Thanks Jeffro, your videos have helped me a TON with texturing, and your sketchbook has been very inspirational! great work man, definitely keep it up. I come back here for reference and inspiration to paint lately. My sketchbook has my attempt at your texture on it Posted a link back here for everyone to find the video, as well as full credits to you. Let me know if you would like them to be taken down and if I have violated any rules! Great work man
Hey, you've got a nice sketchbook here! However, most of your stuff lack perspective and those that don't aren't quite right, so I'm guessing perspective isn't your strong point? If I'm right, you should force yourself to work on it and not run from it!
Personally I feel that when it comes to structures and environments, perspective is very, VERY important.
@oskarreftel yeah perspective and value and hue and... I fight with. Continually trying to level up the skills.
Started an artversus blog with Dan! and bishoplynx. We're taking a theme each week and just rolling with it. This week was 300 heads (I think I made it close to 150 maybe).
Really awesome stuff in here. I really like the scfi props it reminds me of insomniac's style. Also are your head sketches done in photoshop? If so what type of brushes to do you use?
Thanks Kenny! That stuff was all done traditional with just sharpie fine markers and those fancy copic markers.
I just got a Samsung Series 7 Slate and trying to transition to that for all drawing/painting. I feel like I'm just starting out again for some reason.
Awesome thanks for the update, I will have to try that out. I understand the transition, I felt that way transiting from traditional to digital. I also really enjoy the sock puppet/snake drawing. Keep up the awesome work!
Nice Jeff, try to mix up some hues into your texture, you can accomplish this painting some colours on new layer and changing opacity. I made you a little overpaint, far from perfect but it should get you idea, some detail work you can pull off easily on new layer by painting and erasing.
Thanks pixelb. Not sure about the sharper highlights. Maybe in some areas. But I'm trying to avoid those everywhere. I usually spend 1-4 hours on these tops. Trying to up the quality and eventually speed up (that'll come later though).
Thanks SuperOstrich! Yeah it's horrible looking back on some of these.
Here's a horrible attempt at doing a lava texture.
I think it looks a bit flat. The thing about lava, it is basically blobs of molten rock and the stone itself is not solid.
A bit of reference, instead of using highlights you can try using soft brush for glow effect but just slightly, there is also plenty of subsurface light coming out.
Thanks Bummer6! Still not where I want to be with this all.
Pix I agree with you. The key is mucho reference and moar practice! I think next time I'm going to try a different approach with lava. Thanks for the crits!
Anyways here todays. Focusing on large form and multiple angle. It's monotone because I mainly worked in greyscale to get the values sorted faster. Just gotta keep at it.
I would really suggest you start simplifying your values. You appear to be painting with a hard edge brush at low opacity which is resulting in a lot of "stepping" and stroke artifacts in your textures.
Paint with full opacity and just pick the color you want. This is not only more efficient because you're not "building up" a shade with dozens of strokes but you also get less muddled results and in general the painting looks a lot more confident. If you need a soft gradient then use a large soft edged round brush and a selection or a mask. Don't try to paint it with lots and lots of low opacity brush strokes.
I also suggest avoiding putting uniform thick black lines all over the crevices in your texture, not every cavity calls for the same darkness. Heavy darks should be used like bright highlights: Sparingly.
I've gone over a section of your texture to try to illustrate my point, I think the difference in light/dark placement becomes very apparent when looking at the texture from a distance:
Awesome crits AtticusMars. Thanks for that in depth. I tried to work those in. Probably go over this a bit more when I get more time. I see your point and your solution is really straight forward. I was painting like that for some reason with this one. Thanks again!
Nice man, I really like those eyes, great solution to rendering gems! I know its wip, but at this point I dont know what material the lectern is made out of? Stone and brass? Building up the surface texture will help that though.
I'm really enjoying the improvement in this thread! I can see your old habits slowly dying with each upload. I'm going through a slightly similar self-improvement process but I'm way far behind you on the evolutionary tree of game-design lol. Keep up the awesome progress!
Just wanted to pop in and say your sketchbook has shown tons of improvement. The recent stuff totally blows away your first few posts. It's very inspiring.
For your current gen brick wall, I kinda feel like those gashes aren't reading as cracks, and they sort of look like they were made with a hacking sword as opposed to forming from normal wear and tear. It's really tough to make cracks "look right", and I still struggle with it. Maybe studying some references will help with that.
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Really enjoying your work. It has a bright, vibrant quality to it. Looking forward to more.
Still working out some scifi ideas.
Personally I feel that when it comes to structures and environments, perspective is very, VERY important.
@oskarreftel yeah perspective and value and hue and... I fight with. Continually trying to level up the skills.
Started an artversus blog with Dan! and bishoplynx. We're taking a theme each week and just rolling with it. This week was 300 heads (I think I made it close to 150 maybe).
I just got a Samsung Series 7 Slate and trying to transition to that for all drawing/painting. I feel like I'm just starting out again for some reason.
Starting to get a better groove with it. Just need more repetition.
Hmm too much red, lol.
Update:
I fixed this red, so here is better example.
Thanks SuperOstrich! Yeah it's horrible looking back on some of these.
Here's a horrible attempt at doing a lava texture.
A bit of reference, instead of using highlights you can try using soft brush for glow effect but just slightly, there is also plenty of subsurface light coming out.
Pix I agree with you. The key is mucho reference and moar practice! I think next time I'm going to try a different approach with lava. Thanks for the crits!
Anyways here todays. Focusing on large form and multiple angle. It's monotone because I mainly worked in greyscale to get the values sorted faster. Just gotta keep at it.
Paint with full opacity and just pick the color you want. This is not only more efficient because you're not "building up" a shade with dozens of strokes but you also get less muddled results and in general the painting looks a lot more confident. If you need a soft gradient then use a large soft edged round brush and a selection or a mask. Don't try to paint it with lots and lots of low opacity brush strokes.
I also suggest avoiding putting uniform thick black lines all over the crevices in your texture, not every cavity calls for the same darkness. Heavy darks should be used like bright highlights: Sparingly.
I've gone over a section of your texture to try to illustrate my point, I think the difference in light/dark placement becomes very apparent when looking at the texture from a distance:
Concept:
Current progress:
Cant believe I missed your sketch thread!
Finished up this owl lectern prop:
wires:
For your current gen brick wall, I kinda feel like those gashes aren't reading as cracks, and they sort of look like they were made with a hacking sword as opposed to forming from normal wear and tear. It's really tough to make cracks "look right", and I still struggle with it. Maybe studying some references will help with that.