Crimson Daggers — Art forum

Your piece is coming along nicely. Can't wait to see the final. Keep it up <3

That short knight dude with the dreamy colors a couple of pages back is really cool! I like your looser paintings too.

continue to push the edges in your digital imagination work. You have great significant improvement so far

Oooh nice one Jake!
I do have feedback on this, but I am at work - can only do it at home.
So hang in there!

Really like the guy with the sword in post #581, and the low angle. Lots of drama, good earthy color, even the blackbirds in the background which add some more movement. One minor thing, though. It sort of feels like his hand is kind of small compared to the other guy's face. Or maybe the other guy's face is too big. Anyway, really great work in progress!

Jake!



I hope you don't mind the paint over and I hope this helps!

Remember Dan saying that composition is all about implying lines? Took me a while to figure that out, but the implied lines happens when you read an image. Those paths you take are the lines people are talking about. So, in dynamic compositions, try avoid standing people; Shift them a bit - either in stance of by shifting the canvas or even hiding the straight stance with a cape! Anything that break the visual flow and makes a diagonal or a curve. Things like swords can read as arrow or as a simple flat line - and they flat lines are powerful but they are also slow; It makes everything stall, and it's not what you're looking for in a moment of tension.
So make them point to the camera - suddenly it's not a line anymore, but a pronounced shape. This also makes the depth illusion of the image read a bit better.
In general, avoid making things parallel to the camera. His whole arm holding the sword was very parallel to the camera and no connecting to the head on the foreground. Don't be afraid to push the shapes! Make the sword at a real, decided angle. It will make it much more stronger.
You can even make the other (the resting) hand smaller, just to make the hand in the action look bigger and push the depth even more.

It's an awesome piece, full of potential.
This is just a suggestion, pretty sure there are other awesome routes to be taken here. Don't be afraid of pushing it! As a teacher of mine say it, Push it till you break it. Now you know when it breaks, and when it's awesome.

Jake, you're getting so much better with each post, man. I'm gonna have to light my ass on fire to keep up with you, ha.

hey man, thanks for the crit in my sb, appreciate it. I like what ursula did with her paintover of your latest piece also. Your painting just keeps getting better! I think if you try softening up some edges in places it could help your paintings a bit as (for me at least) there are a lot of hard edges not so many lost and soft ones. Your work ethic is seriously inspiring, gotta be less lazy lol keep pushing dude!

Rama - Cheers man, :)

Manny - Thanks, glad you like them :)

Spiffy - Yeah I definitely need to work on my edges, cheers :)

Tygerson - Hopefully that's working a bit better now. Cheers though :)

Ursula - No, I don't mind at all. Thank you so much, it helped a ton. Really made me think about the depth in a different way. My version was kinda fly swatted, and the way you painted it really worked. Hope I've managed to bring some of that across into mine :) I'd never thought about things being flat to the camera either, that's going to help a ton with pieces in the future, I can tell :). Thank you!!

MrFrenik - Haha, cheers dude, likewise, always get so pumped flicking through your SB.

JonHop - No worries dude, hope it kinda helped lol. Yeah man, she's the best (Thanks again Sula!!!) Yeah, think you're right about the soft edges. Need to find a good way of painting them in or something. I'm working on it :D Cheers.

So, I think I'm nearly, maybe, sorta done with this? Gonna take a step back from it in any case, and work on some other stuff for a little while. Not going to call it finished right away (think I'll need to look at it with fresh eyes first) so if anyone's got any comments or crits, I'd love to hear them. Cheers all :)

It's looking awesome. Really like how the second guy's face turned out, too.

i really like how your last piece turned man, and Sula paintover looks great, i would really recommend to go in that direction, but i'm saying the obvious again haha.
The only thing i would critique is that there are too many hard edges.
So even if everything is rendered properly, you cant lead the eye of the viewer to the main point because everything is attracting the eye.
You always can try to soften the edges with an airbrush or the smudge tool and see how it looks.
I'm also not really sure about those birds, they are just taking attention and nothing else, if you could place them strategically to lead them to the guy on his knees or the sword that would be really cool!

Tygerson - Thank you. I'm not sure though lol. It's one of those pieces that I finished, and as soon as I look back at it, I really dislike it lol. Ho hum, moving on.

Eduardo - Cheers dude. Yeah you're totally right, gonna be working on my edges and focal points more in the future. :)

Okaaaay, stuff from the last couple of days. Been all over the plane. Just trying to work what I wanna work on. Nonsense stuff first, then a Jaime Jones study (trying to work on edges and efficiency) then kinda rethinking my process and stuff after that.







JJ study


Process


Photo study, applying that process


Quick movie still studies




Sketches




Spitpainting


Think that's the lot. Got some new things to focus on now, a new process to try out, and I'm pumped. Go go go!!!

MAN!

I TOUGHT THAT WAS A JAMIE JONES ORIGINAL

D: I'm shocked. HAHA, good work! And I really dig those sketches of yours, they're promising!

(:

Mateus - Lol, cheers dude. So much time staring at that brush work, the guy really knows what he's doing. Love it :)

Been visiting family for a week over Xmas, just home now. Got some bits in here and there, plus a few things from before I left :)

Knight studies


Sketch


Santa Sketch


Movie Still study from DKR


Sketch


Study (finished this one in the car on the way home lol, not ideal)

Loving your studies man
Jelly~

Passed 3500 hours here

Ursula - Thank you, having fun with them atm :)

Stuff from today
Shawshank study


Applying it, kinda. Totally ballsed this up. Still trying to get a workflow together, I'll get there.

Been a while since my last visit, you continue to amaze me with your workflow and variety of studies.
Happy new year!

crackedskull - Cheers dude, means a lot :). Happy new year :)

Today's stuff

Study


Kinda applying it, learnt a ton doing this




So, it’s (nearly) the end of 2013. Not going to ramble on too much, but wanted to have a little look back, and think about the next year (cliche I know, but this is as good a time as any to reassess goals and stuff right?)

Loads of ups and downs, periods where I’ve felt like my work was improving well, and others where I fell into a slump. Short stretches of productivity, broken up by lumps of laziness and stagnation. Going to try and swing it the other way next year, minimise the slumps (as much as possible) and be more consistent with my work.

In 2013 I broke 2500 hours for the year, went past 3500 hours total (sine I started counting), got my first private job, and did my first bits of work for some game companies. I went full-hermit at times, stopped exercising, started again, and joined a hockey club. As of right now I’m doing freelance work when I get it, and living at home after deciding to study on my own rather than returning to university (I took a year from a graphic design degree in November 2012).

Next year I want to really get my foot in the door. Going to be building my portfolio and looking for work more consistently, rather than the haphazard way I’ve been doing it so far. I’ve never been big on new years resolutions, but here’s a few things I’m going to be trying to implement through January, and hopefully for the rest of the year, in order to .

Early starts - I know I work much better and achieve much more when I get started at a reasonable hour in the morning. Lie ins are great, and they’re oh so goddamn comfy, but they leave me feeling groggy and generally gross all day.

250 Hours - Gonna try and hit 250 hours a month again. Did it a couple of times this year, but fell off a lot, when I lost focus, or just got lazy. Starting earlier in the mornings should help with this. It’s much easier to get the hours in starting at 9 than 12. :). As a side note, this would make a 3000 hour year, which’d be pretty sweet :).
I don’t want to get too caught up in the hours thing. But I’ve been doing it for a little too long to just pack it in now, so I figure I may as well use it as a motivation thing. Might not be the most efficient thing, or the healthiest, but whatever. Sue me ;)

Studying - Gotta study more!!! 2 hours a day, first thing in the morning. Did some studies over the holidays and had a load of fun, and realised how out of practice I am with them, gonna get back on it, and make it a habit :).

Output - Kinda related to the studying. This article was going round the other day (https://medium.com/better-humans/3bc2b16fe3f5) and it really resonated. I really don’t finish enough stuff, and that has to change, so I’m gonna be attempting to finish something everyday. Initially this’ll probably be an application of the day’s study, but it might expand, who knows? :)

We’ll see how it goes with these. Might be a disaster, might work well, either way I’ll hopefully learn some stuff. Pumped for the new year. :)

Happy New Year all, here's to an awesome 2014!

<3

Hey man, these are some really awsome goals set for yourself this upcoming year. I'd have to strongly agree with all of the points you made, especially starting things at a reasonable hour.

You're works been getting a lot better, and the studies themselves have definitely made a noticeable difference. Keep it up. :D

Archreux - Cheers man, yeah seems like it's pretty important lol. :)

Here goes, first day of 2014 :)

Study


Apply


And a WIP