Sketchbook; stickadtroja
polycounter lvl 11
Hey all! Im starting one of these to push myself to get better at 2D. So crits and comments are more than welcome!
Im mostly in to fantasy but I feel that I need to do real, anatomic correct people and stuff to improve and get out of my comfort zone. So for every minutaur I try to make at least one realistic human.
heres my latest stuff;
Im mostly in to fantasy but I feel that I need to do real, anatomic correct people and stuff to improve and get out of my comfort zone. So for every minutaur I try to make at least one realistic human.
heres my latest stuff;
Replies
I lke the giant holding the dude by the foot, it's pretty strong as an illustration, I think it could warrant that guy being fleshed out a bit.
you mean the minutaur or the hanging guy? cuz yeah it would be nice if I painted the hanging dude... not good at finishing pieces though. to lazy. so heres a new one instead;
here's a quick portrait. came out kind of bland.
peace
oh and also another unifinished sketch
some anatomy study without ref. plan is to get some good ref and see how far off i was.
and another girl, mostly done for clothes practice
You should do some studies from ref, though, man.
I'd prescribe trying so more dynamic poses and camera angles (or in this case, compositions) and colours too. Try and use your "explosive work" (as silverman puts it) try to assist in the feeling of the image.
Van Gogh is an example. In this image (below) his style adds a cool and calm (and, okay.. sad) feeling to the image. But what im getting at is that he uses his brush strokes to add a mood to this image
I cannot WAIT to see this in colour. Better PM me when you do :P
any crits is as usual super welcome.
Im think im going to focus more on dynamic lighting in the next piece since all the stuff i posted so far has really flat lighting
I moved the characters to the middle and made those on right bit bigger, hence my crappy paint work, I wonder if this will work out for you.
njc6425: thanks!
so heres some head studies. really want to learn to draw intresting faces. or to begin with, somewhat anatomic correct faces.
heres my most recent:
not finished though (obviously) and i not very happy with the background, dont like the colours.
also i maybe should put some to fight him in the foreground
any comments/crits would be much appreciated!
as usual, crits are more than welcome!
new pic. ceature concepts for a friends game
any crits would be super useful!
Here's a couple things to consider:
1-2 it's about bringing attention to right parts of your image
1. I painted this cyan fog you have over the hand slightly because that hand is clearly further away.
2. Painted glow to the eyes to bring attention, it's a bright colour that instantly guides your eyes.
two listen: both these are very good suggestions! i prefer the first one, and i thouhgt about adding a more direct light source and have dynamic shadows like yours. but even though it makes the picture more intresting for the eye, it detracts from the mood i'm trying to convey. the first picture of yours gives me a kind of exciting winter morning feel, and i want to have a more desolate, cold, lonely feeling...
pix: i like this a lot actually! the face of the monster gets the eye straight away and everything else looks really cold, still and silent. i tried to mess around for a while with the contrast and levels settings in PS but i didnt get the same crispyness that you got. so i will probably have to do another paint pass...
in either case, i added some slight glow on the eyes and also added snow flying in the air. im trying to make it more dynamic and add to the cold feeling...
better or worse?
You can possibly dig in deeper with the cracks and darker values then punch up the areas of interest with higher contrast and value.
Here is what I did for the eyes if you want to know, I painted the surrounding parts of monsters body using light saturated orange at low opacity and overlay layer, outer eye rims same orange but on light dodge layer and opacity change, then at the end I took lighter orange value and put it right on the eyes on normal layer, done it to correct the saturation a bit.
Also last thing for some reason the guy with the axe bothers me a lot, sort of breaks the flow in your image, something about his body language. I think you could just paint a dwarf with his back against the wall.
heres another piece, started as a warmup sketch but i now i feel i want to finish it.
her anatomy is really not done. need to look more like a young woman than a girl, and the armor should have a more intresting siluette. im fairly happy with the trees and the colours though.
obviously i hate hands
probably going to add some people in it...
I'm digging that last one, reminds me of Princess Mononoke, you might wanna work on more dramatic lighting scheme here, stronger light on main character would be nice, you might also wanna work with more hues...I did slight overpaint for you, hopefully that helps to give you idea how to bring out your piece.
(1) - Increased saturation in character using HARD LIGHT layer, using COLOUR DODGE layer you can work some sub surface scattering.
(2) - Here is where I used some COLOUR DODGE to push these areas slightly, with soft brush.
(3) - Dust motes you painted could be a nice addition like you have but you want them to be noticable so I did use COLOUR DODGE again
(4) - Pushed shadows slightly to work values.
Overall don't be afraid to use different layers, you can work as you do right now but then just use few layers with hard light or colour dodge, play with it, don't limit yourself
and so nice with an overpaint!
yes, i could definitely push the saturation in all areas, and the character looks a lot more alive in your overpaint!
i will go over it again and try to work in some more saturation and bouncy light and sss on the character.
this though... im actually very hesitant to use different layes and effects. the reason why, is that i want to have full control, or rather know exactly what im doing. i rather learn to pick the colours right and know how sub surface scattering works, then to have the effect achived by colour dodge. to me there is too much stuff in photoshop that just "make stuff pretty", like overlay or sharpen. i know that this is kind of a limiting mindset, at least in terms of efficiency and speed, but when i do art for personal reasons, i prefer it, cuz i imagine that i wil benefit from it in the long run, and become a better painter by doing it "the hard way".
i could be dead wrong though, i used to think this way about texturing 3d characters too, that i should handpaint ALL MATERIALS, but that i just had to give up on since it took to much time.
anyways, im still super grateful for any critic and overpaints, they help me a lot! for example, due to your critic, i tried to work some sub surface scattering into the face in my latest piece;
But definitely something not to miss out if you will ever have to work for a client, you might wanna make it easier for the sake of saving precious time or even just for experimentation.
New piece you made I can clearly see you try subsurface scattering, it also looks nicer, brings attention to the center of this piece, you can even try getting a flashlight and flashing it through your hand or fingers for reference.
You also might wanna push dramatic lighting in your paintings quite a bit, focusing on areas of interest and all this.
i especially agree about the dramatic lighting, my stuff often gets very flat.
i tried to fix some of the issues in the forest painting, added bounced ligthing and more contrast;
i also made a couple of new ones, im most pleased with the last;
I notice you also tend to paint characters quite a bit, you can try using gradient, dark values going down from legs to lighter values around the head, also makes sense because light will hit there most and head is a point of interest.
Now here is a scenario for lighting, you can use gradient tool to plan it out.
Left is round gradient, right is linear gradient, you can see how it changes the way image reads, I also added cool colour gradient at the bottom, you can compare with your original, you don't even have to use gradient tool, you can use soft brush at big size.
Pix: thanks a lot for this!
i havent posted in a long while, but now i have more free time, so i thought i would resurect this old sketchbook.
heres my latest sketches;
they are all just sketches, im thinking that i should make a finished piece soon, to not get too comfortable not finishing stuff.
the red floating dude, i made as a concept for a volcano god for a friends imaginary point and click game.
heres the latest finished painting;