Sketchbook: wrangler249

wrangler249

On the suggestion of my good friend I've decided to start one of these here sketchbook thingamajigs.

Can somebody please tell me what I'm doing wrong with this piece, I've been working on it for a day now and no matter what I do I just can't seem to get the right feel in the texture; to me the plaster seems very boring and the concrete underneath seems flat and boring too.

wrangler249

I've reworked this texture a lot, changing up the entire bottom section of the texture.

teaandcigarettes

Hah, glad you finally started one.

The texture looks better, but here's a few things you might want to change

- Damage still looks too uniform. The bricks underneath are too clean. Damaged concrete should leave a lot of bumps and splotches. A bit like here:


I think it might be worth choosing a different source for the bricks. The one you use now is way too even and clean.

- I don't like the way plaster is peeling off. The transition between concrete and plaster has that uniform, fuzzy edge. Try to vary it some more. Use some long brush strokes here and there, vary their opacity and so on.

- Plaster looks to clean. You could try uncovering the concrete underneath here and there; especially around these cracks. Try doing something like this, although keep it more subtle:



Also, I don't really like its colour too much. Maybe play around with the hue a little bit more. You could also add a little bit of colour variation; some grunge and stains could help.

wrangler249

I've tried your suggestions and I'm pretty pleased with how this is turning out. I'm done with it for today though, my brain is pickled with all this learning I'm doing.

teaandcigarettes

Looks a lot better Mitchell, but it's still a bit too clean and uniform. :poly142:

I did a quick overpaint for you to give you an idea of where you could go with it.



I went over quickly with the clone stamp tool and copied some of the details onto a new layer. Then I used a mask to get rid of the unnecessary things.

For the grunge, I just painted a few basic colours and then used the Blend If menu to control the transition. You will have to spend a bit more time thinking about the distirbution of grunge and so on; my paint over was pretty random and you don't want that.

Here's a link to the psd so you can check things out yourself.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4361936/plaster_mitchell.psd

lloyd

@ teaandcigarettes

Thats some nice additions!

James854

Great idea!

wrangler249

Looking for opinions on this cracked concrete texture I'm working on:
*edit: Got rid of a really obvious tiling issue.

wrangler249

Been doing a little sculpting in my free time:

wrangler249

Been doing a lot of abstract fine art lately.









I'm hoping to get into a local gallery.