Danger Zone

[rafa zanchetin]

:D

[rafa zanchetin]

Moar stuff.

[Samszym]

Really cool stuff as always dude, love seeing these updates! I think doing some thumbs for these environments in just flat black and white shapes might help you see the design better and decide what's most important in the picture, force you to group together the darks and the lights into a pleasing design before going into painting

[clockodile]

Loving like those character head sketches up top, just awesome shapes, form and designs.

It is cool to see the break down of the studies to the thumbs to the final with those environments and how you have used the material. Thinking with shapes like you are is a pretty good way to go, and I agree with Samszym about trying out black and white break downs. (I've seen some that are so basic, they're down to something like a couple of shapes on a tiny thumb - but that left a ton of room for experimenting.) Another suggestion is adding master studies to the thumb study stage - old paintings/illustrations, films, etc. - and in particular looking at how they manipulate light/shadow for composition. Awesome to see this experimentation btw!

[rafa zanchetin]

Thanks guys, I was aiming to study some saturation on the background with those but thanks for the tips for more studies, I always want to do those too but there's no time! I need like 40hrs on a day but I'll definitely try those in the future too, thanks!

Real shitty day, but I gotta do something at least, can't let one day pass by, so I made these shitties.

[pnate]

Great stuff as always! You put so much personality into everything you do. I am wondering, what type of process do you go through mentally when you design? Is it more like a gut thing based on your instincts of what's cool, or is it more like conscious decisions based on what's out there? (or I'd assume a mix of both) I struggle with coming up with cool designs, so would love to hear if you have any tips :)

[Pictomancer]

Really like how confident and expressive you lines are. It really shows in your portraits and gesture studies.

Your landscape thumbnail studies are coming along really well.

[rafa zanchetin]

@pnate Thank you! It's both, most of the time I see something and go "cool" I'm going to do something like that, stealing from many sources, lol.
As for tips, I don't really know how to explain, probably to broaden your scope to... everything, not just fantasy designs. Back a few years I didn't study much and for some reason on my mind I had to practice stuff photo-realistic, while I had a job drawing cartoonish stuff and I always thought my personal studies felt bland, salt less. So I started to mix them both and just do what is fun and what I like, and I'm pretty pleased with the result, I have hit a vein I have been searching for years and now I must keep on that.
You might want to try something different instead of just studies and single shot illustrations, maybe doing a few pages of some comics really helps with emotion on your characters. I took a break a few months ago on this sketchbook because I had a commission to make like 80 pages in a month and a half, although that almost killed me it helped me a lot in terms of imagining your characters.

@Pictomancer Thank you very much :)

Having some health issues and can't really concentrate, have to recharge my batteries.

[rafa zanchetin]

Some more crap, and I.... give up on the fast gestures, I get so frustrated with the time restraints and I learn so much more with these poses, I take about 5 mins on each, top 5 are referenced, the other are not.

[Fedodika]

excellent stuff dude, i don't know what else to tell ya!

[giby]

Dude love your character and creature design they look very unique and dynamic. Keep em coming :)

[nufftalon]

wow man love the dedication! keep your drive strong! great line work excellent paintings!

[clockodile]

Cigar man! You always have such fun characters.

Much better arrangement of the values in this latest environment, the contrast of that background works much better compositionally, and it has a good focus on that misty area under the rock bridge. The effects of the light look a bit inconsistent though; the scree and the slope both have warm light, but the boulders don't. The forest in the midground looks a bit flat as well. It might help to use the forest to separate out your areas of dark and midtone so they read as a distinctly different thing to the grass, and as for the shape, just check photo reference, other painters, etc. - trees all have unique shapes, and a little implication of something more irregular and organic should help the read without the need to detail them.

On a related note, if you are interested seeing some different ways of handling this sort of thing, here are a ton of old painters' works (particularly a lot of landscapes/plein airs) in this tumblr: http://paintingbox.tumblr.com/archive They are mostly low res but the composition and colours come over fine.

Overall the big shapes and forms are working out though, it is pretty clear what the slopes are doing, and the sense of distance has improved. The shapes are getting more interesting too, keep pushing it!

[rafa zanchetin]

@Fedodika Thank you :)

@giby Thanks, I will!

@nufftalon Thanks!

@clockodile Woah, thanks! Love that tumblr you linked, faved. About the landscape, you're spot on, I knew the mistakes as it was the last touch I added to the scene, the trees were blending too much with the rocks so I added a new layer for some "fog", I did a cool blue but when I tested it warm I liked, but the rest of the piece was done so I went fuck it, hahaah, looked cool but wrong. I'm fine with that.

More shitties, I need to start some fantasy armor design studies, these suck. The gnome I'm coloring and probably going to finish tomorrow.

[justjingles]

LOVE your studies, I can see improvement like Usain Bolt on a track. I am also enjoying when you're exploring caricatures of real faces, and exaggerated proportions; I think you have a knack for visual humor when you want to!

On the helm design sketch page, the third helm to the right looks like the helm one of the knights at a medieval recreation group I am a part of wore to sword fighting last night. I got excited when I saw it for that reason! I like the scalloped plate bits hanging underneath the cheek guard on that design. If I was a fantasy warrior, (and let's be real, here, I totally am!) I would choose the bottom middle helm design for intimidation factor.

I like your gesture studies as well. Great job so far, keep up the stellar work Rafa!

[Lyraina]

I think both very quick and longer (and very long) poses are supposed to teach you different things - in the very quick gestures it's vital to simplify and look for flow and action lines, while in longer poses you can spend more time on the actual anatomy. It can get quite frustrating with the quick gestures though, I think mixing everything up, taking breaks and coming back etc can work quite well.

Your designs are so cool!

[rafa zanchetin]

@justjingles Thank you very much for your kind words :), and it might be! I just copied this one (http://www.polyvore.com/pinterest/thing?...d=92956172) for starters but figured it wasn't fantasy enough, glad you liked it. Now let's all sprint on this track, lol.

@Lyraina Yup, but whenever I try to do gestures I end up doing anatomy, I guess after years of doing anatomy I just find it easier to do anatomy with a little bit of gesture, if that makes sense. And I can't take breaks now! Nor never! Studying forever!

As the helmets gets bigger, they get stupider too, oh well, it's just for funsies.
Finished the gnome too, quite pleased.

[Fedodika]

Yea wit fantasy design, it's like, MORE SPIKY CURVY THINGS!!

Anyways, i was lookin at this recent warrior guy thinkin what you could try.. now don't be afraid to knock me for this, but i think his skin is too light and the white backdrop makes it look even brighter. like i look at this hand with the shield and it looks better simply because the white isn't around it. Maybe just making the white square darker would help the skin.

Everything about it looks pretty good, i think you should just play with the values to make the skin read better, and maybe add some darker values in the hair. Just my opinion tho :>, extremely nitpicky at best

[ZombieChinchilla]

Daaaang, man. I am so in love with everything here, I've kind of been stalking your SB for the past few days. O.O Love it, keep it up, I will be following this thread from now on.

[rafa zanchetin]

@Fedodika SPIKES! MORE SPIKES! Thanks for the crit but it was just a study piece, didn't really think about the background, it's just the way I paint is that I do the whites as edges on the same layer as the rest of the painting, there's no layer depth there.

@ZombieChinchilla Thank you very much :)



More random things! yay! Starting some thumbnails practice for a future painting that might or might not happen, still need to fix the values. It's funny doing these as I start them "Ok, this pose is so fucking overused, it's going to be crap" and when I finish "Ooook this turned out great, I'll do this one", on the next one is the same thing and now I want to finish them all. lol.

Also a Waterhouse study, felt it came out ok. :)