Crimson Daggers — Art forum

Madzia - Thanks Madzia, I think it may also have to do with the lighting on the pedestal - there's light coming from the left which doesn't add up with the current lighting from the right...just noticed this :)

Einver - Thanks man! Definitely going to push hard for the next one.

sketch/warmup

horned helmets

green fire

I'm seeing some good leveling happening, really. That last girly piece turned out so good it brings a small tear to my eye to see all you fine people stepping it up.

The only thing I could suggest is to just do more men. You've got hella women in here, so as a way to mix things up, more men, or creatures, or landscapes, or something that isn't a lady mage. Regardless of how bad ass they all are, it'd be real cool to see some other stuff.

(Which also reminds me, I need to do more women. Btw, I'm totally down for having some women Sorcerers and Mages duke it out. Gotta get my womanly love on first.)

Mixing things up is good for the soul! Like I'm one to talk anyways, I've got to do the same thing. Hahaha. :]

Liking all these other quickies here, too. Your landscapes have always been juice. Great stuff!

Ah, thanks for the input man. Definitely would be a good idea to do some different things, that should be fun. You're levelling up too my friend :) Let's keep it going woot woot

beautiful works

Thanks Liberty!

desert people

neverending tunnel



learned about using gradient maps to color black and white so I tried it out with this sketch. Still kinda crappy at it, but it definitely feels way better than other ways of adding color that I've tried before. Learned about it from this vid from Chris Bjor's channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqOrHq96sQg

hehe gradient map it pretty useful I also find it much more effective than other ways of colorizing b&w.
Your colors looks neat, I love picture of giant walking in a woods, have this mystery mood, lovely...

Thanks Madzia! Yup, gradient map pretty fun, wish I knew about it earlier

WIP

I'll have to give that gradient mapping vid a watch, it sounds interesting and I have no idea what it is :p

Awesome updates as always too man, I think you upload so much cool shit so often people don't get a chance to reply to them all :D Really like that latest portrait too, the way you dropped that high saturated light on her face is really subtle but striking and effective.

Also, just wanted to drop by and thank you first hand for that paint over you gave me man. It was super helpful and I appreciate it a lot. The stuff you pointed out I wouldn't have been able to spot at my current level, so it's given me some stuff to study and research before I tackle it again. Thanks again mate.

Thanks man, and I'm glad the paintover was helpful even though some of it is more personal preference for my own visual tastes. Your stuff is always getting better every time I go to your sketchbook so keep kicking ass :)

I've been slacking on my studies so I started looking at sketchbooks to get more motivated. I just wanna say I love your sketchbook! especially the way you paint skin, looks so luminous....

looking through this revitalized my working spirit! >:D

Hey thanks Poyoooo, looking through sketchbooks pumps me up too. Keep that fire burnin woooot

That crimson arena due date is coming up fast 0_0 Hope lots of you beautiful people are working on it.
Unrelated WIP character:

That last face study, top notch man. Bummer your old links are broken though, I would like to see where this started lol. Amazing sketchbook man, I'll keep an eye on ya.

Thanks rafa, likewise to your sweet, sweet work

Hey Nate,

What's up? Sorry it took a while to get back to you. Satellite internet is almost useless when they throttle me for going over my data limit.

Concerning the discussion, I just learned a really good method for applying color to a b&w image. I'd be surprised if you haven't heard of it. All you do is glaze in the color with very light tints over a finished value painting. So once you've established your value range in b&w you start to lay down transparent paint to develop the local colors of your image. Then you add additional tints to layout the warm and cool portions of your painting (warm highlights and cool shadows or vice versa). Next is the detail stage where you start to bring up the opacity of the colors, but not so much as to cover the original image so the values underneath are retained when you add the finishing touches. It's a technique that works quite well for me since I don't fully understand how color works. Of course, it takes a bit longer to produce a painting this way but it's great practice and it always insures that your values are accurate. I watched like 12 youtube videos the other day about it.

Maybe it doesn't work that way in Photoshop because I was following a Painter 13 tutorial using the digital watercolor brushes. It seems to be better than Photoshop because of the realistic feel and look of the brushes and the behavior of the paint. Even the painting surface has a realistic feel to it. Although I'm pretty sure you can do the same thing in ps because I don't see why you wouldn't be able to glaze in color like that.

Ok. I just watched the video you linked to about colorizing a b&w image. Yeah, it's essentially the same technique as a gradient fill although you have more precision because you apply the tint with a brush. Then you just paint in a few details with increased opacity and saturation levels where you want the image to pop out.

I found the video on Youtube for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6zF_rzv...ILpd9wQNlp

Let me know if you think it's a good technique. Btw, I love your landscape thumbnails in posts 662 and 663--especially the colors you used in the very last sketch. I wish I was that good!

Eric - thanks man, I'll have to check that out. I've never used painter before, but I wonder if it would be applicable to Photoshop as well. Gradient map is fun but still not perfect, definitely still need to make quite a few adjustments after using it but that's the curse of b&w to color in photoshop, I suppose.

thanks , it really depends. Most of the sketchy, illustrationy paintings here were probably 2-3 hours, unless it's a spitpainting

sketchy heads