I'm new here, just joined. I've already introduced myself in the introduction section, so time to post stuff.
First five, Eakins study to LeFanu, are oldies.
The last two are what I'm currently working on, first one will be a motivational poster for Cthulhu Youth, second one is a REDESIGN! Wheee! On the left, my first digital image from 2004., it has it all, from shaky limbs to slutty, poorly designed "clothing", and lens flare on the background. Black background XD (I wish someone slapped me back then). On the right, what will hopefully become a normal image. I'll give the poor thing a background as well ;)
Being that my place is currently hell on earth, and my processor overheats if I even think of starting Photoshop, here's some lame pencil practice from today. Necks are a pain in the ass (neck? :P) for me, so I paid another visit to Mr Bridgman.
Heatwave continues, and I'm still unable to use Photoshop. Anyways, here's a sketch of Galadriel with wonky eyes and badly shaded neck.
I should do more pencil work, I realized I rely a little too much on lasso tool, resizing and undo.
Soooo, I decided to take part in one of Trinquette Publishing's weeklies since I think they make amazing practice opportunities. Since he says nothing about wip and process posting elsewhere, I guess I can post it here.
That said, this is how I feel at this stage:
*Sigh* I hope I manage to finish, I'll have a ton of job related stuff next week.
Thanks very muck for the kind words, DoubleThink! :)
Meanwhile, I "finished" and sent in the Trinquette challenge image. I have no idea if he'll actually publish it tomorrow, right now I dislike it so much that I wouldn't, if I were him.
Here's the list of things that suck with this one: feet, general colors, reflected colors, feet, lame ass usage of textured brushes, feet, neck, feet, throne, feet, stone wall, feet.
All this suckage, and so little time for practice...
Edit: Forgot to add that that ivy brush move was especially lame and I feel like a cheater, but the deadline was looking at me and frowning. :(
Hey, it's not that bad. Mentioning feet five times though.. I don't know ;) I've seen much worse feet in my days. The forms are pretty good. Things you can do to quickly touch it up is bring the arm to our right into shadow, because the way the light falls it should be. Also push the values a bit down on the legs and feet.
The figure kind of floats in the image. There's this white rimlight from the right that doesn't really help. Either paint it in more subtely and have it fall over her form better, and have it cast light in the throne, the cobblestones and the green ivy as well - or don't have it at all.
The hand to our left also needs a castshadow. Other than that, ain't so bad!
Don't be harsh on yourself. We always do our best. Keep your head up, bring what you've learned with you to the next piece and keep exploring and enjoying! :)
Good sketchbook start. I love the Chutulu poster, the pencils look good, maybe use some smoother shading by using the side of the pencil led especially on those females :D
(07-06-2013, 08:19 AM)HiddenMyst Wrote: Hey, it's not that bad. Mentioning feet five times though.. I don't know ;) I've seen much worse feet in my days. The forms are pretty good. Things you can do to quickly touch it up is bring the arm to our right into shadow, because the way the light falls it should be. Also push the values a bit down on the legs and feet.
The figure kind of floats in the image. There's this white rimlight from the right that doesn't really help. Either paint it in more subtely and have it fall over her form better, and have it cast light in the throne, the cobblestones and the green ivy as well - or don't have it at all.
The hand to our left also needs a castshadow. Other than that, ain't so bad!
Don't be harsh on yourself. We always do our best. Keep your head up, bring what you've learned with you to the next piece and keep exploring and enjoying! :)
Wow, a thousand thanks for this. :D I cant believe I overlooked the shadow on that right arm.
The rest of your comment is extremely helpful as well. I understand I should have one focus point where the figure is closest to the light source, and that the rest shouldn't be as equally sharp or bright (which is why I should tone down the legs, as you already stated). As far as reflected light goes, I don't even have an idea where to start with that. I always go wild, and everything reflects everywhere to the point where it looks like Bethlehem. :P
Unfortunately, I already sent the image, but I'll definitely be using some of these pointers for the next one. :D
razvanb08 - Thanks! I never even thought about using the side of the pencil, to be honest. I'll have to give it a try. :D
I think that something you should try is to get more "out of your lines", I feel like on the last one that you're like imprisonned by them. Think of lines more as a structure, as a guidance do not be limited by them, if you need to paint over them don't hesitate, your "initial" lines must disappear on the final painting.
Thanks, Izzual!
Yeah, I've noticed that I do use too much lines, I guess it's because I'm usually really sloppy when it comes to stuff I draw, so I have a weird misconception that stuff will look more finished if I put a huge thick line around everything. Guess not. Thanks for the insight. :)
Anyways, been working too much for the last week, so here's some relaxing. since I want to be able to draw stuff using only the basic small round brush, here's a three hour sketch of Gandalf. Does it show that I've been watching too much LOTR lately? ;)
Naaah.. I would never imagine you've been watching a lot of LotR. Not at all *cough* ;) Lotr so awesome! now that I have unlimited sparetime during summer I'm thinking of having a marathon with the extended movies. Aweyeah.
btw, I didn't see you drop by me deviantart until now. Sorry. Was a bit surprised to see you write in swedish. So cool! One of my closest friends is from Croatia and she's told me a lot about your country :) where in croatia are you from?
The basic-round brush is a really good tool to master. Almost everything can be done with it. Texturebrushes easily get confusing and overused if you don't know what you want to use them for. And if you don't have strong formskills it's easy to get lost in them. Hard-round is the perfect brush for practicing form. Keep it up!
(07-11-2013, 08:18 AM)Rognoll Wrote: Cool portraits! Did you use a reference for the girl in cthulhu's poster? It looks so natural!
By the way, awesome poster. I'd buy that poster XD
Hey, thanks for the visit and for the kind words!
Yeah, I use reference for everything, still much to learn I have. ;) This reference is by SenshiStock, her gallery is absolutely amazing. I'll definitely abuse it further. :)
(07-12-2013, 10:10 AM)HiddenMyst Wrote: Naaah.. I would never imagine you've been watching a lot of LotR. Not at all *cough* ;) Lotr so awesome! now that I have unlimited sparetime during summer I'm thinking of having a marathon with the extended movies. Aweyeah.
btw, I didn't see you drop by me deviantart until now. Sorry. Was a bit surprised to see you write in swedish. So cool! One of my closest friends is from Croatia and she's told me a lot about your country :) where in croatia are you from?
The basic-round brush is a really good tool to master. Almost everything can be done with it. Texturebrushes easily get confusing and overused if you don't know what you want to use them for. And if you don't have strong formskills it's easy to get lost in them. Hard-round is the perfect brush for practicing form. Keep it up!
Yah, I'm a translator, so I had to subtitle The Return of The King. Twice, since my file got corrupted. Luckily I love LOTR. Too bad I'm a sissy, so I had to cry over Theoden's death and Aragorn's coronation twice. Actually, for the third time, since I already watched it before. ;)
Oh, no worries. I just hope I didn't come across as too stalkerish or something, but I got such a helpful crit from you that I had to see your stuff. Amazing, BTW, especially that piece for Blizzard.
As for Swedish, I'm fascinated by the way the language sounds, and since I need a third language for some more serious translating ventures, it's the one I'm going for. Och min svenska är dålig just nu, men jag hoppas att jag ska vara bättre efter min semester i Sverige. :)
I'm from the most boring part of Croatia. You have the coast, where everything fun happens, you have the region around Zagreb, the capital, and you have Slavonia, where I'm from. I guess we're mostly famous for bacon, sausage and rakija, which is basically homemade alcoholic drink. Moonshine if you will, only worse. But foreigners seem to like it. :)
As for the hard round brush, it's, well, hard. :) So maybe I should stop talking and start posting. So here's a WIP of Greebo, a tomcat from Terry Pratchett's books. This is his human form. And he's supposed to be sleazy like that. He'll get a beard as well. And I'll have to tone down the background, it's killing me.
Well, getting ready for a month long trip (waaaah, nine more days XD) and working my ass off, so I don't really get to draw as much as I'd like. Here's a bit of work on Greebo, and a short study from today, took me about 2 hrs maybe?
What I learned from it was how much I rely on lasso tool and undo. I had to redo the proportions about three times, it sucks when you can't just select and modify :P
Your latest work is looking good Maja! btw, sent you a pm as a reply to our conversation, thought it would be easier that way.
as for the latest work, you're definitely on the right track. The figure is backlit which would create an interesting rimlight around him, as well as some interesting shadows depending on what other lightsources you decide to have in the picture. Right now you're kind of working everything evenly and within the same value-range, which makes your forms look kind of flat since you try to put everything in the same amount of light. Don't be afraid to push your values more and make the shadows darker and the lights lighter.
I can see you've started working with the light at the shoulders. You should make that light even brighter, and replace the black linework around your character with rimlight instead. It will really help the lighting.
Your figuredrawing looks good! the only thing I would comment on is that the back looks a bit stiff and that her behind could need some more softness to it. Other than that, nice! you should do more drawings :)
