Crimson Daggers — Art forum

Hi guys! Awesome posts this week, I was looking forward to color :D Unfortunately, I am surviving midterm season right now and this assignment will be a few days late.

ZombieChinchilla -- Great job with the variety of shapes and values! You have picked very attractive palettes with a good, full range. Something to keep in mind: the darker you make your initial sketch, the harder it would be to color it (leaving you with a lot of "muddy" colors). Another thing to watch out for is the light direction: I am confused as to why the bottom of the island is so dark on the daylight piece. My guess is you have been picking values from the castle reference. If you observe that castle on the island carefully (the middle vertical one on the bottom set), you will notice that sunlight has a direction -- up and from the left. The right side of the castle is lit by the light of the sky (also reflected from the water) that bounces onto the walls. Be especially careful when observing these things!

Bart -- these moods read instantly! Great use of softer edges on the sunset to create an illusion of a haze, and the rim light on the moonlit piece. I think the second color sketch is your most successful one.

Lordminkx -- that third one is fantastic! I love how you used a texture to depict a scattering underlit effect. Having said that, do not be afraid to push color on your "daylights" -- you left it a bit desaturated and overcast, but I feel like it could really benefit from sone sun-spots especially on the mountains. Look to your reference: these breaks in the clouds can be used as theatrical spotlights to frame your composition very nicely :D

wasgodx -- these are so simple but so good! I like the dusk one especially. All of them remind me of Disney's backgrounds, a little more simplified but still easy and engaging to read. I wish you have played with the broken ruins/windows of the "panthenon" in your first B&W sketch more... some really cool shadow and light patterns, worth exploring!

TwilightExplode -- I wish they were bigger so I could see more of them :'D Brilliant mood, so dramatic and striking. You used very simple palettes to their full advantage.

U-3C -- HOLY SHIT DUDE this is a hell of a kick in the ass to me-- I can seriously see no wrong, ahaha. Awesome awesome awesome use of reference, drama, and realism. Maybe push the foreground elements to be a touch crisper, otherwise, fuck yes, nailed it.

Aumes -- These studies are so useful!! Definitely save them for later, what a cool little cheat sheet. Ease up on the dodge/burn! It's better to learn to paint these colors in, imo, that is why your end-afternoon sketch looks the strongest to me, I think. I also feel like the (late sunset) piece would cause the robot to be in more shadow... since it is standing in the same shadow as the afternoon, it would be mostly blue.

Cyprinus -- I do feel like they are a liiiittle too dark so you don't have a lot of space to explore all that wonderful range of color you have otherwise! This is where I would suggest not looking at photos but painting from life: you will instantly see just HOW MUCH light there is in the shadows, how colorful they can be. Your second piece, in that, is the most successful. Try starting with a sketch that has less contrast, or manually toning it down. The key is to color pick your darkest darks at any point and never go beyond an "8" on the lightness scale. If that doesn't make sense, hmu, but I am basically referring to Photoshop's color sliders.

I'll post more crits when I have the time :'D OTOH school has me running around doing plein airs a lot, so I would love to share these with you guys, hopefully the stuff I talk about in terms of color in shadows and capturing correct temperatures will make more sense!

Blargle.. I'm so.. brain dead now.. trying to learn how to environment, and how to watercolour landscapes all in one..
I picked the simplest one from my last assignment and tried to fix it as shown, feels a wee bit like a cheat but I felt like the whole painting and colours and everything was going to be hard enough without throwing getting the comp right on the more difficult pieces.
As always the scanner has washed some of the colour out, and I didn't think to try and alter it till just now seeing it against a black background.. colour vs colour alters perception.. ugh *facepalm*

@Vlada: thank thank! (>;v;)>

It really means a lot.

Looking great everyone! Here's mine. This one I found pretty difficult. Looking forward to the crits.

I really need to get one of those monitor calibrator squid things, these colors looked drastically different across my monitors. I tried to adjust them all afterwards to account for my derpy monitor but they might be a little too saturated across the board now.

Also included the optional assignment; unfortunately I could only spend about 2 min on the sketch/notes phase because the mosquitoes were BRUTAL. But I'm pretty familiar with the place I chose so hopefully it balanced that out.

I realized after I uploaded the resolution kinda sucked so I uploaded it again a bit larger. Hope that doesnt mess things up.

Colors are hard

Hi Guys,

Thought I was only gonna get 2 done, but frantically slapped some hue/saturation layers on for the 3rd nighttime mood. Fffffff.......

Hey guys,

Thank you Amit, i'm trying. Oh btw i didn't do any painting of the pics, i'm sorry (i have no excuse). I am sure i'd benefit from it a lot, so i'll try to do one or two and post them later. I just took notes, but as i re-watch stuff i see many hints that could have been avoided (if only i did even just sketch one of the pics to better get how light influences different surfaces).

Thank you also Vlada. Good pointers, i appreciate. I agree with your feedback, as i watch the early night scene. I'll see into it again and post on my blog.

Thanks a lot for the nice feedback.

Cheers

Wait... I missed the deadline after all????? I thought I still had half an hour and was hoping to have both week 2 and 3 finished by then :(

I hate timezones. Crap.

Oh well, in that case... *goes to have coffee first*

@Olooriel, email it to me. I'll let it through this time. But not being able to handle simple things like time zones, is a very good way to look totally incompetent if freelancing is your aim. That's why I want to stress deadlines like a nazi. Not because they are important, but because this is a skill to practice and improve on as well as doing the actual art thing. It's more important in keeping your clients than your work is! :)


Aaaand, that's it for assignment 3! AWESOME work guys. This week was probably a bit of a rough one but you guys powered through and gave it a good shot and you should be so proud of that!

From here on you will be starting and working on your own mini-project for the next 4-5 weeks. There will be some demos on my own process in finishing a production illustration for a video game. This is actual client work, so I will also be talking a bit about that aspect of things, dealing with clients, deciphering and incorporating their feedback, as well as techniques in detailing, photobashing, finishing. I photobashed the hell out of this one due to time, so if you are interested in that workflow you will see a lot of it. :)

I will record a video where I talk about all this soon. The key thing here is that I am now going to be working with you guys individually on what you need most. For some of you I might suggest staying in values only and focusing on design, composition and lighting. Some of you will go all into finished colour piece/s. Some of you might be able to handle more than that! It's gonna be good fun! :)

Thanks Amit, mailed it!

And yeah, I know :( I trusted Google's time conversion, and I guess it ignores summer/winter time or something, it gave me an hour later. But I shouldn't have made it that tight to begin with, so that's not an excuse.

Thank you @Amit for the crit.
I appreciate your time to review my 3 color studies. I can see there are so many aspects i lack in terms of perceiving stuff, when painting. I need to focus more, i know. i am too abstracted when ever i do art (kind of like a Jazz impro (without the theory knowledge (: ), resulting in some pretty heavy mistakes. Other aspects, i think i am just ignorant about them (XD).

But, anyway, this is helping to be aware of stuff when producing an illustration. Art is a constant struggle, a tricky ride.

Even though, i have lots of practicing to do now. Thanks again man.

Cheers

Awesome work guys. 

I don't think I'm ready for serious freelancing yet. I didn't manage my time correctly and could only turn in 2 finished moods instead of 3. I'll complete the third one, mainly for myself, when I get back from work today. Thankfully I did upload what I had to the turn in page, but didn't post it here yesterday. 

Doing these mood paintings is stressing, and I've noticed a lot of flaws on my values because of it, so it's awesome to immediately see where I can improve, just by doing mood paintings. 


[attachment=75796]

(10-24-2015, 12:04 AM)Xiaogabe Wrote: [ -> ]Awesome work guys. 

I don't think I'm ready for serious freelancing yet. I didn't manage my time correctly and could only turn in 2 finished moods instead of 3. I'll complete the third one, mainly for myself, when I get back from work today. Thankfully I did upload what I had to the turn in page, but didn't post it here yesterday. 

Doing these mood paintings is stressing, and I've noticed a lot of flaws on my values because of it, so it's awesome to immediately see where I can improve, just by doing mood paintings. 

I really dig what you got going on here mang, even if it is incomplete. I'm looking forward to see what else you come up with in the future 

Hi everyone,

Again, I'm really impressed by the results I've seen here. There's some truly awesome work here!

As for me, well, this is all I came up with. It took me four hours, which was the amount of time I had to  deal with this assignment. There's a bit of progress,  at least I didn't spend 24 hours on one single frame.

[attachment=75807]


Good luck to you all in the next weeks!

I didn't get the chance to say thank you so... Thank you! Amit, the assignments and videos are great, very well worded and easy to understand. I can feel making big leaps forward after each critique you give me. The journey continues! Cheers!

(10-24-2015, 01:56 AM)monkeybit29 Wrote: [ -> ]

(10-24-2015, 12:04 AM)Xiaogabe Wrote: [ -> ]Awesome work guys. 

I don't think I'm ready for serious freelancing yet. I didn't manage my time correctly and could only turn in 2 finished moods instead of 3. I'll complete the third one, mainly for myself, when I get back from work today. Thankfully I did upload what I had to the turn in page, but didn't post it here yesterday. 

Doing these mood paintings is stressing, and I've noticed a lot of flaws on my values because of it, so it's awesome to immediately see where I can improve, just by doing mood paintings. 

I really dig what you got going on here mang, even if it is incomplete. I'm looking forward to see what else you come up with in the future 

Thanks, man! I really liked your environment as well. Your third mood of those is my favorite. Love that sunlight bleeding out of the space with nice warm saturated colors. I too look forward to what you come up with in the future!

@vlada: Thank you for the pointers! I think I know what you mean. The whole value thing is really hard for me, somehow! Before, when I worked digitally, I would always lack contrast in my stuff, so somehow I slipped into those really dark values. I will pay more attention from now on. And I definitely need to paint more from life. I didn't have much opportunity this year. I hope it will be better next year, or that I might have a chance this year if the weather is not too bad.

@Amit: Thanks again for the video critique!! I feel like I've been learning a ton already with those 3 assignments. I hope I can work it well into the next tasks. Actually I should have known some points you mentioned but I tend to forget them ): I don't know why it is so hard for me to remember the facts when I need them. Looking forward to working on the next piece!! (:

(10-23-2015, 12:47 PM)vlada Wrote: [ -> ]TwilightExplode -- I wish they were bigger so I could see more of them :'D Brilliant mood, so dramatic and striking. You used very simple palettes to their full advantage.

Thanks, Vlada, it's greatly appreciated! Here's a larger version on dA: twilight-explode

Amit, thank you very much for the critique! I am very thankful that you didn't bash on it for being so stylized, I think teachers I've had in the past would have. I'm definitely going to take your lighting advice to heart for all future pieces.

You're welcome guys ^-^  Sorry it has been another crazy busy week this week, I picked the worst time to start this all off haha. I hope to finish the critiques within the next day, and I think I will livestream the project info, rather than making a video for it because it is pretty simple and informal. Start getting your thinking caps on for what you would like to do for your own project/illustration over the next 4 weeks if you have ideas. I'd prefer you do something you are passionate about than simply follow a brief :)

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@twilight : Stylisation is great, I don't understand why anyone would bash on it. Some people are too narrowly focused I guess. Keep it up!

@cyprinus: Yep, I keep saying it, knowing something is not the same as consciously applying it! Sounds really obvious, but it isn't that easy to do always. I had a huge aha moment when I really realised what this meant and started doing it.

@Amit: No need to apologize for anything! I'm pretty sure everybody is already thankful enough that you are doing this.

Honestly, if you feel tired, you can just drop my crit for some sleep and leave it for some other day. I'm pretty busy with other stuff too so I won't mind if you put it up a few days later.

Proper sleep first! o(^o^)o