Today I did some exercises on compressed value. I choose 5 values to compose the images below. Compress for shadows or the light.
Also while doing these i made sketches using the plumb methods to gain more accurate proportions.
Am statisfied with the proportions of all the studies. The second one I need to lower the right eye socket. For the third I got impatient and messed up the values but I liked the composition. I have this bad habit to do everything fast. Think before laying a stroke.
Those were more fun then I thought. For the rest of the day I gonna do some head constructions.
I made a portrait for my sister's birthday. I changed a lot of the colors from the original ref
The likeness is their but its not nailed down. Her eyes are to big and her hair needs to be more blonde.
Am not that statisfied with it but my sister is happy and thats all that counts :).
Wanted to try the same techniques I applied when making the Ennio Morricone piece. Am statisfied with this one.
I wanted capture accuracy and I love the pink/purple hues on it. Her mouth on the right should be wider and more bluepink hues on the right forehead side.
Purple is my favorite color ;)
Study of folds and edges. This is the first time I studied drapery and so far am statisfied with this one.
The girl was a practice to make every value lighter then the ref. The cowboy was the opposite but I was not succesful in in that one. Gonna redo another one to make every value darker.
Hey Gilles — great to see these studies you're doing. I think you're getting the main gist of it but if I could offer any advice it would be that the key to a successful image is to have shadows in one value range and the highlights in a separate value range.
You're getting this in a few of your studies but in the old western man, for instance, the sunlight that is being cast on his face is much too dark (and close to your shadow values) than it is in the photograph. Now that doesn't necessarily mean the shadows have to be super dark and the lights have to be super light — you could render everything in the shadows using a 40-70% black, but if you then rendered the lights using 10-40% black they'd probably look too close and muddy so you might just overexpose the lights a bit to make a better 'read'.
Apologies for a bit of a rant, hopefully the above makes sense and helps in some way.
Nice work on the value studies. I'd suggesting giving more contrast to the background and figure in their midtones before doing any serious shading on them, this should help everything 'pop' out easier as you progress. Solid work altogether!
Thank you all for the kind replies, it means a lot to me.
Last couple days I watched a good feng zhu episode and I just wanted to focus on my drawing skills.
I gonna do more construction drawings focusing on form and gesture and less on painting.
Sometimes drawing/painting can get serious and I lose the fun part of it. So here is a sample of some bone studies I did while having some fun with just scribble around. I just want to have consistency in my schedule, drawing everyday. So it becomes a habit.
Nice stuff so far, for your values for your color studies I recommend that you not work on a white background and instead make it a midtone gray or brown like burnt sienna. That always helps me when I'm painting. For your linework, I'd recommend doing exercises to work on your scratchiness a bit. Granted it is looking better.
Do you use your wrist or elbow when drawing long lines?
I suggest for you imaginative stuff you try to do more drawings/sketches rather than paintings, and then slowly ease into the painting as you get more comfortable with drawing.
The main thing lacking with the fairy painting isn't really the painting part, but the lack of construction and clear forms, which is something you develop through drawing, and once you know how to draw it you can then learn how to light it.
You should check out ModernDayJames' youtube channel for a nice, quick and concise rundown of the skills you need to invent objects (i suppose you would want to focus on doing figures or creatures), and then practice as much as you can and work up from there. It's all based on cubes and cylinders : )
Long time not posted but I started to pick up painting traditional in acrylic paints so I have a lot of paintings now. I also did this robot recently for the cdc challenge.
Am more focused now on drawing but am quite pleased with these two.
Welcome back! I have some suggestions for your latest image. Feel free to use them or not, or just keep them in mind for your next image. Basically, by having a more cinematic, dynamic composition, you could have had a bit more power in your image. Hope it helps! :)
(01-02-2021, 08:56 PM)Zorrentos Wrote: Welcome back! I have some suggestions for your latest image. Feel free to use them or not, or just keep them in mind for your next image. Basically, by having a more cinematic, dynamic composition, you could have had a bit more power in your image. Hope it helps! :)
Really nice work so far! I can see the improvement already from your earlier studies to your laters ones. Your finished portraits that you spent more time are also looking very nice! One thing I would suggest is to try spending more time in general on your portrait studies getting the proportions just right, since no matter how good everything else is if the proportions are not correct it will look off. I found this video by Noah Bradley very helpful on learning how to train my eye for proportions https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgJXyEsakC8. Hope it helps!
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