Trying to paint better

[cire]

Hi All,

I created this character for practice. If someone could please check it out and help me get it to pop, I'd greatly appreciate it. What I did was paint the entire thing in grayscale then use overlays to color it. I find that I get distracted when starting with color and lose values and shape quickly, but I still find myself in that place after overlaying color.

[Chiritsu]

Hi All,

I created this character for practice. If someone could please check it out and help me get it to pop, I'd greatly appreciate it. What I did was paint the entire thing in grayscale then use overlays to color it. I find that I get distracted when starting with color and lose values and shape quickly, but I still find myself in that place after overlaying color.

I was just doing a quick paintover to see what I could notice and I realized that if you do it in colour or grey scale first it shouldn't really matter. What I noticed was that your shadows and lights feel too even around the form which is what makes it look flat. I'm also unsure of where your light source/sources are from..

Here's a rough paint over.. I hope it makes sense?
I mostly just roughed in some more shadows and colour for your character since the grey scale makes it look a little washed out :x

[cire]

Mmm I see. I guess the best thing to do is really push the contrast. Thank you for your time and helping me with this! I will try to apply this to my future work. I do have a question I hope you and others would answer: How many light sources do you typically find yourself using?

[PUPILZ]

Painting in greyscale is all good but you need to think more on where the light source is comming from. Looks like you wanted it from top right but more infront of character. but i'd just try the right above head light source. anddont forget about the reflected light from the floor. Also try to get some just quick photo reference from google images on pigs for skin tone actual anatomy and hair that they grow too. ^_^

Then paint a Orb of Piggy Skin using same reflected light.

And Paint Another orb of skin with pig style hair on it.

Hair Orb with light source.

and Stone for pike ref and texture.

then a wood orb too.

all from same light source then re-paint it

then use those orbs as a way to ref and use for the repaint.
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here is example i made for you

Hi All,

I created this character for practice. If someone could please check it out and help me get it to pop, I'd greatly appreciate it. What I did was paint the entire thing in grayscale then use overlays to color it. I find that I get distracted when starting with color and lose values and shape quickly, but I still find myself in that place after overlaying color.

[cire]

Wow, that's fascinating. I assume that you create the orbs to establish your pattern of painting and then just apply it to the final form? Thank you for your input, I am going to give this a shot!

[PUPILZ]

Yeah Pretty much the orbs are there as

A) study practice for the particular item you are going to create
B) Understanding your material and making you think more on what you are doing
C) Light and darkness with its reflected light you are wanting to use for piece

Then once you do them with the lighting set up you plan to do for piece you can then repaint the material/texture onto your objects being painting.

Wood orb = wood handle for your pike axe
Plain Skin = without hair for stomach and man piggy boobies thing.
Hair = hair
Kinda hair skin orb = like for arms

And if you paint it from just Eyedroping the colors
from you pre colored orbs letting you work more on how you apply then 3d wise on your character and not messing around with colors any more until you get you just like atmosphere and constrast at end to make image pop etc.

But yeah man if you do these orbsand really study what you want for character then when you actually paint character again you'll have the confidence in your strokes and the knowledge of where to apply it.

Then all ya gotta worry about on what actually needs detail and what doesnt need to be over detailed.

Wow, that's fascinating. I assume that you create the orbs to establish your pattern of painting and then just apply it to the final form? Thank you for your input, I am going to give this a shot!

[Chiritsu]

Mmm I see. I guess the best thing to do is really push the contrast. Thank you for your time and helping me with this! I will try to apply this to my future work. I do have a question I hope you and others would answer: How many light sources do you typically find yourself using?

I don't think I really think about it. Between 1 and 3 depending what kind of effect I want to give off? I have no idea lol. I'm pretty sure I use mostly 1 at the moment..