Anna Draws Things

[BenFlores]

youre definately getting better, keep it going =]

[erikHolfelder]

Wow, just echoing the rest. Great improvement, don't stop!

[hollinrake]

Thanks so much guys, it's really encouraging to hear I'm getting better! Speedies and a couple of WIPs.

[hollinrake]

[proskurinartwork]

Really like your environments :3

[hollinrake]

Thank you! Trying to push my abilities with buildings alongside colour and light today.

[Ursula Dorada]

Oooh nice ones.

[hollinrake]

[mindwrack]

i am beautiful

[hollinrake]

[Lumens]

Last one is looking great! I might be wrong about this but i think there would be some bounce light in the front of the boat with the 2 figures illuminated with diffuse light. does that make sense?

yes they are dark in value but not black.. add some temperature.

[hollinrake]

Lumens - thanks for the advice - I can definitely agree that the figures are far too dark. I think I was just exasperated with this painting and wanted it done with, but that's not really the right attitude to have. When I get a spare moment I'll give them a little more attention!

Developing a thumbnail at the moment. I suck at perspective so it's a good exercise, as well as the half-light on the building being quite fun to paint.

[Lumens]

Yeah i don't want to hammer soo much on such a small part in an image, it is after all just a cool study. No haste to change it.

However just to use it as an example if that image was a portfolio piece,
the front of the boat seems like a major important area of focus. it even has some waves going on and generally has some of the most contrast.
You wanna give area's such as these some extra love to make it pop and
guide the viewer to where you want them to look.

[hollinrake]

Yeah, I think I tend to ignore the people a bit when I'm doing my vehicle things since they aren't really at the forefront of my mind and I tend to add them in just for scale. Need to get into the habit of rendering out the whole piece really.

Final image for my Leicester project. Mmmm golden hour.

[Warburton]

Some beautiful stuff here, i really like your approach to colour, especially in your portraits. One thing i might suggest is try playing round abit with your edges/ brushwork and contrast. I notice you tend to use one or two types of marks alot but there are very few soft edges to contrast with the hard and visa vera. This is especially apparent in the figure piece above (which i know is unfinished) which is looking flat due to the lack of soft edges around the forms like the arms and breasts.
Also, in regards to the contrast, the alien attack environment piece above is the best example here. Theres very little contrast in the lights and darks which is making the piece look a little flat and also making it tough to see focal points and areas of interest.
Hope this helps, i have a habit of rambling so sorry if it didnt :p Great progress so far, can't wait to see more.

[hollinrake]

Warburton - I completely agree with the contrast and focal point issue in the alien environment. I've been hoping to render out certain areas more to add greater focus, and I can see what you mean in that everything is a similar shade of brown with orange-y highlights. Nothing really jumps out at you.

With regards to the hard and soft edges I'm not sure how I'd 'soften' the edges of the arms. Do you have any examples? Do you literally just mean blur them slightly?

Sorry if that seems a tad dumb :P Thanks for the crit though!

[Warburton]

Hi again :p
sorry i probably didn't explain myself very well. I sometimes feel people learn completely differently so i feel stupid giving crits. With that in mind keep my crits with a pinch of salt.

Just use the the default soft round for soft marks in photoshop. You can use loads of others too, i have a bunch of softs in my brushes but i guess it's up to whatever works best for you.

I did a quick example for you to better explain what i meant, the H and S obviously stand for hard and soft. I hope this helps.

Btw, the recent environment sketches look great, great job.

[hollinrake]

Ahh, I get you now! I thought you meant the actual edges of the arms and couldn't quite understand why they'd be blurry.

Looking at that reference image I realise I probably should look at some anatomy too. Thank you so much for the paintover!

A couple of bedtime doodles, I've been busy with Christmas things recently -

[Veer]

You got a good set of skills! Practice your figure drawing and try to think in a 3d way when shading, think about planes and hatch your lines accordingly. Otherwise, good progress!

[hollinrake]

Thank you Veer! As you can see I've been doing some more figure stuff, I really enjoy quick gesture drawings to get the poses as dynamically as possible. Hopefully more to come!