Since I have never celebrate Halloween in some kind of manner and I'm more intrested in Celtic lore and stuff.. I decided to try to create an image that will feel similar to Halloween, but also try to incorporate Celtic lore and customs. Playing around with the idea of spirit guardian of the land. Or something...
I also want to try to do it in oils... meaning I'll have to finish up the sketch stage by the end of the week. This is gonna be fun :D
Some interesting source material, Good Luck with the planning. Don't doubt your choices just be smart so you can get the preliminary sketch out soon :D
Probably good to note that judges will be emphasising the narrative and relationship of the figures. I'm going off Ghost too, but we should try to 1. Not just draw a woman and 2. Do more than make it look good. That's the issue we had with the rusalka challenge.
You are totally right. I tried to incorporate some dryad/celtic stuff in the design sketches. I'll have to think of something for the creature... not just make it bigger. I guess. Hmm..
I threw out the bat and replaced it with a crow, because bats don't contribute to celtic pagan lore and crows do (death and preservation). Current storyline I have in my head is that the spirit guardian guards ancient ritual places or burial hills. Something sacred at least, and makes sure they survive.
Group of partying Halloween teens are disruptingand destroying, so the spirit and her crow army (there will be one main leader crow) took care of it.
Tomorrow I have the whole day off so I plan on:
* Studies for flying people
* Angry faces study
* Design for the crow
And if there is time, sketching. But otherwise that's for friday.
And yeah Einver, a good drawing really helps the painting. I'll be spending time on that tomorrow.
Today I defined the figure, my bird design. Gonna try to pull a composition together in photoshop now and than make the final drawing.
These gestures kind of remind me of renaissance paintings of floating angels or greek gods. You trying to go for that type of centralized composition as well? The last two thumbnails you made seem to be going in that direction. With this kind of floating position giving the hands and feet some gesture that supports the flow of the overall motion can make a pretty big difference. Well, in any case, I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with
Thanks Lodratio! I actually had not thought of that. I'll see what if I can get something out of it, but since I already started painting, I'm not sure!
I did this actually last friday, just didn't came around to upload it. Painted it on canvas paper, so it's already dry :D.
Yo! I like the attempt at using the prompt and melding it with a new thing. The thing about briefs are, if you don't nail the main points for your idea to be recognizable by a layperson as an interpretation of the brief,without the brief, it probably falls short.
This is a technical note but one of the things that I think you should keep in mind for your work for the future, is to develop on how to be more accurate, and structurally solid with your drawings and yet still remain simplified with your thumbnails. Being loose and messy isn't the same thing as being simple. I know this is a typical problem I see in most "student's" thumbs. Too quick, too messy, not thinking about the important things. I did this too until I recognised it as a problem.
I think an opportunity was missed, with the line drawings of the comp you picked, to really settle issues in your structure and perspective. It might just be a self-crit gap where you don't know how to solve issues that crop up, and that's fine if so. However it also goes to looking at your decision making process. Some of the drawings you did were way more solid than the one you ended up picking. Why?
You didn't really finish any of the drawings, hands and feet cut off, legs missing, etc, so I wonder about that thought process a bit? if you use this as problem solving, you have to solve the problem, not create 15 more that need further answers. The drawing based on your thumb, is where you iron out all major existing issues with the general comp, and I see how you have simply carried on unresolved issues from the thumb to your final. It's all learning so don't redo anything! Just remember direct conscious application is not the same as intellectually "knowing" the theory behind something and just thinking it as you do it!
Last thing, and just a thought, doing oils is an extra challenge. No doubt you will learn through it so all power to ya, but I also wonder if it is the smartest thing to pile on everything into one challenge. Coming up and developing a successful illustration workflow even in a medium you are very comfortable with is hard enough...you will need 3x more time and effort to do it in a medium you have no idea about. Not saying don't experiement, of course, but I wonder if this kind of challenge is the best way to get exploration of a new medium into your repertoire? To me it makes more sense to start simple with a new medium, and build up to complexity, or you are just asking for way more struggle and trouble than you need.
Thanks for your thoughs! And I think they are valid.
About the thumbs and the unfinished drawings... I think the main problem lies in fundamentals and not knowing how to draw certain things (hands, feet, forshortning) and this is also visible in the inaccuracy of the thumbs.
And more for the gestures... I think I was mainly trying to solve the rotation/tilt of the upper body and head and how the legs connected. And therefore disregarding the feet and the hands, not saying they are not a problem quite the opposite.
About the oils... I have not been extremely happy with my work in watercolor lately. And it is in a way less forgiving and harder to get darks in, which is important for this challenge. So I thought I'm able to get a better illustration with oils than watercolor. And somehow it pushed me to do more work in a week than I have done it 3 weeks for the previous challenges, but I also have more time now.. oh well :)
Thanks for your thoughts and workflow and drawing skills is defnitly something I have to work on!
Cool, on second thoughts I probably shouldn't have given a crit on general fundamentals, since this is a specific challenge, but I guess it is highlighting something to focus on in the future!
I agree with trying something else other than watercolour for this kind of illustration. I think it is much harder to do this kind of value and detail stuff purely in watercolour without A LOT of experience and/or post manipulation in digital.
Justin Gerard uses watercolour to begin his painting but then does post process in PS. Check out his posts on muddy colors there are some process stuff that might be useful to you. http://muddycolors.blogspot.co.nz/search...n%20Gerard
I keep getting told that gouache is a good in-between medium that is fairly forgiving and better for beginning to paint...can't say that from experience though.
Nice Eyliana, looks spooky. I noticed you didn't include the Stonehenge-like formation and crown of branches from the digital comp in your oil painting. That's too bad, those touches give the original comp some context.
Nice color palette btw.
