Hey razvanc! Awesome work in posting. I have seen you getting quite a bit of feedback, some quite decent in the discord, so I won't repeat much I've seen on there.
I won't speak much to the notans, as they are an exercise. Generally a nice variety of shapes, positive / negative and canvas sizes. One thing I will say is that with Notans often it is hard to suggest depth because they are flat shapes, but you can almost think of it as the most simplest form of light and shadow. You can use shapes to define forms that appear 3D as well if you want to use them to figure out actual representational compositions in the future. Something to think about anyway.
In the 2 value notan studies, often you clutter up the comp, by trying to do too much detail. This happens because there is always a choice that needs to be made on what goes to white, and what goes to black. Sometimes it's not as obvious as you would think and switching which you use to get the right balance in the comp might mean picking a white instead of black to show a relatively dark value midtone. Example is the spaceship under the arch which isn't very clear. Perhaps the dust could be fully white rather than scratchy and the lit ground beneath the ship could actually be black, to show contrast between the shapes. It might not be "accurate" but it gets the idea of the comp across more.
Another example is the bear one. The emphasis of the comp is reduced because you used black to show the distant trees in the background. A solution might be to simplify even more and just not depict those midtone values and have them be white to make sure the comp reads as in the original. You do start to sort that out when you go to the more value range ones, but I would say really try to focus on simplification. The best way to do this is to squint your eyes, whether from observation or to evaluate your own work.
With your own comps, I think you are using the technique well to vary up the perspective and POV, and I love that you are self critiquing with notes. The ship attacking the building and the snowy gate are the best ones (once you painted over). It's clear what is going on.
I would say for the most part you are doing mostly overcast or ambient lit scenes. Try to branch out with direct lighting schemes as well, and showing shadow shapes of objects in the scene, as it is a powerful way of adding drama and mood.
This is perfect, this is the feedback I'm looking for, thanks a bunch @Amit!
The notan studies I completely agree with you, I tried to depict the objects, to clearly show what they are, that's why the mess, especially with the forests, and that's exactly why I chose them in the first place, because I knew I'll have difficulty in depicting them and I was hoping to get some feedback from you on it about them so this turned out as I wanted haha :D
About the comps, sound advice! But other than that I still feel that something is just missing and I don't know what :D in most of them, including the ship one for example. I'm just having that feeling of "meh", I couldn't get across the seriousness of the problem, maybe I should have included some fleeing people or something to get across the panic. Funny how the only one (the snowy scene) that looks good is the one I started with no idea of what I want to do :)). If you look closely it's the only one that doesn't appear in the notan warm up D:. It probably also helped that I was using the krita perspective assistant which made everything soo much easier, but yeah, I need to work on my perspective drawing skills :) among the million other issues.
Alright, thanks for you very useful feedback! Let's see if I can do any better! :D
Alright well, I tried :). OK, didn't spend much time on them either because of ... circumstances, but yeh, they are what they are, I suppose this is my current limit. So many things to learn! :D. No excuses! :)
Given myself a deadline of 27th December for First Challenge for 100 thumbnails, 5x 2 values and 5x 4 values. Been doing the thumbnails for warm ups experimenting with small, medium and large shapes, lasso tool vs no lasso tool but trying to keep it abstract considering only the balance of light and dark. Any crit will be much appreciated :)
Cool, your decision making in what goes to black/white is improving in the two value studies, which are making your 4 value ones better. If you like, do another study, but this time take it on further and really go for accuracy with values and lighting once you get to the 4 value stage. See if you can nail the more subtle value transitions while keeping the shapes/placement accurate but still simplified.
Doing this will give you a structured workflow that can be adapted to doing fully finished pieces depending on what your goals are.
(12-29-2016, 10:51 AM)Amit Dutta Wrote: Cool, your decision making in what goes to black/white is improving in the two value studies, which are making your 4 value ones better. If you like, do another study, but this time take it on further and really go for accuracy with values and lighting once you get to the 4 value stage. See if you can nail the more subtle value transitions while keeping the shapes/placement accurate but still simplified.
Doing this will give you a structured workflow that can be adapted to doing fully finished pieces depending on what your goals are.
Thanks Amit,
So to clarify you're saying really get the 4 values accurate to the study, take more consideration to the direction/ quality of light and really push the studies to learn from some of the subtlety? Will do, thanks for the feedback I'm really enjoying the course!
Hi, I watched the first video and decided to send in assignment 1 a few days ago.
It's very happy to me to see the great videos and others' assignments.
I'm sorry for late and my weird English.
Notan is my native language :D
Oo, very nice, welcome welcome! I need to get into this again, I've been busy with some other stuff, I need to pick it up as well. Nice seeing someone else 'going through the class' :D. Hopefully I'll be arriving with the self-critique one of these days :D.
Here are my final bunch of thumbnails, a Shaddy Safadi study that I spent a bit more time on and a master study which i tried to use the shapes and manipulate them into my own thumbnail. I think it would've worked better If I considered the shapes as abstract or just the basic composition because I kept referencing the original painting to understand the forms and my ideas didn't flow.
Started with the Notan exercises - I was trying not to do anything representational but my brain kept floating in and out of reality and sometimes I did something that was meant to look like something and other times my mind "unhinged" and I was just focused on making pretty shapes. Did you guys find that?
“Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.” -- H. Jackson Brown Jr.
@Seki, nice work, and those last batch look cool, great job. I like that you changed up the perspective and the read and lighting is so clear. The first one and the pagoda one are the strongest in my opinion. One thing I guess I will just mention is the whole dude silhouette in foreground works but try and think of other solutions for showing scale and narrative as well. figures in the midground, multiple figures doing something etc. Also since you are doing lighting, consider direct lighting options as well as the more softbrush ambient approach. Shadow/light shapes make compositions interesting! It is something I would have added to my YT vid in hindsight.
@Art, welcome on board and great start. I really like the symbolic nature of your notans and how you use rhythm and repetition to create interesting patterns. Great stuff! And yeah our brains our built to interpret patterns so we will always start to see things in things that aren't actually there. :) Don't be scared of this. If you see something emerge, let it happen! I mean eventually you can use these as a way to do thumbnails for representational pieces.
I decided to do this today cause otherwise I'll just keep postponing... I didn't bother critiquing textually... cause the initial versions (the left ones as you guessed :D) are so bad they don't deserve any effort into critiquing :)
With these though I discovered something about myself. I've been looking at others how they work and lately especially at FZD and it amazes me how they can manage to make a composition work without actually going in much of any detail. So instead of isolating layer as @Amit does in his 'course' vids I started experimenting with this free & loose way of painting. The bottom right one is extremely loose but for some reason I believe it can still work and only details are left to work on, which I won't cause this wasn't the purpose of this exercise :)
I'm actually quite happy with this result for my level.
hey Razvan, yep keep it going man, don't let it drop or it is much harder to pick up again.
The main aim of separating in layers is for a broader separation of value and shape control and ability to change things easily. And you will see when it comes to the colour mood iterations why having separation of layers can make things more efficient.
You can definitely get realistic finished looking compositions if you paint directly because you have a greater value range to work with from the start. Absolutely nothing wrong with this and when I do personal pieces, I often jump between the two different ways. For learning purposes I find most beginners get very muddled with their values which is why it helps to think in terms of separation and blocks of value.
The main difference I see in the last one isn't technique but that you have controlled and used your values and value areas to serve the composition better than in the other 3. Keep experimenting and find what works for you!
Morning @Amit! I guess my formulation wasn't that correct :). I still use layers to separate foregorund, midground etc. but what I can't seem to do well is to have very well defined sharp shapes on these layers. It kind of works better for me to just paint loosely or at least for now :). I am very much still experimenting. Have to start WK3 and see how it goes with the color moods. Thanks for dropping by :P
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