreating a believable human form and not a specfic celebrity. Start out simple:
your will not become a cook just when you study applying salt, cutting food, fill in some water...
some words from my side:
I dont know how you feel about your pieces but i think that what you study right now will not give you a great feeling while doing it, its working on the utmost hull of something artistic. you need roots! you need to FEEL form while painting, drawing, whatever - otherwise it will keep being a "head thing" and you will never be satisfied with what you did. if it does not make fun(needs feelings...) i dont see a reason for investing into making more of it.
you have a good attitude, but as 8FtSpider said, what you are doing now is a waste of time -> in terms of learning. learning starts on the ground, not on the moon (the lack of a good spacesuite[=the form thing...] will give you certain troubles there).
i know its sometimes hard for someone to not fall into the habbit of thinking like "I want to be..." or "I want to be as..." but in the end thats all nonsense - you want to have fun (or lets say you want to "feel good") while doing something, otherwise in what have you invested? into a thought somewhere created in your past that this and that is good and you want to become this and that?
start making some roots (basics on form, lines...). trust me, once you accept that you are currently in the "root-state" and start looking from there a good portion of pressure will fall off of you and you may realize that the thing (learning) grows on its own. - and you will be satisfied!! with what you do and you will no more need that much double checks if something looks good or bad or whatever ...
i dont wanted to be harsh or anything like that, its just a advice
hm
i think you guys pretty much hit the nail on the head.
i know that i was trying to get as good as a specific somebody, AS i was making this, and i suppose thats the wrong way to look at things.
i'm gonna take a step back, and try drawin forms n stuff first, without shading in.
thanks for the wake up call. i rarely listen to things like that, i know. its something of mine that needs / will get serious improving
one more thing:
dont worry about being harsh. i dont mind it one bit. well, as long as their is advice in there. i dont like being bashed, but neither of you were doing that, so don't worry
i actually appreciate a bit of harshness once in a while =D [its why i love polycount all the more]
so now i know what to work on, as soon as i recover from today's workday, i shall get into gear!
trying to kick myself back into gear.
i'm gong to try and do at least one of these everyday, despite the workload, but i don't know how often that'd be possible.
general thoughts on the proportions, pose, weight balance?
any and all crits are welcome.
i want to improve these 2d skills.
thanks in advance guys!
@ adamBrome:
was that sarcastic, or an actual show of support? lol, i ask cuz of Elysium's post soon after, and the fact that the shitiness of today's day makes me highly pessimistic
thanks if you were serious
and sorry if you were pointing out an error. please elaborate? lol
@ Elysium:
And with my next art-containing post, i shall start a sketchbook thread
that should stop people from telling me to post there =D
art class at school is killing me. causes art burnout to the extent that i cant spend more than 30 minutes a day doing art [though i HAVE been producing music of late]
i finally decided that i can go 30 minutes a day to make some rael quick pieces, starting from simple to complex
all digital for now. traditional is being covered by my school courses [yay]. lots of sculptures comming relatively soon [abstract though].
anyway. the first of [hopefully] many to come:
really simple city scape, in terms of perspective etc
no idea wat direction im going... lets see wat i do
1) 10 minute speed sketch
2) 15 minutes today, remaking the speedy
3) 15 minutes today, adding foreground details
im gonna make a request to move this to sketchbook threads, and to rename it as needed
cheers guys!
im looking to improve my 2d art.
have to get my ass into some serious gears....
Some of your pictures seem to lack some nice contrasts, one thing ive learn recently is that generally things do move from really dark > really bright... as obvious as this sounds it wasn't quite obvious to how it all worked.
And to echo 8ft a bit start working on full figure studies prior to the actually anatomy itself (which you will probably do if you opt for bridgman). Loomis words it nicely saying; you cannot draw a muscle correctly without a fair estimate of the area it occupies within the figure.
jackwhat, ty for that link.
i've looked up loomis a while back, and now i guess ill try and work a bit off Bridgman . see what suits me nicer
i think ill do some real rough life studies next, unless im really in the mood for something more like this ^ or something else.
its hard for me to feel motivated, at times. i'm also starting up on my dom war 3 entry again. look out for him in the PnP section some time soon =D
as for now:
10 minutes yesterday, 30 minutes today [around?]
and here's what we get:
i don't want to spend too much time per piece, so unless there's something i could / should definately improve, i'll call it done
Replies
The perspectives seem to be all over the place. I just drew some lines on your drawing to show where I thought maybe some of the lines would be. And I think it makes my point obvious enough.
The other major thing that sticks out to me are the trees themselves. It seems as though you drew one tree and then copied the layer and pasted it over the image. Specifically the 4 main trees in the middle of the picture. Their lower trunks/roots all look exactly the same. And the way the branches 'branch' out makes them look identical.
I think also it might help to paint less detail in the background objects rather than running a blur filter on them.
So the vanishing points of the road and the chair should generally line up, but everything else is pretty well on its own.
Indian Boy: You're handling color and composition better in this one, but it is still quite flat, as was mentioned. Part of this is (again) inconsistent application of lighting. The snow in the crook of the trees is brighter than the snow in the shadow cast by the tree. HOw does that work?
Also based on the shadows the sun is at a fairly low angle, which is going to result in less light hitting the back of the trees than what you are showing.
I'm not going to say the perspective is off, because from what I'm seeing in the painting the lay of the land is far from flat, and I don't know that these trees are actually in a line. The presentation looks plausible.
A note on composition: Right now the whole scene has about equal interest.. making it boring.
Did you want the people on the bridge to be important, the tree with the hole, or the empty bench?
this is where artistic application of lighting comes in handy.
There are a number of ways to do this, either via saturation, lightness or even hue/color shifts.
The first thing to work on is the lighting. Lighting sells your forms and their placement in the scene. It tells you what is going on shapewise. Assuming you are going for a piece with a painted sort of look with impact, rather than a flash animation cutout look.
so as I was reading your colors here's a paintover for the shading to take it a bit more into the proper physical realm The shadows from any object will be darkest close to the object and will have a darker core penumbra in a light environment like this. Its just how light scatters off of things. The further from the core of the object the more light can hit it from a random scatter. Also the objects going back in space loose saturation as well as get lighter due to atmospheric perspective. Even though the backs of the trees are in shadow the closer trees have more saturation, and this helps sell them as being closer. ONe other note on the shadowing, is that I started with a warmer brown tone in the cery core and where the trees are close to the ground and moved to cool where the base of the trees are further from the shadow location. The subtle reflection of the bark color is responsible for this, and it also helps to ground the trees to the snow better.
Once you have the painting reading right then it is time to direct the viewer's eye within the piece. NOrmally we focus right in the center of a composition, if everything else is roughly equally presented, like in your original.
So we have this tree. The tree is really rather boring. The biggest point of interest I see in your scene is the couple on the bridge, followed by the bench. Something needs to be made a center of interest depending on how you want to set the mood of the piece or what story you want to tell or imply. I mentioned before you can do this with value, this is basically vignetting, but can be extended to more creative, unrealistic lighting situations to create interest in the piece.
Also the same basic principle can be applied to color or hue. Via blending modes you can make the effect subtle or vibrant. Try different things out. Remember cool recedes and warm pops.
thats really all i can say. i cant go in and reply specifics for all the crits, because they were all real helpful ones overall. amazing stuff. but yea: the trees arent in line, thats right. they're not perfectly organised. And i only copy-pasted one tree. i guess its noticeable even after the changes. damned good eyes!
k so ill work on perspective.
and composition.
DAMN thats an awesome set of paintovers! thanks man! thank you very much. wish id done sommin like the last one. the colours add a bit of a message [warmth of love vs the cold of winter] hot-god-damn!
well, i'm working on the projects and stuff. so thats not to worry about, but like id said, the art classes have started. and in one of todays 2 classes, we were to draw "anything we want"
i naturally jumped to 'character' and this is what i got:
Sir Small in the Pants
its a 10 minute drawing [the time we were alloted]. And this is what i got done. i dont think i did too bad, then again, im still learning the whole 'self critical' thing [though i can tell u that i adjusted alot on my own].
so yea, open for all kinds of crits and suggestions.
http://www.sheldonsartacademy.com/videos.php
A good way to get fast, and good results out of drawing, (especially fast results) is to look at how cartoon and comic characters are constructed. Lightly sketch the whole figure in basic forms of their mass, even start with a sort of stickman to get the pose and lengths of things right, then add on mass, then connections, then inner detail.
What this gets you is at least a well structured piece in 10 minutes, or less, that communicates what the picture is, and gives you a base to work from later, should you choose to.
Plus, as mentioned above, structuring everything out as squashed or stretched primitives, spheres, cubes, cones, cylinders, makes getting the proper perspective on all the limbs and such much much easier, especially when you start to push your poses and camera angles etc.
won't reply to them in too much detail [cuz im off to bed soon, and as of now, i've had only 10 hours of sleep over the past 72, so its time for some Zs], but thanks for them, and i assure you i understand what you're getting at.
Now then, i assume that any of you who'd been watching my dom war WiP thread notice it die slightly? well thats cuz the workload from school kicked in. i was planning on doing something this weekend, but even that got screwed by "overdoing the homewrk load."
anyways, i decided that i could at least upload SOME art.
so here's one that was due in today, and i made wednesday night [thursday morning? 0100 till 0430 i think].
It got me a 10 / 10, cuz the teacher was really impressed by all my thumbs, and the final product as well.
It was done by putting down a layer of black conte first, and then using a kneadable eraser to do 'subtractive' art. Different shades of gray -> white attained by different pressures on the eraser, and depending on how many times u rub a spot. And it was supposed to be 3 fruits and/or 3 vegetables, used to tell a story of sorts.
"Light specks"
My story was that the capcicum [big thing to the right] is a vehicle representing human civilization. I used the capcicum as the body, and half a tomato as a wheel. The other wheel is upside down, and is another half-tomato. To the left is a brocolli, representing a tree. It shows the human civilization destroying trees to get further, but then realizes it cant get any further, and so it breaks down [which is why one wheel is so far off].
Let me know what you guys think!
i'm personally proud of the piece!
Letters.
All u ever need.
A simple piece of paper in which you can pour out all your emotions, all your thoughts, and let somebody particular on the other end know of them.
Something we lack in the fast paced world of e-mails, and IMs... people no longer take the time to write out / think about wat they feel.
Things seem empty.
Maybe this is one way technology has hurt us?
tell me what you guys think, apart from 'it looks empty' which was on purpose, not lethargy
btw, here's a new forum for you to document your progress. you more than anyone could use it for its intended purpose.
suggestion (again just a bit of contrast in the right place to make it pop)
Elysium, am i missin out on a brilliant diss cuz ur might be hinting at something?
lol j/k. its the 'too much white'. tru. i have to add some contrast to make the letter pop out.
As for moving this into the sketchbook section, wouldnt that imply thisd be the only thread where i could put both 3d _and_ 2d? i dunno, i would prefer this to be 2d only. "Gotta update that thread" makes me want to do 2d rather than 3d scribbles and stuff.
just a thought.
yea next piece is dom war dammit.. argh! must finish it!
thanks for the sugestion about a sketchbook thread. i might make one for all my work when dom war ends. so it has more varied 'media' etc?
and good point about the contrast.
i'll fix that up
thanks guys
EDIT: edited the original post wit the increased contrast. this is it:
[so that u dont haveta turn back]
For instance, the wax that holds shut the letter casts no shadows on the letter itself, giving the whole painting a flat appearance.
Push up the contrasts more. Work with darker brushes, don't be afraid of them.
haha.
Elysium, am i missin out on a brilliant diss cuz ur might be hinting at something?
lol j/k. its the 'too much white'. tru.
[/ QUOTE ]
my comment can be taken two ways. yes, there is too much white within your latest image. and it doesn't display emptiness. only brightness. which can be interpreted as happiness. which is the opposite of your intent. and that is why you fail.
the second way. i simply suggested you paint an image of "a polar bear drinking milk in the snow", and you assumed it's an insult towards your latest image. well it is. but what's important to note is, your immediate mental image of the polar bear idea as being a completely white environment. you're not considering how light affects a scene. be creative. what if i said a "polar bear drinking milk in the snow...at night". i would imagine a calm winter scene, with shades of blue lit by moonlight, and a bear sitting in warm candlelight, which adds contrast to the cool blues, telling the eyes where to focus. would you? use light and color to give your illustrations meaning.
your image has an envelope sealed with wax. where's the candle? what is it sitting on? why is it floating in air? how was it written? quite frankly, your illustration of a letter carries no message. so don't write a poorly revised block of text after your paintings if your intent is to explain the importance of letter writing in our modern society of fast paced thoughtless messaging. this goes double for YOU. let the image tell the story itself. that's art.
honestly, your illustration is more of joke. perhaps you missed it. you have a letter inside a letterbox. HAHA [lol]. funy.
seriously, save the cheap dramatic effect of a letterbox for widescreen film.
i like your sketchbook illustration of vegetables. you should try more like that. but stop trying to place complex meanings behind your work. for now, just practice proper technique. otherwise you'll always fall short of your goal.
About the polar bear drinking milk, there is a lot you can do with that scene. There are more colors then you might think about. Try to break out of what you know about objects;
"what color is grass? Green. Reaches for the green paint"
"what color is pollution? Brown. Reaches for brown paint"
When the answer should be, "it depends".
Take a look at some ref before committing to colors. In this case using a pallet of colors you relay heavily on might be too much of a crutch. It might be better to pick colors each time instead of falling back to what the swatch holds.
Once you pick a color you don't have to stay with it, for everything. look at the colors involved not the colors you know. Are envelopes exactly white? Does the background need to be exactly white? Are polar bears pure white or are they kind of a dirty yellow? Is snow pure white or does it sometimes have a blue tint? Is a glass of milk always pure white? How is snow different then milk, then polar bear fur? How does the color of the sky interact with these objects? How would you treat the reflection on the glass, knowing that the sky and snow are not pure white, do you think you could paint the difference in the reflection while still keeping the milk separate and readable?
And yea not every piece needs to be a window to your soul...
those are amazingly eye-opening crits!
i dont quite know wat to say in response to them, except:
"wait and watch for my next piece"
cuz i swear im gonna do something which is "all one colour", only 'not'. or try. The polar bear thing was a nice revelation for me, so thank you!
thats all i can really say: thanks!
as soon as i get the chance to get back to 2d [after dom war probably] i will come back at it with full force, and a plethora of new, non-window-to-my-sould ideas.
Set Free
About an hour and a half spent on this piece. Wanted to take time out from homework and everything, cuz i wanted to do this =D.
Meaningful?
Very much so... for me at least.
Hopefully for somebody else out there too [cough]... meant to be be one of those vice-versa things, which i hope it works out as lol =D!!
yea, i won't elaborate its intent. it might be kinda' obvious, and if the image is _that_ clear, then im happy.
crit away!
My girlfriend had a real cool dream, and it inspired me to make this.
Lol, may seem weird, but he's a warrior who uses matchsticks, and his ability to flick em fast enough so that air-friction helps attain ignition temperature .
the idea of a warrior didnt come from the dream.. the use of matchsticks sorta' kinda' did lol
NOTE: pencil lines not yet removed on purpose... i MIGHT digitally paint this
If you're going to do characters, there's nothing better than starting small (or using big brushes/markers)
Ever worked with markers? I used Tria markers, and I loved them, but basically all graphical markers will be great to start from. Fairly light ones are lovely for sketching with, and then you can apply some darker shades on top of that, and use white gouache to 'delete' or put in highlights
One other note on consistency. Your background appears to have structures lit from the right, but your foreground receives more light from the left.
I'm not going to comment on your Spoon Man.
sorry i didnt reply earlier, even though i _did_ read em hehe.
but k, i'lll work more on lighting, and ill try messing with other ink media.
as of now:
This was a project for an art class.
Take a pic of yourself, make yourself look like a certain mythological person from any culture, and then vector that image.
I chose to depict the God Shiva [the Destroyer] of the Hindu religion.
First vectoring job _ever_.
Tell me what you guys think!
photoshop 100%. not even a pencil drawing to go from.
it HAS to be 100% digital, lol.
tell me what you guys think about it.
i'm, as always, open to all crits and suggestions:
wel, now that i have time again, and i'm not in the mood for 3ding quite now [feeling very ill]
i decided to improve that which has needed work since i first joined polycount, which i have been pushing off
figure studies
i'm gonna start off clothed, and maybe some taken out of references in medical books, and then gonna go into nude models
as such,
figure study practice 01:
its clleeear that i need lots of work
but everybody has to start somewhere.
i hope to get much better, as fast as possible
any help would be appreciated greatly - as always.
cheers!
first attempt at a 'speed paint' of a person or anything
looked at reference to make it.
i think it was around 2 hours?
c n c welcome =D
cheers
When you look at a picture or a model from real life, assess the shapes that make up the thing is question. Think in terms of boxes, spheres, and everything in-between.
so i tried this using those 'spheres , cylinders etc' as the base before i went in for details.
ive got mixed reviews, some ppl were able to identify him, just as many had to take a few more guesses, and one saw no resemblance at all
personally, i feel i made a mistake with the angle i chose to replicate x x
but lets see if you guys recognize him:
try and guess who it is?
let me know
its actually
I would work on the forms more before adding details.
You still need to work on rushing into the detailing phase. The last drawing is showing a lot of promise and I can see your understanding of shapes is improving a lot with each successive drawing you post. Keep it up.
and yea its from the scene in i am legend. spot on vitor
and thnks xaltar, for the expression of faith =D i'm glad people can see that i'm improving. that's the biggest incentive for me to keep pushin myself these days!
heres another one. i'm posting it up even though i 'gave up'.
didnt get lazy or anything, just realized that its a terrible angle / pose for it to be identifiable...
it's
doesn't look much like him, unless u have the reference shot open right next to the painting.
i'll keep in mind to use better references from now on x x
cheers!
this is
so far, 3/3 guessed on the first try.
how about you guys?
cheers!
Remember, contrast is your friend! Don't be afriad to use really dark colors to show shadows and shape
@oobersli: dont worry, im not tracing the image. i have it open in a window beside which i'm working to use as reference, and will occasionally drag the source image below my progress to ensure that im not screwing up terribly [which happens occasionally when im drawing the features' outlines]
but okay, i'll show my process next time =D
cheers
Stop drawing famous people and just start drawing people. Work on recreating a believable human form and not a specfic celebrity. Start out simple:
These links may help:
http://www.anticz.com/3dheadpa.htm
http://www.flengart.blogspot.com/
http://www.simonebianchi.com/gallery.asp?D=anatomy&P=1
http://blog.glimbit.com/files/Anatomy-MaleFront-ems%20copy2.pdf
your will not become a cook just when you study applying salt, cutting food, fill in some water...
some words from my side:
I dont know how you feel about your pieces but i think that what you study right now will not give you a great feeling while doing it, its working on the utmost hull of something artistic. you need roots! you need to FEEL form while painting, drawing, whatever - otherwise it will keep being a "head thing" and you will never be satisfied with what you did. if it does not make fun(needs feelings...) i dont see a reason for investing into making more of it.
you have a good attitude, but as 8FtSpider said, what you are doing now is a waste of time -> in terms of learning. learning starts on the ground, not on the moon (the lack of a good spacesuite[=the form thing...] will give you certain troubles there).
i know its sometimes hard for someone to not fall into the habbit of thinking like "I want to be..." or "I want to be as..." but in the end thats all nonsense - you want to have fun (or lets say you want to "feel good") while doing something, otherwise in what have you invested? into a thought somewhere created in your past that this and that is good and you want to become this and that?
start making some roots (basics on form, lines...). trust me, once you accept that you are currently in the "root-state" and start looking from there a good portion of pressure will fall off of you and you may realize that the thing (learning) grows on its own. - and you will be satisfied!! with what you do and you will no more need that much double checks if something looks good or bad or whatever ...
i dont wanted to be harsh or anything like that, its just a advice
i think you guys pretty much hit the nail on the head.
i know that i was trying to get as good as a specific somebody, AS i was making this, and i suppose thats the wrong way to look at things.
i'm gonna take a step back, and try drawin forms n stuff first, without shading in.
thanks for the wake up call. i rarely listen to things like that, i know. its something of mine that needs / will get serious improving
one more thing:
dont worry about being harsh. i dont mind it one bit. well, as long as their is advice in there. i dont like being bashed, but neither of you were doing that, so don't worry
i actually appreciate a bit of harshness once in a while =D [its why i love polycount all the more]
so now i know what to work on, as soon as i recover from today's workday, i shall get into gear!
thanks guys!
cheers
nothing major
the guy on the left is not off any ref or anything, and the ones on the right are based on poses i saw thru the day
i'm gong to try and do at least one of these everyday, despite the workload, but i don't know how often that'd be possible.
general thoughts on the proportions, pose, weight balance?
any and all crits are welcome.
i want to improve these 2d skills.
thanks in advance guys!
cheers!
was that sarcastic, or an actual show of support? lol, i ask cuz of Elysium's post soon after, and the fact that the shitiness of today's day makes me highly pessimistic
thanks if you were serious
and sorry if you were pointing out an error. please elaborate? lol
@ Elysium:
And with my next art-containing post, i shall start a sketchbook thread
that should stop people from telling me to post there =D
cheers
art class at school is killing me. causes art burnout to the extent that i cant spend more than 30 minutes a day doing art [though i HAVE been producing music of late]
i finally decided that i can go 30 minutes a day to make some rael quick pieces, starting from simple to complex
all digital for now. traditional is being covered by my school courses [yay]. lots of sculptures comming relatively soon [abstract though].
anyway. the first of [hopefully] many to come:
really simple city scape, in terms of perspective etc
no idea wat direction im going... lets see wat i do
1) 10 minute speed sketch
2) 15 minutes today, remaking the speedy
3) 15 minutes today, adding foreground details
im gonna make a request to move this to sketchbook threads, and to rename it as needed
cheers guys!
im looking to improve my 2d art.
have to get my ass into some serious gears....
Also, as for anatomy you should pick up Loomis and or Bridgman; http://www.4shared.com/file/34705572/a665540f/Bridgmans_Complete_Guide_To_Drawing_From_Life.html
And to echo 8ft a bit start working on full figure studies prior to the actually anatomy itself (which you will probably do if you opt for bridgman). Loomis words it nicely saying; you cannot draw a muscle correctly without a fair estimate of the area it occupies within the figure.
So keep it up!
i've looked up loomis a while back, and now i guess ill try and work a bit off Bridgman
i think ill do some real rough life studies next, unless im really in the mood for something more like this ^ or something else.
its hard for me to feel motivated, at times. i'm also starting up on my dom war 3 entry again. look out for him in the PnP section some time soon =D
as for now:
10 minutes yesterday, 30 minutes today [around?]
and here's what we get:
i don't want to spend too much time per piece, so unless there's something i could / should definately improve, i'll call it done
let me know what you guys think!
cheers