Lyraina's sketchbook

[smrr]

Maaaan, you and Jaik have leveled up a tonne with your environments! :D

And them lines... holy shit!
This piece is gonna be awesome!

[Lyraina]

smrr: Thank you! Jaik's leveling up like crazy and I'm trying hard to not let him speed ahead too far :P






..and this one got scrapped; I suck at "interiors"

[meat]

What are the lines for if you can't see any of it in the final painting?

[Lyraina]

meat: It depends on the purpose of the painting/drawing. Sometimes there won’t be enough time to do a full render just to show a concept, so lines get used to communicate the design, or show how something works. Lines keep me from hurrying through areas I didn’t fully think through, as I might do with straight painting.
In this case, doing a neat line drawing first (and then a flat color block-in on several layers) also helped me a lot to keep everything from becoming a chaotic mess - especially with perspective heavy stuff like architecture/arches. Without establishing all that first, and having my block-ins to work with selections and stuff, I don’t think it would look like this now, but way more wonky and messy. The downside of this process is that it makes revisions and changes later on very hard/tedious.
That said, I’m not sure that the last line-pass I did would have been needed just for painting purposes, the slightly looser version I did before probably would’ve been sufficient. I’m in dire need of polishing my line drawing skills though, so I’m glad Kalen made me clean it up and not be lazy. Whether or not to keep/show lines, or to which extent, is probably just a stylistic choice. There are plenty of other, probably smarter ways to work - I’m still figuring stuff out here.. always looking for ways to work smarter, better, more efficient. Thank you for your support, meat. :)

[Lyraina]

color study

[Lyraina]

top view



photo study

[Adam Lina]

You're so awesome Lyraina. Gaaahhhh! Do you do your line art in PS? My PS line art looks like garbage. Well I can get smooth lines but it takes so much more effort than if I did it the old fashioned way on a piece of paper. It looks like your colors are getting better too. Those color studies must be really working.

[meat]

That bird-eye view line work looks really tight, great job! Always glad to lend a hand anytime! Thank _you_ for the in-depth answer!

[pnate]

Wooo the improvement! Love how those environments came out. Looking forward to the others :)

[Lyraina]

Adam Lina: Haha, thanks a lot! :) Yes, I do line art in PS. I’m not very good/experienced at drawing (yet), so it took many, many hours and several passes of tracing to get it the way it is… but working HUGE, and doing a slow, neat pass over a already somewhat neat sketch helped. Thank you for the kind words :)

meat: Thank you! Who would have thought there would come a day when people compliment my lines of all things, haha :) Thanks!

pnate: Thanks Sir! :D

I remembered there's a world behind those curtains, so I had a look and that's what I found (2 days, done in that order):



color study

[Lyraina]

Zoe's area



Same lines as before - I'd be curious to hear which version you like better - values or no?



blah

[The Aether Technician]

Nice updates! yeah- the values on those lines really adds clarity.
studies are lookin' great!

[rafa zanchetin]

Damn Lyra! Leveling up soooo so fast, the enviros are looking awesome, you're adding so many things its making them come to life! Keep rocking!

It's been hard to catch the streams on my current timezone now. :(

[pindurski]

Fantastic studies! That stylized portrait with the comic style brush strokes is very nice.

[Samszym]

Awesome stuff Lyraina! I'm really impressed by your environments, the color choices are so vibrant and fun while still looking natural.
I vote on the version with values for presentation purposes, makes everything clearer.

[IrishWhiskey]

Lyraina! Those paintings of your view out the window are awesome! I had a view just like it until they built more houses
I live in a place called "River View" but i can't see the river anymore!
Oh sweet sweet irony...

I got off track, were was i?

Oh yeah! stay outta my booze!

P.S your sketchbook is one of the reasons i started one, every page is amazing and i can't wait to see more!

[Caisne]

Love the level design

[Lyraina]

The Aether Technician: Thank you, and thanks for the input!
rafa: Thanks, yeah, I keep missing the streams as well - ok except today, haha :)
pindurski: Thanks a lot!
Samszym: Thank you. So the values do add something, that’s good to know. I’m glad you called my colors „looking natural“, I feel like I’m going way overboard with them sometimes :p
IrishWhiskey: Thanks a lot! I actually may have skipped a house or two in these plein airs, haha, somewhere on those hills out there :D And wow, very happy to hear that my sketchbook helped inspire you to start your own <3
Caisne: Thanks :)

Lately I'm getting devoured by spending half of the day staring into space, followed by 4.5 hour sleep nights 'cos I'm running out of time to paint. Uh oh! But still getting some studies done:

From photo.



For some reason, I like the closeups better..



Color, value, composition, some from photo, some from artists. Doing them as warmup, or inbetween-something.





Color. One day, I'll master you. Yes, I do like Mr. Fowkes a lot.









More work from mentorship soon!

[crackedskull]

Sleep is very important Lyraina, dont overwork yourself. Maybe if you get a good sleep, you wont stare into space :)
Other than that Im really admiring your dedication and the thoroughness of your learning process.

[LaleAnn]

Woowwwoooww so much dedication girl! Your line art is kicking asses (and so does the rest xD) Impressive and inspiring.