My name's Sean, and I JUST finished my last class in art school with a major in Illustration. I'm really interested in developing my own personal style and figuring out how to become a professional doin' this stuff.
I'm really interested in shape language and design and would love any comments and critiques on how to push it further. :)
Heres some of my work so you can hopefully get a sense of what I like to do
Critiquing stylized work is difficult for multiple reasons, but I can give you my first impression.
The only thing that jumped out at me as needing improvement, design-wise, is the snake warrior image. I think he'd look better with longer legs, since he looks to be a fast and agile type. A good rule of thumb for leg length is that it should at least be equivalent to the length from the pubic symphysis to the top of the head (stylistic choices excepted, of course), and his is a bit less than that.
Overall, though, I think your stuff makes a good impression. Keep it up!
(05-16-2020, 10:01 PM)Pubic Enemy Wrote: Critiquing stylized work is difficult for multiple reasons, but I can give you my first impression.
The only thing that jumped out at me as needing improvement, design-wise, is the snake warrior image. I think he'd look better with longer legs, since he looks to be a fast and agile type. A good rule of thumb for leg length is that it should at least be equivalent to the length from the pubic symphysis to the top of the head (stylistic choices excepted, of course), and his is a bit less than that.
Overall, though, I think your stuff makes a good impression. Keep it up!
Thanks man, ill keep an eye out on my anatomy. I usually like to have reference but for that one i didn't so its showing through haha. I just got a physical copy of bridgmans anatomy so ill start digging into that again.
New sketch I'm working on as part of an Art challenge, I really like how the linework is coming out but moving to color is becoming an issue, every time I try it seems really flat compared to the sketch. I'll try an update with a color version later.
Let me inject some though into why your form look flat.You simply use what is call flat color and it as this name for one reason because it exactly what it does to a painting it flatten the image.If you want you form to be less flat you need to intergrate gradiant.Right now how you color is like if every object is made in a low poly manner if you understand what i am saying.I suggest you try to draw a ball you will soon understand why you need gradation.Your not sending the viewer the right light information.Surface have gradiant.
You see the first image one of those square it represent what is a flat.You probaly understand value but you don't seem to understand the role of gradient to well yet you seem to have pick up a style and throw some fundamental out of the window and wonder why you get that feeling.
Now look at the second image your color should be more a range of value.Meaning it not just one value(or one square of the previous picture) it a small range of that scale per plane.
Do you understand what plane are?You know how to represent a bent plane?What happen on a blent plane?GRADATION.
What happen on a tilt plane?GRADATION?What happen when the light is perpendicular to the plane?GRADATION.
I hope the word i use carry the importance of GRADATION.If you got any question feel free to ask.
(05-17-2020, 03:49 AM)darktiste Wrote: Let me inject some though into why your form look flat.You simply use what is call flat color and it as this name for one reason because it exactly what it does to a painting it flatten the image.If you want you form to be less flat you need to intergrate gradiant.Right now how you color is like if every object is made in a low poly manner if you understand what i am saying.I suggest you try to draw a ball you will soon understand why you need gradation.Your not sending the viewer the right light information.Surface have gradiant.
You see the first image one of those square it represent what is a flat.You probaly understand value but you don't seem to understand the role of gradient to well yet you seem to have pick up a style and throw some fundamental out of the window and wonder why you get that feeling.
Now look at the second image your color should be more a range of value.Meaning it not just one value(or one square of the previous picture) it a small range of that scale per plane.
Do you understand what plane are?You know how to represent a bent plane?What happen on a blent plane?GRADATION.
What happen on a tilt plane?GRADATION?What happen when the light is perpendicular to the plane?GRADATION.
I hope the word i use carry the importance of GRADATION.If you got any question feel free to ask.
yeah, I think I'm getting what you mean. I'm not paying enough attention to where soft edges exist and I'm using too many hard edges out of habit. I think it comes from a fear of my pieces becoming too "airbrushy" if you know what I'm talking about. I'll look into this in my studies in the future, thank you!
It up to you but if you want to check with me if you understood what i mean try this pick a light source indicate it with an arrow and render each plane accordingly.I am not really talking about edge but gradation on the plane itself.
I provided you some image to save you some time if your interested and also one is what it might look like when it fully done.I know it boring primitive form but you learn alot more by eliminating the clutter from your study.Illustration have alot of problem to resolve already it best to solve smaller issue with study and then incorporated what you learn in your next illustration in my opinion.
You pull a +4 Card from your hand i can see.You hide your game pretty well so far.Maybe try to use the background to bring out attention to certain area more instead of putting a line around the figure to make it stand out.Have some lost edge.One of is foot look kinda small but it might just be me.
Those feet don't look bad at all. Once you dig into the anatomy more it becomes easier to understand the humps and furrows of all the body parts and to draw them more confidently, and you're doing pretty well already.
Great work with this latest study, Sean! It feels like you really understood the forms as you carved the shape using light and shadows. I'm drawn to the abdomen area where there's some particularly great edge control happening there too.
(05-18-2020, 02:32 PM)_spec Wrote: Great work with this latest study, Sean! It feels like you really understood the forms as you carved the shape using light and shadows. I'm drawn to the abdomen area where there's some particularly great edge control happening there too.
Keep em coming dawg happy to have ya on board :D
(05-18-2020, 11:11 AM)Pubic Enemy Wrote: Those feet don't look bad at all. Once you dig into the anatomy more it becomes easier to understand the humps and furrows of all the body parts and to draw them more confidently, and you're doing pretty well already.
(05-18-2020, 05:36 AM)darktiste Wrote: You pull a +4 Card from your hand i can see.You hide your game pretty well so far.Maybe try to use the background to bring out attention to certain area more instead of putting a line around the figure to make it stand out.Have some lost edge.One of is foot look kinda small but it might just be me.
Darktiste: ROFL this comment made my day. You're right about the lost edges, that would help to learn a lot, i really envy people who can do that really well. I'm always torn between a stylistic approach and realistic. (insert obligatory It'S MuH StYl3 comment)
Public Enemy: Thanks a bunch! the feet to me still look a little awkward, but thats probably because they took proportionally way more time than the rest of the figure because ive been avoiding learning the forms for too long.
This was my painting from today/yesterday, I like how some parts of it came out, and not so thrilled about others, would love to know what people's first impressions are.
My first impression as to do with her head proportion i think it to small but i think it as to do with her elvish nature.You would certainly have a nicer effect in my opinion if you took the time to put what i assume are streak of light in the background on to your character it would had created a nice play on light and show us you understand the form of the body to an ever further level.Idk what the pattern use and how it renforce the story it seem out of place.I tried to play with the filter sometime it nice to try to play with the filter near the end to see what kind of thing unexepted can bring a new light to the piece.Here i tried to limit the pattern in the background and floor and tried to play with your line streak more the shirt was nice but i felt her face alone could stand and i like the coat she had so i tried to bring it forth.Idk i hope you like the result even if it kinda go in a different direction.
(05-21-2020, 02:08 PM)darktiste Wrote: My first impression as to do with her head proportion i think it to small but i think it as to do with her elvish nature.You would certainly have a nicer effect in my opinion if you took the time to put what i assume are streak of light in the background on to your character it would had created a nice play on light and show us you understand the form of the body to an ever further level.Idk what the pattern use and how it renforce the story it seem out of place.I tried to play with the filter sometime it nice to try to play with the filter near the end to see what kind of thing unexepted can bring a new light to the piece.Here i tried to limit the pattern in the background and floor and tried to play with your line streak more the shirt was nice but i felt her face alone could stand and i like the coat she had so i tried to bring it forth.Idk i hope you like the result even if it kinda go in a different direction.
I see what you're getting at, in you OP, even tho it's not super-refined, the lighting at least is obvious. I struggle with this a lot, I need to plan out my lighting better in the future. Thanks for the help!
(05-21-2020, 02:08 PM)darktiste Wrote: My first impression as to do with her head proportion i think it to small but i think it as to do with her elvish nature.You would certainly have a nicer effect in my opinion if you took the time to put what i assume are streak of light in the background on to your character it would had created a nice play on light and show us you understand the form of the body to an ever further level.Idk what the pattern use and how it renforce the story it seem out of place.I tried to play with the filter sometime it nice to try to play with the filter near the end to see what kind of thing unexepted can bring a new light to the piece.Here i tried to limit the pattern in the background and floor and tried to play with your line streak more the shirt was nice but i felt her face alone could stand and i like the coat she had so i tried to bring it forth.Idk i hope you like the result even if it kinda go in a different direction.
I see what you're getting at, in you OP, even tho it's not super-refined, the lighting at least is obvious. I struggle with this a lot, I need to plan out my lighting better in the future.
Can you comment a little more on the elvish nature and what you find wrong with the head? I unintentionally make my characters elf like, people comment on it alot and its something im trying to improve.
Last two images look pretty good. Regarding the elfin look, I think it's just the combination of her pointed ears and delicate features. The head is a BIT small, but I don't think it's outside the range of human variation. The face and features themselves look good. The only things I'd change is that her eyes aren't quite centered (drop straight lines from the inner corners of her eyes down to her nose to check), but it's not very noticeable. I'd also extend her eyebrows outward a bit. It's all good if you like short eyebrows, but longer ones might help avoid the "elfin" look, and losing the outer third of your eyebrows can indicate thyroid deficiency, haha.
The only other things that jump at me is that the skin-fold on her right arm (HER right, that is) where it meets the torso goes too close to her clavicle. It does sometimes look like that IRL, if the arm is squished very tightly against the body, but the fold-line would be a lot thinner, and maybe more vertical. Also, the place where her clavicles meet at the sternum should line up more with the gap between her breasts (because the bottom third of the sternum is in that gap).
I have to say the image makes a good impression overall though.
If you're having a lot of trouble with making clear lighting schemes, I suggest taking some of your favorite pictures, turning up the contrast on them massively, maybe play with the brightness a bit, and play close attention to the patterns of highlights, midtones, and shadows that appear. It's not exactly a scientific study method, but it was helpful for me.
Idk the head doesn't seem to fit her more ''thick'' body .If you want to get a more elvish look i think you would need a more slender body mass in my opinion.In my paint over my fix was to make her face more round
