Hey everyone! I don't think I've posted here before, so - I'm 18, going to MICA next fall, if you're curious my portfolio's over here - (link) (:
I'm used to doing more cityscape-type stuff, so a lot of natural elements like in this one just really throws me off. Mostly I'm stuck on rendering, values, fixing the detail placement, and just general making this look less childish..
I'm kind of just lost on this for now, so any help would be really appreciated!
Wow your work is beautiful. Are those real watercolours or digital? For 18 you are killing it already. I don't really see what you think is "childlike" in this image; I do think that sense of childlike adventure, narrative and excitement is a really good thing in your work. Your composition is generally very good, though think about where your main focal points are within the piece and develop your values to help those. A couple of places, mostly on the houses aren't adjusted to the perspective so you should probably plot them out on a grid and make sure they are all consistent as you go on with this. They are a bit off in places, not immediately noticeable, but probably needing fixing.
I did a paintover mostly to adjust values and make it clearer where the light source was and to help drive the composition a bit more. I did end up making it a bit muddy by losing a bit of the saturation but I hope you can get the idea for what I was going for. Also after I did the paintover I actually think your secondary focal point should be the vertical cliff houses in the right of the image rather than the village down at the bottom to get a better flow to the comp.
I added a bit of separation between the foreground and the midground and darkened the values a bit on the foreground to make it pop a bit more. I also think the proportions of her legs and the perspective of them are a tad off and her silhouette could be shown off a bit more. I thought that your lighting was a little inconsistent in the foreground so I changed it to match the light source. I also added a bit more saturation in the foreground and focal points.
I reduced contrast in the back and midground in places because I felt you were losing a bit of that depth separation...especially with the high value waterfall misting and the birds for example.
That's about it. Hope it helps a bit. Mostly tweaks...the image is beautiful so keep going and keen to see it finished!
Hey man, thank you so much for the paintover! This is just what I needed to get headed in the right direction again.
I think the colors and lack of soft edges was what made it seem childish to me, since the feeling is mostly gone in your paintover - the changes you made push it much much closer to the kind of epic feeling I wanted it to have.
Will check the perspective, thanks for helping with the pose too - getting figures in perspective within the picture is always a problem for me. The values are looking so much better too, awesome.
Thanks again, I really appreciate the help!
Also yeah some of the pictures from my portfolio are watercolor, touched up and collaged digitally though (: I saw April Liu/looshu do something similar with the watercolor gestures and wanted to give it a try.
Edit - Here's where I'm at now, I'm not sure how to draw more attention to the cliff houses but I think the sky/values are looking way better.
That's coming along nicely. One thing I hadn't noticed before was the dark rock and connecting bridge in the background is probably too dark in value compared to the surroundings so it sticks out a bit now that the rest of your valued are being refined. I don't think you need too much more focus on the cliff houses, they are a clearer focal point now. Maybe a tad more saturation back into the surrounds of that area as is light is falling on it and bouncing around, but it's almost there.
I'm not sure what is missing, but I almost feel this needs an overall unifying texture or grain applied to unify all the elements together. I think you could also experiment with pushing the lighting a little more to really capture that magical atmosphere and mood.
Oh also if you edit posts we don't get emailed notifications, so just post a new reply, if you wan thread subscribers to be notified
Thanks for the help, again! I'm going to work a bit more on blending the textures in with the painted areas and work on the trees a bit more, I think that will help the slightly un-unified look. I'll try a texture over the whole thing too though.
I'll mess around with the lighting a little more(I do think it looks like it could be more dramatic), but lightning's one of my weaker areas so if you have any specific tips or thoughts let me know.
ah right, I'll make sure to make a new reply when I post my progress tomorrow. (:
I'm thinking about changing the character's pose a little, or at least the houses behind her.. I've been hearing that this pose kind of forms a tangent along that corner with the hill and buildings since they're all at a similar angle, and that the silhouette isn't readble enough - any thoughts on that would be nice to hear!
I've been messing with this for a few days, but I haven't really made any noticeable progress so I think it's about done. Probably the lighting and shadows could still be improved, maybe I need to redo that pose.. Feeling like I should probably move on to other things for now though.
Should say thanks again Monkeybread, your help made this picture turn out so much better!
Glad to be of service. It looks great...and yeah I can't see much else to add. Generally I like to do a final bit of overall value adjustment with curves and a bit of playing with colour balance to see if I can tweak a tiny bit ofyou can a bit of pop back to your colours and I think you can call it done! Well done!
Sorry, no critique to add. Just wanted to say that that is one awesome painting! Really love that vertical, richly watered terrain!
Also, that's not just good for 18, that's good.
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The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.
-Chinese proverb
I'm not one to give immense critical judgment on pieces that are this beautiful given my current standard and skill at the moment, but if there is one thing that really bothers me about this image. It is the really bright piece of light shining through the rocks in the top left. It just seems to pull my eye away from all that gorgeous scenery below.
Tygerson - Thanks very much! Hopefully I get time to make more pictures of this place sometime, it's an interesting environment to work on! (:
Damien - Hey, thanks for letting me know what you think! nah, judgement usually develops quicker than skill, so your opinion's no less valuable - thanks for catching the mistake here, I'll tone down the contrast in that corner so it's less distracting.
