10-16-2018, 09:52 AM
@Fedodika: Yes, I totally need to start practicing adding in detail to the gestures. I'm sure Woo will eventually cover it, but it's good for me to keep that stuff in mind while working anyway. It feels very awkward right now to add anatomy into the 30 second poses -- I'm not sure if this is because I'm not used to doing it at the moment or if it's because I'm too slow when doing it to make the time limit. Perhaps a bit of both, really. I feel like when I try to do this my proportions go completely out the window, so it's obviously an issue that time will need to be spent on to correct.
The Star Wars painting is still largely in a place-holder phase. The rendering I started is very harsh at the moment and will eventually be toned down (his face and arms, for instance, I'm mostly just lighting the planes, then I'll paint over them with lesser values so they're not quite as stark as I go). The Snowtroopers in the foreground will be darkened down to pop against the snow, the white is just a placeholder at the moment. (Their local color, not what their actual color will wind up being in future.) The other Jedi figures will be repainted over too, and they'll be a lot less wonky in the end, lol. I'm sort of painting this piece a bit inside out process-wise. I'm not even sure how it happened, really -- I think because I was focusing on switching my workflow over into Photoshop from Painter and jumping back and forth between Photoshop and iPad (testing various apps to see what was comfortable) that I did some things a bit backwards compared to how I would usually work, so my starting point for rendering is a bit weird. I sort of blocked in colors and figures without drawing everything out. So, now I have to work a bit backwards. I'm not thrilled with the inclusion of the bad guys either in this piece, but the client wants them, so they have to remain. (Their position/numbers may be swapped around as I work more into the piece. Some may only half be in the picture, getting their bodies force-pushed out of frame and whatnot. They're not going to be a focal point at all, just things happening that happen to be happening around the main figures, like, as you mentioned, on a poster.)
Overall I want the piece to be looser with more expressive brushwork than I usually do, so I'm pulling artists like Greg Manchess (his Above The Timberline stuff, specifically -- def check that link out because it's amazing) and Sargent for reference as I work. I really want to start breaking my habit of over rendering -- I feel like it's one of the things I struggle with the most when I paint. Very much a source of frustration for me.
Composition studies are a thing I need to do more of, definitely. I actually have an old video class series from Jason Manly (back from the conceptart.org days, if anyone remembers those, lol) that was on composition that was supposed to be really good. I have only skimmed through it lightly before, but this may be the time to watch it more in-depth and try to pull wisdom from it. I think composition studies would be good to do on my iPad with the smaller screen -- it may help me not to get too into details and just focus on the main aspects in any compositions I'm studying. (My attention sometimes gets lost when there are little bits to fiddle with and I get off-track.)
I've never played with any 3D software, but it does seem like it could be helpful to learn! I have male/female mannequins that I can use for poses, too, but I've rarely ever bothered with getting them out. (Sitting gathering dust is hardly the best way to be using them. I should slap my own wrist for that one, shame on me.) Getting dynamic camera angles / viewpoints is a weakness of mine and being able to physically shift a scene around may help me in opening up my visual possibilities when composing scenes. I tend to position things very statically when left to my own devices. I've also been thinking of doing some comic book / movie still studies to try and mix things up in that regard. They seem like they'd be helpful, too, for a multitude of reasons. (Composition, color theory, dynamic poses, etc.)
Sometimes I feel almost overwhelmed because there are so many things I want to improve on; it feels like it can be hard to focus. I need to do studies that combine several things I need to work on, so that I can tackle multiple issues at once. lol
The Star Wars painting is still largely in a place-holder phase. The rendering I started is very harsh at the moment and will eventually be toned down (his face and arms, for instance, I'm mostly just lighting the planes, then I'll paint over them with lesser values so they're not quite as stark as I go). The Snowtroopers in the foreground will be darkened down to pop against the snow, the white is just a placeholder at the moment. (Their local color, not what their actual color will wind up being in future.) The other Jedi figures will be repainted over too, and they'll be a lot less wonky in the end, lol. I'm sort of painting this piece a bit inside out process-wise. I'm not even sure how it happened, really -- I think because I was focusing on switching my workflow over into Photoshop from Painter and jumping back and forth between Photoshop and iPad (testing various apps to see what was comfortable) that I did some things a bit backwards compared to how I would usually work, so my starting point for rendering is a bit weird. I sort of blocked in colors and figures without drawing everything out. So, now I have to work a bit backwards. I'm not thrilled with the inclusion of the bad guys either in this piece, but the client wants them, so they have to remain. (Their position/numbers may be swapped around as I work more into the piece. Some may only half be in the picture, getting their bodies force-pushed out of frame and whatnot. They're not going to be a focal point at all, just things happening that happen to be happening around the main figures, like, as you mentioned, on a poster.)
Overall I want the piece to be looser with more expressive brushwork than I usually do, so I'm pulling artists like Greg Manchess (his Above The Timberline stuff, specifically -- def check that link out because it's amazing) and Sargent for reference as I work. I really want to start breaking my habit of over rendering -- I feel like it's one of the things I struggle with the most when I paint. Very much a source of frustration for me.
Composition studies are a thing I need to do more of, definitely. I actually have an old video class series from Jason Manly (back from the conceptart.org days, if anyone remembers those, lol) that was on composition that was supposed to be really good. I have only skimmed through it lightly before, but this may be the time to watch it more in-depth and try to pull wisdom from it. I think composition studies would be good to do on my iPad with the smaller screen -- it may help me not to get too into details and just focus on the main aspects in any compositions I'm studying. (My attention sometimes gets lost when there are little bits to fiddle with and I get off-track.)
I've never played with any 3D software, but it does seem like it could be helpful to learn! I have male/female mannequins that I can use for poses, too, but I've rarely ever bothered with getting them out. (Sitting gathering dust is hardly the best way to be using them. I should slap my own wrist for that one, shame on me.) Getting dynamic camera angles / viewpoints is a weakness of mine and being able to physically shift a scene around may help me in opening up my visual possibilities when composing scenes. I tend to position things very statically when left to my own devices. I've also been thinking of doing some comic book / movie still studies to try and mix things up in that regard. They seem like they'd be helpful, too, for a multitude of reasons. (Composition, color theory, dynamic poses, etc.)
Sometimes I feel almost overwhelmed because there are so many things I want to improve on; it feels like it can be hard to focus. I need to do studies that combine several things I need to work on, so that I can tackle multiple issues at once. lol