The scratching on the spike should follow the form they are to straight.The neck still look a bit to unrendered compare to the rest but you don't need to go as heavy on texture there.The scale around the eye are really well made but i think you need better reference .Your plant in the foreground as a tangente with the rock on the left.Would be perhaps to test a version with a bit of smoke coming out of is nose.Also try a version with blood coming out of is mouth to help the idea of broken teeth.
darktiste: Great points! Love your recommendations as well so I implemented most of them as well!
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I resumed the painting process until I was happy with it, and eventually finalized it. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out so I'm calling it done for now, unless of course there's something really off so please let me know if that's the case! Here is the final image:
I think going with less saturation could improve the mood it depend if you want a darker or a more hopeful vibe like the one you have.But i think if you want a middle between realism and your more comic style work you gotta play on the saturation.Also just for style point of view the more you have detail the more it will make it feel realistic and the flatter and saturated the object matter are the more they become like comic book in my opinion.
I changed the scale on is nose to be less consistent and symmetrical i think it help give it a more realistic feel and i also decreased the amount of detail on the nose to lead the eye toward the character.
I added more smoke to the right to hide a bit more the neck and made it in a way that show the texture there so your effort aren't to lost.
Also because i would think it would be nice that the viewer could feel like he inside this hot environnement the smoke was leaking in the foreground so i help sorround the subject and i did a nice adjusment of the fog in a way that highlight the frog which could be highlight a little just for fun.
For spike i would say avoid spike that are really large there base and really pointy most horn are rounded at the end so pointy one look weird.
I added a few dark spot in the sky above the fog to move the eye alittle more.I think it add a bit of variety in the environment where the air isn't as heavy as in other spot which suggest wind and movement.
One last observation is the element near is left knee they are really flat and they point away from the character which might not be the best element to have there
I tried something to create a interesting mix of both style.Here what i did i copied your image and i applied a cutout artistic filter over it so that i have one version under and one on top i than turn the one over the original into a mask and removed some part of the mask where i wanted thing to be less detail and other place with more detail and focus.It not always as straight foward to predict the result of the filter but you can try to play with the adjustment the idea is to find some happy accident using this method. You can notice the more graphic effect on the water if you compare my two image. It a nice method to decrease the detail level instead and create area of interest.
darktiste: Great feedback as always! This image is a bit more desaturated than my normal works, although I agree I can take it a step further. Saturation is something I'll try to be more conscious of as I paint, I think I'll force myself to use more desaturated tones than normal in the beginning and gradually build the more saturated tones as I develop the image. I made some changes to the image based on your critiques and paintover, thanks for taking the time to help me improve the image as well, very much appreciate it!
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I did some final adjustments to the dragon image and finalized it, here is the image:
I began work on a new sketch as well, this time featuring both a pirate and a mermaid which I thought would make for an interesting combo. The figures poses were referenced from Grafit Studio as well, here is the sketch. Any input on the sketch before proceeding with colors would be greatly appreciated as always!
Just a quick observation there alot of dramatic related piece.You already did a piece with a similar vibe with the cave painting.Why not do try to work on passion for a change and make two lover embrace or kiss to push the range of story telling.To me it feel to similar to thing you already tried nothing wrong with revisiting those.You still are early it not impossible to take an other direction.
You sure do love marmaid and pirate argh!!! Atleast you make it clear what you are into.
If anything the bird look kinda small compare to the real thing.
He hair masses could be curving a little bit since there seem to be a breeze already suggest by the head band flow.
Don't forget to make the treasure sit inside the environnement add some terrain silhoutte to break the silhouette of the chest so they feel harmonized.
A couple of things stand out. One is the scales appear a little too corn-cobby. I know that should disappear with the next stages but if you go with gold scales - I warned you. The second is her ear seems to have migrated into her hair.
The hands are much better in this version than the cave portrait, it's tricky with all the foreshortening.
Personally I like the pose and its drawn very well! also the concept of the pirate and mermaid is right up my street but i do see a couple things I could point out. The first thing i noticed was the crows nest of the ship in the back ground. It feels like this is too leaned over in relation to the horizon and bothers me a tad. I imagine the intention is the ship has been beached and is leaning to one side but I dont get that from the bow, maybe just revisit this perspective to get it nailed down.
The seagull on the bow needs to be a tad smaller I feel
On his boots, this might be a personal thing, but i would give the excess straps on each boot a bit more flair and not be so starch. Maybe a few curls would look good :) and possibly some fancy buckles too
bonus crit: if i had to carry the key around that is meant for that treasure chest it would be pulling my pants down for sure.
other than those nit picky things i would say full steam ahead, looks great! love seeing your work
darktiste: Yes, excellent point, the poses are indeed similar to the Underworld image, but the final image should look significantly different overall as I plan on keeping this bright and fairly saturated. Great suggestions as well, just implemented them!
RottenPocket: Thank you! I think I'll rework the scales by the next update as well!
CBinnsIllustration: Thanks! I straightened the angle of the boat a bit, I still want it a bit curved to make it more dramatic so hopefully this works well enough. Love your input on the boots, just reworked them and I feel it makes for a stronger image!
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I began the painting process and the image has come quite a long way! I plan on reworking the mermaid scales a bit and adding more detail throughout, but I'm fairly pleased with how it's coming along. Any feedback appreciated as always!
They look to tan i would say but who wouldn't be tan at the beach hahah. You said you were going saturated i tried the reverse.The highlight are whiter in my version to make it look like there less in a desert(very yellow due to sand in the air)here the air quality is the best so i think it the right choose for the highlight.
Throw in the atmospheric perspective also on those mountain to help create some scale.I also thrown some on the top of the ship center pole.
To me the lighting right now look to artifical.For example look how the floor every shadow is to the left but on the character there a light hitting them almost from the right of the viewer.This kind of shadow on the floor would not exist according to that light scenario
I darken the fish scale section of the siren a bit of dark there i think help move the eye toward the face.You can also see i darken the crotch.
I also thrown a fair bit of the ground color into the other color of the character to harmonize the whole thing.
So yea i think most of what i would fix would be regarding light that seem to be thing that get under my nail the most.Because of how well the rest is already at.
looking good! if i may I would like to suggest a slightly different angle. The elements of your illustration I love the most are the pirates face and the Mermaids form. If it were my piece i would try to emphasize that more. One way I would experiment with is possibly making her more bioluminescent. Since she is fantasy why not go crazy. The you can use this to really make the best parts pop a bit more. This also help deal with the similar sun kissed skin tones you have and lets face it, mermaids would probably need to use SPF 120 :)
Forgive the crude paintover but by making the mood of the piece slightly darker (say perhaps dusk to add bit more drama to this already dramatic scene) then we can really show off a nice other-worldy glow and then we get to underlight the pirates face for a more ambitious lighting attempt and to bring more.
but just a suggestion, looking forward to your progress here.
darktiste: Thanks for taking the time to do the paintover. For this image, I want the figures to be fairly dark skinned as if they're dark Italian or even hispanic, so the skin tones were intentional. Love what you did with the sky colors so I incorporated a bit of that on the current image!
CBinnsIllustration: Thanks for taking the time to do the paintover. I like what you did with the mermaid and will be incoporating a much more fantastical feel to a future image, but for this one I want the mermaid to appear fairly realistic with a natural skin tone, as I feel that will compliment the image more especially in regards to the environment!
whitebbwolf: Thank you!
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I resumed work on the image and pretty much finalized it, tried to give it a wet look as well which was very time consuming... but I feel the image is all the better for it. Attached the final below, any final input is always appreciated!
Really nice the little touch of sweat on them.For the ship i think the upper part look kinda like a cardboard but that nitpicking at this point.I really like the attention to detail the ground is really nice.The metallic texture is strange to me the gold on the bottom should probably be dirtier than the top section who know this might have been a treasure buried in the sea or the sand...
The scale are so bright it where you first look maybe tone that down just a little bit.
I really like all the updates you did. The only thing that I would point out at this point is the freshness to the black in their tattoos. They have either just been inked or they are both very diligent with sun screening them :-)
I would drop the opacity on those tat outlines to 50% possibly to let them fade a tad as they would with that much tanned skin, or possibly even no outline. But that is just being picky
Hey, nice sketchbook! Really enjoy seeing your progress! Your narratives in your images are great and I love the imagination; the drawing is also good! I think one thing that I would say to focus on is getting some more color into your shadows to bring it to life some more, as well as applying some more atmospheric perspective to push the depth.
I'm rusty so take my paintover with a grain of salt, but I wanted to just do it to give an idea of kind of what I'm talking about. Just in general, I think in the pirate image, in a sunny day like that, there will be hardly any black shadows when the light is bouncing all over the place and the blue sky would be filling in a lot in the shadows as well. So I tried punching some color into some of those shadow areas, as well as used a blue soft light glaze to push that ship back a bit (it's values were pretty dark and contrasty making it look very close to the pirate and seem smaller than you may want it to. I also removed the seagull from the ship since it made it feel even smaller (sense of scale).
That's just my initial impression of the image, but it's overall a great painting! I hope my two cents proved helpful at all. Keep up the great work!
darktiste: Thank you! Made some final changes to the image, hope it works better now!
CBinnsIllustration: Thank you! Great point about the tattoos but I feel it works better this way, even if it might not be the most realistic solution.
jeremygordanart: Thank you, love your sketchbook as well, some great value studies in particular. You paintover is brilliant, really highlighted everything that's needed to improve the image and I did my best to apply everything I learned from it. The lighter glaze on the background objects is something that I try to me more conscious of now as well (I actually was but didn't push it far enough!!!) but hopefully it'll come more natural with practice. Thanks again for taking the time to help me with the paintover, really appreciate it!
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I finalized the illustration based on the input I received, I'm calling it done for now! Here it is:
Next up I started a new sketch based on 'The Flash' character from DC. I had a strong reference for the pose on this one which you can view here, although I tried to make it a bit more dynamic with my rendition. Here is the sketch. Any input before I begin the painting process is hugely appreciated!
I don't like the way is arm and shoulder is behind is head.It more as if he stiking a pause than what is know for(running)
The dynamism is lost because of how little he lean foward and the leg aren't there so there a diminishing feeling of hIM running.I recommend you take a look at slow motion of Olympic sprinter when they reach there top speed so you got a better idea of the gesture necessary to create aerodynamism and a sense of extreme speed.
I think overal you would be better with a horizontal framing most flash piece i seen use that format.
Where are the premiliminary drawing... why do you set on a design so fast?There should be a thumbnail stage there should be a selection process.
darktiste: I kind of want him posing in the moment so I think the arm works in that regard. Great point about the legs, refined them a bit for a more running motion. I had a prelimanary sketch as well based on the pose, I felt it worked well enough but that might be a good idea to keep in mind for future sketches. Thumbnails I usually reserve for client work, for most of my pieces I have a very clear idea of what I want drawn so I don't usually tackle thumbnails.
Jephyr: Thank you kindly!
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I finished up the 'Flash' image, pretty pleased with how it turned out. Attached the final image plus some step by step animation for those interested. Of course there is still time to make any final changes, so any final input would be more than welcome!
Here what i done.I tried to tone down the insignia so we can have a real focus and a secondary one.Most of it is hidden so i am not sure if it necessary but i seen you do them so i guess you like them.What i did after that was redefine the lightning lightining so it not just slap over as it make it seem like fog receving light instead i gone with a little soft brush a little bit bigger than the lighting itself and i selectively choose to create interest toward the finger and make sure the lightning in the back where a little less obvious.An other thing is i find your face to me to yellow so i desaturated but i forgot it should be a little bit redish since there probably bounce color from the red costume there and i darklen the yewllow on belt due to it beinga little more into the shadow due to the leaning foward pose.Last thing i did was slap a bit of that specuclar light on the lightining on the costume might have gone bit to far into the shadow...
Hope you enjoy the change and don't feel any pressure to change anything you know how i like to kick the can as far as possible.
