Seeking crit on night light

[Rognoll]

Ok, so I've been studying light and shadow at night, but I can't seem to grasp it here.
Any advices?

[JavierP]

Hi Rognoll,
I like the idea behind this piece because it has a lot of potential to be a great image. Here are some thoughts:
Night scenes are difficult to paint, because there is so much going on in terms of changes to local color of objects, contrast and edges. In general the night sky is usually lighter than the landscape. It is never completely black. In fact much of the reflected illumination in a night scene is from the sky. Sometimes it is a good idea to lighten the sky a bit to increase the value range that you can use in the image. This is useful because it helps prevent your image from becoming too dark and muddy. Your image is illuminated by moonlight, so this allows us to create defined areas of light and dark. Keeping in mind that objects in the light will appear pale and desaturated, while you shadow areas will contain more saturated colors. Remember to use reflected light to help define form as well. Finally save your darkest darks for deep shadows and special accents in the image. Don't be afraid to have soft, blurred and lost edges in the shadows either. I made a small sketch to give you and idea of what I mean.

I would also like to mention that it is also a good idea to start your images with a more solid drawing. Currently the perspective in your image is not accurate. Check out Loomis' book "Successful Drawing" for some good ideas about drawing the figure in perspective and how everything relates to the horizon line. I know you didn't ask for a crit on perspective, but it is an important fundamental skill that needs to be developed to improve your drawing. Hope this helps and good luck.

[meat]

Moonlight is too weak to have much bounce or diffuse light, so the surfaces that are facing away from the light source should be really really dark. Unless there's another light source in the hallway. I'm like preaching darkness here... haha!

[kerm]

I think the main problem is lack of separation of lights, shadows and midtones. You put very bright values in the shadows, which makes your image flat. When you start painting, keep it simple - start with 3 values, block them out on your artwork. Don't worry about small lighter planes in the shadow, they're all shadow - paint it dark :)
Do some studies!

Those are good links to get understanding of this:
http://www.freshdesigner.com/how-to-see-in-value/
http://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/...t-and-form
http://www.artistsandillustrators.co.uk/...fying-tone

Good luck! I had the same problems as you. Simplifying and not overthinking helped me!

[Rognoll]

Wow! thanks a lot, guys! It seems like I'm gonna have to re-dp the whole thing :p

Thanks for taking the time, guys. It helped me a lot.