Crimson Daggers — Art forum

Those jungle/ruin studies look awesome.

Thanks Tygerson! 

Day 13: found the importance of the lassoo tool in this one

ive found a good method of doing a piece without ref, fuck up and get questions going in my head then do a study and re do my piece, since its something i did myself and im fixing my own mistakes it gets way quicker to that stage of being able to use it outside of practice and make it a tool on my belt, keep going youre doing a great effort

Thanks for the advice Darckward! I will try that out in future as is good idea. Day 14, Struggled with the imagination study here as kept flipping canvas so couldn't remember which side stuff was on :') i mean i guess it means im thinking about stuff more. Still feels to overexposed and undersaturated. Feel like my overall shape design and foliage design can improve also.

Day 15! Woop Woop, halfway!! Learnt a lot from this one... need to simplify shapes more as they get confused:

Day 16: Still feeling overexposed in imagination study and not adding enough variation in greens. Need to simplify into basic shapes better also.

So I don't want to throw off your groove of mapcrunch study, especially since you've kept it up so consistently, but have you considered mixing in some HDR landscapes? You mentioned feeling like this was overexposed. If done well, the colors and values are often more "painterly."

Hi Tygerson, good idea. do you have any resources for that? i'm always looking for good photo reference websites! 
Day 17- Today I did a study from Michal Sawtytuk to try and get some of that juice. For the study I would've benefitted starting with larger shapes and working down. I did this with the imagination study but didn't add enough colour variation to shadows. More gradients would help look better also I feel

I'd just go onto flickr.com and type in "HDR photography" or "HDR landscape." That will get you a bazillion images to start with. You can be more specific if you're looking for a particular kind of landscape. On flickr, you can sort by license such as "creative commons," which should be good to go if you're not selling the paintings.

Choose wisely--some HDR is gorgeous, and some is garish (think Thomas Kinkade on steroids).

I've found that amateur photographers enjoy seeing images based on their work, so it's nice to leave a comment like, "I loved this photo you took and painted it for practice. You can see it here [link]."

Wherever you post it your image, just put a link back to their photo. It's generally required in the creative commons license. Even if it's not required, it's a nice gesture to the person who got up at the crack of dawn to get you a gorgeous reference photo! :)

Thanks Tygerson! That's really good advice, I'll do that for my next studies. Day 18: I spent about twice as long on this study again based on the amazing work of michal sawtyruk. I went straight in with colour which i think works better for me for these studies. however because i didn't have an overall feel of the values my imagination image suffered. I didn't have time to complete it. Also some work for a project I'm developing:

Nice stuff man!

I can recommend noah bradley's reference packs on his gumroad, they're free :)
I really learned a lot from his photos, the colors are not as distorted as on mapcrunch.

https://gumroad.com/noahbradley

Thanks Leonard! I've got the photo packs but haven't looked in them for this work! I will do in future. Just did a standard mapcrunch study today trying to use Michal Sawytruk style. My values are a bit all over the place in the imagination study so I need to be mindful of this when doing the initial study

Days 20 and 21! The one with the rock is from Noah Bradley's Australia ref pack. I feel this method is a lot more effective for me- I just need to ensure my values are more accurate because sometimes I feel the sense of depth is compromised. I might do a small value study tomorrow just so I know roughly what values I'm aiming for

good stuff man, values are always a good thing to practice :)

Thanks dude, finding the photo packs really helpful. Here is Day 22 in which I did a quick value study beforehand. Am quite happy with my progress :) Learnt a lot about painting foliage and skies but still got a long way to go!

Love the consistent effort! Your shape language and design as improved a ton.

Might I suggest doing more master studies or plein air paintings? It seems like your values and colors get crunched due to the value limitation of photography. Learning from master studies, or plein air can help enliven your eye and aid in believability. Photo studies are better for subject variety, detail, and accessibility, but not much else.

Also, maybe spend more than a day on a painting, pushing something for dead accurate proportions and edges can go a long way. Hope this can be of some use, keep up the great work!

Thanks for the advice Ubem! I will do a master study tomorrow. I am aware I need to do more plein air painting, I just need to fit the time in. I don't have much more time than this at the moment because of uni work but when I finish this challenge I'll do some longer studies! 

Day 23: Doing an almost entirely hard surface study was testing so think I'll do a similair thing tomorrow. It means I can't make quick, abstract shapes as easily. From Noah Bradley's photo reference packs

These are looking great! Way to stick to it!

Thanks Tygerson :)

Day 24- Tried another predominately hard surface one from Noah Bradley's photo reference pack- I may spend a bit longer on one at the weekend. I need to add more details to the buildings especially as look a bit flat

These photos seem to have better lighting. Good find!