kyteki's sketch book

[kyteki]

I'm re-working a piece I started and gave up on a few years back when I took a smART school course. It's a scene where a deep ocean diver comes into contact with a mermaid. Pretty simple idea. Here's some thumbnails I'm working on.

[StardustLarva]

Hm, those are fairly detailed for thumbnails, they're looking pretty good. You should probably get more of a contrast in the finished piece, the contrast in those thumbnails are a bit muddy.

[kyteki]

Thanks Stardust. You're right about the thumbnails, very muddy. I got too hazy instead of focusing on the shapes. Here's a re-do on one of them only focusing on value. I feel like I should add some flood lights on the diver because it would make sense for him to want that if exploring an ocean cave. I'll have to play with it more.

[Caisne]

Hi Kyteki! Great Job so far! Its not that muddy for an underwater shot 8).

Love the Mermaid gesture. And I also empathize your attempt to redo the thumbnail in value. Its all about values

I suggest you Google for pictures and study underwater shots. Its always dark in the bottom and light at the top - as sunlight having difficulties traveling thru the water.

Keep the great work.

[kyteki]

A landscape study I did from I photo I took while hiking. I had a couple of goals in mind while working on it.

1. No zooming in. I stayed about 40-50% zoom (this one is shrunk down). I get caught up in details and want to keep an eye on my over all shapes.

2. I wanted to try a lot of brushes. You ever feel like you have too many brushes and don't know what they all do? I kept picking random ones to try out. But this was sort of a fail because I went back to one of my default brushes and it painted out most of the texture. I have to keep trying to experiment.

3. I suck at landscapes! I haven't tried doing them much until the past year. I think I was too intimidated from the amount of things going on in a landscape when you're looking at nature. Part of me not allowing myself to zoom in was to stop feeling so overwhelmed by the detail.

It was fun!

[kyteki]

Some more studies. I'm attempting to be less OCD about the tiny details. Hopefully I'll catch on and learn to give detail only when needed.

[Minksy]

I think you're on the right track with simplifying in any case. I tend to fall into that same trap almost every time, but I think you did great with these! Just keep on doing studies and it will all come.

I also like your 2 mermaid concepts - they have a very different feel though, one seems like the creature is intimidated by the man, while in the other it's the exact opposite. At least that was my read. Could be something to consider perhaps if you decide to go further with these - might also help with the color palette.

Looking forward to seeing more! :)