Sketchbook: 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.
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.
Replies
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.
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
Thats some nice additions!
*edit: Got rid of a really obvious tiling issue.
I'm hoping to get into a local gallery.