So... I've submitted a piece for a group on DA and it's been declined yet again, and comparatively to some of the work they display I can't for the life of me see where i'm going wrong on it. I really tried on the composition, placing the focal point using the rule of thirds, working to a fixed (if slightly surreal) perspective, did my damndest on the lighting, but its obviously not quite right. (woah is me, moan grumble etc etc) but whilst it shouldn't matter that it gets accepted to this group...it sort of does, in that it would give an indication that my work is becoming a lot more competent...job worthy so to speak. I'm guessing anatomy is off...but maybe sharpness as well...I'm not sure though (possibly need to distance myself from the pic for a bit to spot the errors better) any how...an outside eye would be very useful to spot the stuff that i'm failing to see.
http://eztarg8.deviantart.com/#/d5j8ibf
I'll attach a smaller version in a sec
eeeugh...my IT skills are lacking in being able to attach or insert this image...either that or attachments have been disabled
hey eZTarg, after looking at your painting i think you have two big problems.
the first is your values, there is no mood, no atmosphere.
Second is the rendering, i only see hard edges everywhere.
Try this, take one of the awesome warhammer 40K illustrations by Adrian Smith and turn it to black and white, then turn your own work to BW too, compare the values.
For the rendering, study, watch videoturials, etc...
There are other minor problems too, but for now, i suggest you to focus on this two.
Thank you, i'll start looking at the values. Hard soft edges still confuses the hell out of me, going to have to really look into that... Or at least I understand the idea of it, but putting it into practice...whew not instinctive yet by a long shot..
I've spotted a few anatomical errors with arms, and the armour. Think I need to develope a "sit on this for ,2 days before calling it done" frame of mind
Thank you for the pointers, its really appreciated
(10-30-2012, 09:38 PM)EduardoGaray Wrote: [ -> ]hey eZTarg, after looking at your painting i think you have two big problems.
the first is your values, there is no mood, no atmosphere.
Second is the rendering, i only see hard edges everywhere.
Try this, take one of the awesome warhammer 40K illustrations by Adrian Smith and turn it to black and white, then turn your own work to BW too, compare the values.
For the rendering, study, watch videoturials, etc...
There are other minor problems too, but for now, i suggest you to focus on this two.
Just a quick question...do the values and saturation on this look kind of washed out to you?
you are refering to your piece in the inital post? if thats the case, yeah as i said it is because the colors could be stronger and the lack of shadows/lights.
Ah, I can partially attribute that to my monitors calibration. It looked higher contrast and saturated while I was painting it. But even tweaked I see your point. Been looking hard at adrian smiths artwork now
Hey eZTarg8.
I really like the overall concept you did there but for me there are few things I would like for you to add/change. First one is lack of epicness. I can see that you are going for that because of the theme (Warhammer) and there is big battle going on. Add more mob members and few more dead (because that dreadnought is spitting a lot of bullets and there is just one dead mutant). Rickohets of bullets on the stairs, beneath the mob, on the floor. Also, this explosion on the cathedral is to weak. Make it bigger, more smoke and debris. Second, add more depth to the picture with use of atmosphere and shadows on characters. And lastly what is the focus/center of the picture? For me I would say the mob but at this point I'm not sure. Or is it the dreadnought, cathedral? Also, why are some of the characters turned away from dreadnought? Because I can imagine that he is biggest threat at the captured moment.
So, that's my two cents. Just keep it up and I would love to see further progress of this picture.
Cheers.
Thanks man, Yeah, more going on would increase the drama...I'll try and add more renegades in. The idea had been a small skirmishing party attacking a building and getting more than they bargained for, but it lacks the 40K epicness that those paintings have. I was initially going to do a huge black cloud coming from the cathedral, but chickened out in doing the values...definitely need to push this a lot further
Cheers.
You wouldn't happen to have submitted this to ConceptWorld by any chance?
Like the others said I think your values need to be controlled with more purpose to really accentuate the feeling of depth and while you've picked a focal point you haven't necessarily implemented it especially well.
You have generally used very dark and very light values all over the image fairly eq(should be less saturated and lighter in general)ually instead of thinking about how distance affects value and using this to create focus and depth.
Did you start this image off with thumbnails to test out value schemes, overall composition and shapes first before rendering up? If not I highly recommend doing this for every piece, or you're going to hit the same problems. If you can fix all your issues on small thumbs first you will waste much less time fixing hours of work later...as rendering up is essentially just adding detail. I also suggest squinting at your image, or viewing it at small size all the way through. If it is still readable then you know your image composition is strong. If it becomes unidentifiable mush, then you know something isn't working.
Lastly in terms of narrative I think for something to be "epic" you do kinda need to make it clear what's going on even if there is a lot going on, and I think some of the stuff isn't completely clear when looking at this. Looking at a previous comment, I don't think necessarily that just by adding "more stuff" going on would add drama without fixing the comp and other more fundamental issues. It would actually make the comp. much busier which is not what this needs, I think you need to be clear about what the drama is and then think about how your composition and the main elements help to tell the story, direct focus and create that sense of epic.
I wouldn't put more time into this one if you are just going to "tweak" or add things, but try and focus on some of those fundamental things for your next one instead, or redo it with those things in mind. Hope that helps!
(11-11-2012, 12:09 PM)monkeybread Wrote: [ -> ]You wouldn't happen to have submitted this to ConceptWorld by any chance?
Like the others said I think your values need to be controlled with more purpose to really accentuate the feeling of depth and while you've picked a focal point you haven't necessarily implemented it especially well.
You have generally used very dark and very light values all over the image fairly eq(should be less saturated and lighter in general)ually instead of thinking about how distance affects value and using this to create focus and depth.
Did you start this image off with thumbnails to test out value schemes, overall composition and shapes first before rendering up? If not I highly recommend doing this for every piece, or you're going to hit the same problems. If you can fix all your issues on small thumbs first you will waste much less time fixing hours of work later...as rendering up is essentially just adding detail. I also suggest squinting at your image, or viewing it at small size all the way through. If it is still readable then you know your image composition is strong. If it becomes unidentifiable mush, then you know something isn't working.
Lastly in terms of narrative I think for something to be "epic" you do kinda need to make it clear what's going on even if there is a lot going on, and I think some of the stuff isn't completely clear when looking at this. Looking at a previous comment, I don't think necessarily that just by adding "more stuff" going on would add drama without fixing the comp and other more fundamental issues. It would actually make the comp. much busier which is not what this needs, I think you need to be clear about what the drama is and then think about how your composition and the main elements help to tell the story, direct focus and create that sense of epic.
I wouldn't put more time into this one if you are just going to "tweak" or add things, but try and focus on some of those fundamental things for your next one instead, or redo it with those things in mind. Hope that helps!
Thank you, that makes a lot of sense, I do begin the image at a small size, but I'm still figuring out value variation and its appropriate use.... Though the current piece I'm working up is an attempt to address that lol.
I've not heard of concept world? Why, is it posted there?
I've not heard of concept world? Why, is it posted there?
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just realised what you meant, for a second I thought it was an external site displaying this painting without my knowledge XD, no it was a different group, but they have a slightly random criteria for what counts as good art...donating points seems to help lol. But i can see now where this piece falls down, and realising having started another I'm unlikely to rework this for another few weeks, so sorry for the paintover request, but the critiques have been very valuable.
Ah yeah no worries, I'm a mod at ConceptWorld (dA group) and we sometimes get complaints from people about their stuff not meeting our standards, and accusations of elitism etc. etc. lol...some people just can't take crit very well and feel they are owed something. You clearly have your head on the right way though :)
About figuring out value, something I find helps is to just pick a set few values in the grayscale and just use those to block out the major shapes in the comp. and don't focus on detail at all.
Once you've got something that reads well comp wise it's easy to add detail.
This post sums it up really well.
http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/2012/1...nails.html
(11-11-2012, 05:13 PM)monkeybread Wrote: [ -> ]Ah yeah no worries, I'm a mod at ConceptWorld (dA group) and we sometimes get complaints from people about their stuff not meeting our standards, and accusations of elitism etc. etc. lol...some people just can't take crit very well and feel they are owed something. You clearly have your head on the right way though :)
About figuring out value, something I find helps is to just pick a set few values in the grayscale and just use those to block out the major shapes in the comp. and don't focus on detail at all.
Once you've got something that reads well comp wise it's easy to add detail.
This post sums it up really well.
http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/2012/1...nails.html
nice :) thanks man
no worries, oh and be sure to check out this too...it's what you need to think about most I guess:
http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/2012/0...cture.html
Oh and also the other one on temperature structure, there are links within the post.
Really simple to understand application of fundamentals. I found the oldie-but-goody, Loomis's "Creative Illustration" goes into more detail about the theory behind all of this, but is again a really useful thing to read through....especially the bits on value and tonal structure and colour theory. Absolute must read.
:)
did you submit to Warhammer-Librarium by any chance ?
(11-16-2012, 12:06 AM)Tul Wrote: [ -> ]did you submit to Warhammer-Librarium by any chance ?
i did, but they accepted it...its not a warhamer group that turned it down. I'm not going to name them as i kinda bad mouthed them with the points comment, when my temper was a lot warmer, and they're a group whose gallery i admire and display some really awesome work. I think what narked me off is they've turned down some other work, a portrait, and gave the same reason "not enough textures". granted as an admin its hard to give indepth answers to every declined submission, but the cut and paste answer was a bit frustrating. Doubly so when they occasionally display some mediocre artwork (only very occasionally). I think I thought i'd reached a sufficient standard as a result, at least the rejection knocked the complacency back lol.
I don't know, the critique like i've been given above i find really valuable because i don't spot stuff very quickly...couple of months down the line and i'll look over an old piece and pinpoint a range of oversights but i kind of need to pick up on those oversights quicker.
(11-16-2012, 12:06 AM)Tul Wrote: [ -> ]did you submit to Warhammer-Librarium by any chance ?
I stand corrected...they removed it...go figure... happened with a few of my pieces a while back, got accepted, got removed and then some of those turned up again
attchments don't work in this forum section ?
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for some reason no they don't... I have no idea why lol. Thanks man, that's epic
Oh wow, you guys should PM me; I didn't know attachment permissions were off in this area. They're back up now, though!
(11-16-2012, 04:18 AM)Dennis Kutsenko Wrote: [ -> ]Oh wow, you guys should PM me; I didn't know attachment permissions were off in this area. They're back up now, though!
Thanks Dennis, thought i'd upset the forum gods for a while