Rognoll's Sketchbook

[Rognoll]

@ Nika: Thanks, Nika! I will! :)

Quick Waterhouse master study. For some reason my colors don't get that muddy in these. Maybe it's because I try to hand-pick every color, trying to imitate the colors in the original piece. Or maybe it's just my impression. What do you think?

[Tygerson]

Great characters! I especially love all the different iterations of the blond guy with the red coat and sword. You can start to believe he's a living, breathing fellow.

Ninja turtles are great, too!

[ramalooke]

Hey mate. Nice updates. Your colors aren't getting muddy in this master study is because you trying to match the colors from the original piece. Try to compare your old muddy images with this one and find the difference in color and saturation relationships. Colors tend to look muddy when they lack saturation or values are to dark. In my opinion you should try to improve your values, they tend to be to dark there. And try to be aware of every choice you make while doing a study and figure out why something looks good. Keep on working ;) Cheers!

[aks9]

yeh, i'm sure part of it has to do with deliberately choosing colours.
as well as the things ramalooke mentioned, you can also get muddy colours by "mindless blending", when you use your brush on mid/low opacity settings and paint over previous brushstrokes with different hue/value/sat, it usually ends up simply lowering the value and sat, as well looking simply quite ugly in terms of brushstrokes.

my super crit to you would be, next time you try a study like this (or any painting in general) try to get simplified blocks of colours and less fuzzy areas like the woman's neck, or the dresses. almost as if you were painting in vector, a few simple shapes with clean lines at the right value can look real strong

[Rognoll]

Great characters! I especially love all the different iterations of the blond guy with the red coat and sword. You can start to believe he's a living, breathing fellow.

Ninja turtles are great, too!

Thank you! :) It's actually part of a project a friend and I are doing.

Hey mate. Nice updates. Your colors aren't getting muddy in this master study is because you trying to match the colors from the original piece. Try to compare your old muddy images with this one and find the difference in color and saturation relationships. Colors tend to look muddy when they lack saturation or values are to dark. In my opinion you should try to improve your values, they tend to be to dark there. And try to be aware of every choice you make while doing a study and figure out why something looks good. Keep on working ;) Cheers!

you're right. I need to take some more time to pick my values and colors. Thank you, man!

yeh, i'm sure part of it has to do with deliberately choosing colours.
as well as the things ramalooke mentioned, you can also get muddy colours by "mindless blending", when you use your brush on mid/low opacity settings and paint over previous brushstrokes with different hue/value/sat, it usually ends up simply lowering the value and sat, as well looking simply quite ugly in terms of brushstrokes.

my super crit to you would be, next time you try a study like this (or any painting in general) try to get simplified blocks of colours and less fuzzy areas like the woman's neck, or the dresses. almost as if you were painting in vector, a few simple shapes with clean lines at the right value can look real strong

"mindless blending" You couldn't be mor right. Someone gave me a great advice some time ago about starting a drawing as if I was cell shading coloring it, then blending very little, I think it's working way better. I'll be posting it soon. Thank you, Aks!

Now, I hate doing envirnonments, but I've always worshiped this guy and his envirnonments, so I'm studying Tartakovsky's stuff.
It's helping me quite a bit and giving me a broader perspective.

[Rognoll]

another one


and some quick mountain studies, trying to get the "blocks" of color down
God, I suck at envirnonments!





and an envirnonment WIP I'm trying to do.

[Rognoll]

aaand some character concepts for today

[Samszym]

Nice to see you tackling a prolem area! I gotta work on my backgrounds as well XD
And Tartakovsky? If those studies are from Samurai Jack it's probably Scott Wills' stuff, seemed like Genndy himself worked more on the storyboards and animation side of things. Guess I could be wrong :/

Looks to me like your landscapes' character is getting lost to detail, like you're trying to go in with the correct values and colors and textures before designing a nice composition or getting the drawing down. See if you can get a solid idea of the principles on those samurai jack BGs and apply them, might be worth writing the tricks and techniques you notice as you're doing the studies so you have a concrete idea of what to do.
Mark Kennedy made some cool posts about layout a while ago, I think you might find this stuff helpful! http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/search?q=layout

Good luck dude!

[Rognoll]

No, you're not. I know it's Willis, I've even watched his videos, but Tartakovsky was the art director, I mean everything he directs has pretty much the same style of backgrounds. (even titan at times).

Anyway, thank you man! That's really helpful!

[Rognoll]

Some character design stuff

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It's not looking good at all, but it's the best I could do, I can't figure out what's wtong with it. What do you think?

[Swibble]

Maybe try a discernible floor so it looks less like he's just floating there. Also it might look more consistent if his feet were more proportionate.

[Tygerson]

Your costuming is so cool! I like how the elements are exaggerated, like the characters--e.g. not a largish belt buckle, a HUGE belt buckle. Not a longish coat, a coat that sweeps to the floor.

Good environment studies--I particularly like the orange-blue-purple one in 186.

[Rognoll]

@ Swibble: Thanks! I actually like his feet like that, but the floor sounds like a great idea!

@ Tygerson: Thank you! Lol, I've just watched wayne reynolds too much. I still suck at envirnonments, need to practice way more!

Update

[Adzerak]

The Wayne Reynolds inspiration shows through the design there yes, a good thing, old WaR is awesome xD Like the process of that character and that you've bumped the saturation on his coat near the facial focal point. Brings it together nicely.

And I agree with the feet on the ground comment there, will make him belong more in the environment. Another neat way of doing that is to make sure that some of the environments greenish tones reflect onto the character's lower planes, like all the metal pieces on his gear could soak up some reflected green light. It can be subtle, but it will bring some nice color variation and realism to the piece. Keep at it!

[Rognoll]

Yes! I love that guy! Specially his paizo works! How he manages to make his characters look so flat and comic-like and yet so real! And the details! htrtGbrDFa342fpobn
I could spend hours talking about that guy. He was one of the first artists that made me go "OMFG!" in my life.

[Rognoll]

the only non-vomit-inducing Landscape I managed to get done today.

[ramalooke]

Nice updates ;) I recomend you doing more studes of landscapes and try to focus on how shapes work in the environment. It will help you improve composition and add movement to your piece. Keep on rockin'! <3

[Rognoll]

A couple of portrait fails I did yesterday

[Adam Lina]

That environment WIP with the planets looks like a really cool idea. One thing I noticed about your character piece of the purple guy with the coat. The perspective seems to be a bit confusing. From looking at his feet it looks like the viewer is almost looking straight on at them from slightly above his ankles. So eye level is somewhere below his knees, but his upper body all looks like we're still looking slightly down at him. Perhaps showing a bit of the underside of his chin and shifting the ellipses of his belt and sleeves would look more consistent. Just a thought. Keep up the good work!

[Nika]

Love the character from post #193 (+the other updates ). Somehow my mind goes to Dragon ball!. You have a great imagination.
Keep going and thanks for the inspiration!