Hey, thanks for stopping by my sketchbook. In reply to your question there.. I have a really big desk lol and still barely have enough room. I think I would suggest a medium to most people because the intuos large is a little too large in my opinion (also the nibs wear down WAYYYYYYY faster, already almost through one and I have only had it for less than two weeks..)
For this last painting there is a huge tangent with foreground man. For all I know, he is a big mother of a giant staring serenely at the mountains behind the character. I know that's not the case, mostly through values, but try adding in some overlap there since he is a little too separated. Also, if you arent 100% on anatomy, be nice to yourself and take out two of the four arms that one guy has. Making something like that convincing, especially from the back is really really hard. Looks like you will have fun doing some back studies though.. Lotta back there.
As for going in to detailing, work from big to little. Light everything like it is the same material, then go back through and change the speculars and values to make each material look right (skin, bone, horn, steel etc). I would do this in greyscale first then move in to colour.
For lighting, it may look best if you put the sun right behind the mountains behind the female lead. Or alternatively because back lighting is kind of rough, maybe light coming from below as if they are coming out from hell or something. It would also give you a chance to pick those guys off of the rocks with light, since at the moment there values are very similar.
Thanks Jaik! I took your advice and slapped together a different light source and added some overlap to foreground guy. I had started lighting from the top right but I like the bottom light idea better. Now i'll have to figure out how to do fire light convincingly. I know fire light diminishes faster as the subject moves away from it. So my foreground guy will have a lot more bright high lights than the lady at the top. I hope that wont take too much attention away from her since shes my focal point.
You could always at a sun or moon behind her to provide a 2nd light source that will not only help pop out her silhouette but give you some contrast btw light and dark as well
The lastest one with the lighting on the bottom is looking pretty good, the mood is pretty awesome I think. I feel the dude pointing at the girl could be a little less stiff though, I think the drawing is pretty good, but I think he could maybe be bent forward alittle more? Maybe try taking a few photos of your self from behind doing a similar action if possible.
Make the decapitated head father from that dark shape. It's kind of fused with the edge of it and I think having a clear silhouette of the head would be stronger.
I wouldn't call that self portrait coloring a failed attempt. Every attempt is a success because you can learn something from it :) But yes, the colors (of the skin) are a bit dull, I guess you used a color layer over a greyscale painting? If you want to color that way, I suggest playing with the layer modes a bit, and stacking several layers on top of each other. That way you will get a feel for what works and what doesn't quickly. You might also want to try to color over a tinted version of the image (image->adjust color/saturation), for me this makes it easier than starting with a grey base. Other than that, I think one part of the problem is the background and shirt - both are very saturated, which kind of steal the attention of the skin and face. Sorry for sounding so critical - colors are such a complex topic... but I really like the opaque look of the brush strokes :)
I'm looking forward to what you're going to do with that piece with the skeleton. Very interesting and dynamic composition!
And keep up those gestures! :)
really impressive amount of gesture drawings and anatomy studies, the wip is looking good too, I'm too chicken atm to try something with so many figures (not to sound discouraging, it looks good)
Thanks Peppermint! I bit off more than I could chew with this one but hopefully it'll push me to learn more. I think I've learned quite a bit so far.
Did another self portrait with a (I guess you'd call it) monochromatic color scheme. I've been reading Color and Light and finding it helpful. Im trying to understand chroma/hue and how the translate to pure values by doing little value/color scales. I pick a hue and then try to match them up to a black and white value scale.
Great stuff! Yeah, light from an actual light source (candle, fire, anything that isnt the sun or moon) diminishes with the inverse square law. I think you should be able to find it in gurneys book.
Heres a good site which has a lot on colour (I took a class from him once and gurney mentions the site in his book) http://www.huevaluechroma.com/106.php
Yo, thanks for the comment! I think your latest self portrait's values aren't working very well, you should solve that before thinking about hue or saturation. The biggest problem is going too light in your shadow side, everything int he shadows should be darker than the lights. Right now the reflected light is brighter than the halftones, and the eye that's supposed to be in shadow is lit.
I wouldn't recommend lighting the hair the way you did, think in masses and forms and shapes instead of lines. Best of luck, keep workin' hard!
Thanks for the crit. Theres actually 2 light sources so its not really bounce light. Theres a bright white desk lamp right next to me and a dimmer lamp across the room. You're right though, I got kind of lazy with the lighting on the hair and just fudged it in really quick. I was trying to stick with 4 basic values and I saved the really dark darks for the hair and occlusion shadows in the eye sockets.
Seeing good improvement since the first page man! That WIP is looking good composition wise, really try and push the values around your focus though, contrast = interesting :)
I want to suggest doing some more master studies, study how they painted and try and learn something from them, at the minute your paintings seem like you're going too detailed too fast, look at the simpler shapes and start from there?
Jaik forgot to respond to you last post :) Thanks for the link man. And you actually took a class from Gurney? Thats awesome!
Thanks pugsloth I took your advice and did a master study. I tried to reverse engineer what pigments he was using. I think he was using venetian red &/or burnt sienna, yellow ochre and cobalt teal blue.
I had some fun with it making it into a self portrait because Im a narcissist like that :D Had to tone back my real life muscles so not to intimidate anyone...
Good job with the moon, my eyes instantly went to that area/focal point. As for the rest of the image, maybe use some dust or fog-like stuff (later on) to help separate the different figures from each other (value and contrast wise)?
Nice Frazetta study, I see you are having fun .. that's the way to go! ;) Very considerate of you to not want to intimidate us :P
Hey, thank you so much for stopping by my sketchbook and commenting!!!!
You have a great one yourself, so much work and dedication, it's really motivating to see (I feel so lazy hahaha)! Really like the colours in your Frazetta study! It's also very interesting to see the development of your current wip, I'm curious how it will develop further. Keep up the amazing work! :)
