/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>2012946
>>2012966

It was better without the softer edges on the clouds - the light shapes of the last version help frame him better, and you don't have soft edges anywhere else so it makes them emphatic. Also, it's still splitting down the middle like the last anon said - It's the line from the tree foliage, to his backpack, to his arm.

Also, don't hold on to your foliage, no matter how well it came out. If it's making the picture suffer, then take it out and redo it. If you don't draw people's interest in with a strong composition then no one will even care that the tree looks pretty.

From here it's hard to judge the piece overall while the character is still lined up - it affects how we see the temperatures and values, so get that resolved roughly as soon as you can.

>>1942183

Don't give up on it just yet, take a break and come back to it after a day - or three, if you can manage. I think you know that there's an overall incoherence with the entire piece; and no matter how much fun it is to just play with shapes and colors until you find something lovely you do need to take a moment to breathe and think about where you're going. When you find that lovely arrangement the piece will tell you where it wants to go, but you won't be able to hear it if all you do is paint, paint, paint.

On top of that, you have a darling area which is hurting your piece terribly. You should be proud of it, but it serves no purpose aside from being really pretty. It's the type of thing people love to see when you've invited them to pore over every inch of your piece, but by itself it's detrimental.

It'd be very easy to salvage the piece, though - take some time off and instead do some 3 value thumbnails of a similar subject matter, in a similar value range. Then come back, cut and crop the piece like a madman, and have something worth the effort you've put in. Or, you can just crop the mountains and make a piece out of that - I'd recommend this piece by Homer for some inspiration if you do.

>>1912467

I agree that though upping the values could help you'd have to wrestle with highly contrasting values in a female face - which would making it harder on yourself.

So first and foremost, don't stress that you didn't get it on the first go - portraiture has enough material to warrant a lifetime of study in and of itself. I think your biggest problem with it right now is that you've over-rendered the face and lost the clear-cut modelling that a single light source would provide. Try simplifying it back again into maybe 3 distinct values - a sparing bright value for the top of her head, maybe a hint of it on the top of the screen-right cheekbone and nose; a nice skin tone for the front and screen-right side of her face; and a shadow tone for the rest. No variation, just simple tones. Then work on edges, all nice and soft and ladylike, which will do a huge amount of the work for you. Lastly, if you need to, add further definition where it's needed.

Just keep it simple, you'll get a stronger statement of the forms that way. Also, be sure you establish what the temperature of the light is, and what colors your shadows will be. Is the light warm, making the shadows cooler? Is it cool, making the shadows warmer? Don't worry about sub-surface scattering until you get to edges, either - yes, it's very important in painting a face, but deal with it after you've defined your planes. Use a loaded brush with a saturated tone to help create the edges you need, for example.

I did a small paintover which may or may not be helpful, but I hope something in here helps you along.

>>1897581

Hah, that 2012-2013. I'd like to imagine everything came together over a cup of coffee or something.

>>1898496

Keep experimenting with your work, it's starting to look great.

>>1902243

More to the question of if you're happy with yourself, though, isn't it?

>>1905543

Watercolor is terrifying, keep going.

>>1905656

no oviraptors/10.

>>1909283

Still lovely to look at, though.

>>1909088
>>1909089

It's not a malicious critique or anything, it's just bluntly put. If the artist knows that in his WIP the values are a bit clamped then he can just disregard the critique, he'll get around to it. If he didn't feel like the values are clamped then it's best to field that opinion so he can at least consider it.

I lean towards having your overall value hierarchy laid in near the beginning, though, so I'm biased.

>>1909083

It's looking lovely so far. I'll start this out by saying it's much past 4AM over here, I'm exhausted, and I've no idea of your working process or intentions with the piece besides the Mike bit. However, I hope this helps:

I agree with the first critique that the values are a bit clamped, overall, and even if you were going to get around to them I'd say at least lay them in real quick so you have a better feel for the entire piece with relatively little effort. Even though it kind of hurts to scribble over the nice subtle variation, here's at least an idea. Also, I threw in a few occlusion shadows for fun.

Anyways, I think what's saving you right now are the values on the main character - they read well. Your color temperatures and how they're reacting with the character, however, needs clarification. You've set it up nicely where you have that really deep blue fill on the right and the cold key light from the left, but it lacks dimensionality in the resulting color temperatures and the way the form turns with color. The hat says that the light is very very cold and saturated, his face says that it's only mildly saturated and harsh, the parchment says that it's a warm light, and the background says nothing at all.

Mike is a good person to look to for this sort of thing, so you're right on the money there. Look at how he turns his form with temperature in a very obvious way, and how he uses his lights.

>>1906804

Nah. Do what you love, do it often, and don't lose sight of it. In time you'll do it better than anyone else because no one else is you, and people will see what you see in your own work and love it almost as much as you do.

That's all that really matters.

>>1892068
>>1892072

Welp, here we go.

A few, definitely depends on my mood if it's a study, or the mood of a piece if it's an illustration/sketch.

AC:Z
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGjwXI0n5-I

Bastion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eqMszMGUww

Child of Light:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olZMC6SKESo

Bomberman64
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9-ZhO2-L3Q

Catherine
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n08b1ptdnYM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q06iJrlVY5k

DG3:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XlTJ8GB2Ug

Echochrome
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8_gS7tI3eE

FFCC:CB
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InVUHtMkKeM

GW:Nightfall
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vihVoxiqMg

Halo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWh9l8RSkPk

Nier
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0x0-EYfwP-c&list=PL8DDD2D047A076DC8&index=32

BABYBABYBABY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lp9gyK7Gtzs

Xenoblade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xweRl4LZlmo

Lot's of lovely taste in this thread - a lot of things I've listened to in the past and forgotten about.

>>1883312

It's from the Bargue drawing course, find a copy and read about how students were meant to copy it - It's the best way to go about this.

>>1883318
Kind of correct, but that's the comparative sizing method - Gerome and Bargue utilized the sight-size method. Either works, though; comparative is better if you plan on doing a lot of field work, sight-size is better if you plan on doing work in an artist's studio.

>>1883319
Rendering it in a large format is also part of the Bargue drawing course, and even if it's frustrating to cover so much area it makes it a whole bunch easier - this is coming from personal experience. There are so many nuances in the drawing that having enough room to show them really helps.

>>1883958
It's about learning to see very minute changes in curvature and recording them faithfully. Pretty much what>>1884365 said.

>>1883312
A lot of really good information here, pick and choose. If I only had one thing to say, it'd be just take your time with the proportions - everything depends on the initial lay-in. Check, double-check, triple-check, finish it by the end of a night so you can sleep and look at it again in the morning and go through all the checks again.

Also, sucks for you, but I have more than one thing to say. From personal experience, though; get a high-quality, lightly textured paper - not a smoothed one. It'll need to take erasing well without loosing all of its tooth, and you need to be aware of that, so use a kneaded eraser lightly when you're erasing preliminary marks. When you have it all mapped out, cover the dark grey tone first, then the very light grey tone, then the mid-grey, then the black - and try to remember which direction you're hatching your values in. When it most go darker, hatch in a different direction, and keep on laying those on top of each other - look at some Russian academy masterworks and find unfinished areas in the pencil renderings if it helps.

Hope this helps.

>>1880595

Studying the masters is the homework, applying what you've learned against a discernible standard is the test.

In your case, it's half drawing from what you've learned, and half inexperience. Try drawing with long, soft general lines and then modifying them to specifics - Like the line from his brow on the left to his cheekbone could be simplified as one line at first, and then carved into later. It helps because it forces you to keep it simple, and makes your linework more economic in the long run.

There's a bunch of stuff that's good to pick through in here, though a lot of the contention is just between differing levels of expertise - if you're first learning to render then learning how light works, and its different effects, is going to be your best bet. To a point, it could be all you really need to know. After that, the bits about painting technique are going to bring you a long way.

In painting technique, it's just about utilizing the few building blocks of paint application in any number of infinite ways. The fact that you should study both from life and from those you admire is a constant - you'll learn about different ways to stack those blocks to achieve different results, and inevitably come up with your own formulas that fit you a bit better. For example, I tend much more towards the effect between two layers of paint rather than the photographic cues of a texture - because of this, I spend a lot of time working out what information the layers will convey. Some people have no interest in that sort of thing and render like a sculptor sculpts, and that's fine too. It's a preference thing.

Hope this helps.

small study from a noir film with some stuff changed around.

>>1865918
>>1866105

Try doing it all with the standard round hard and soft round brushes first, then redo a few areas with textured brushes where you think they'd really help. Many of your edges are still remarkably hard.

>>1866164
It's looking lovely so far - what's the intention behind it? Learning proper values and modeling? Edge control?

>>1866367
Photobashing is still a tool, regardless of all the controversy - if you couldn't do this without it then you'll still have a hell of a time doing it with it. The areas that are painted in are going to contrast with the fine detail and precision of the photos - so if it's not properly done it'll feel all the more a glaring difference. Maybe try a simpler piece? Single figure, simple lighting?

>>1860383

If anyone else here has read that and enjoyed it then go for Edgar Payne's Composition of Outdoor Painting. Read the first chapter very closely before skipping to any other part of the book, though - it's important.

>>1856827

It's all about practice, really. >>1856829 and >>1856836 kind of hit around it.

When you're first drawing from life you're just trying to get the proportions and appropriate angles right, since it's just a bit too much to consider everything at once. When proportion starts to come naturally, and you've drawn a torso from so-and-so angle so many times, you don't have to think about it anymore - which is good, since now you're thinking about overall gesture. Then you start designing your shapes, figuring out detailed anatomy, finding ways to reinforce modelling, playing with edges, composing your figures to make pleasing abstract compositions - the list goes on forever, and you'll always be getting better. Just keep practicing and studying, your improvement will be inevitable - just be sure to focus on one aspect at a time.

>>1853868
>>1853870

Ah, can't find it on the web anymore for some reason. It's in Loomis' Creative Illustration, pages 136 and 137.

>>1853826

Read up on Pyle's notes on the classification of light and shadow, it'll help with a lot of the problems you're having overall - some drawing issues aside.

Mainly, though, the parts that talk about where to indicate and denote texture, and how to separate your shadows and lights in value.

>>1839647

You fiend.

>>1839643

Ah, it's somewhat of a dead end, and because of that I didn't bother to refine the drawing. The idea was in painting process - a gradiated midtone with opaque paint to describe the major plane shifts. But, the midtone texture underneath is entirely too strong and doesn't blend well with either the darks or the lights - you can see this by it being a bit disjointed up close and looking better as a thumbnail - and the entire face could've been done carefully in two tones anyways.

>>1839787

A good composition from a thumbnail indicates a strong design in the values and shapes. It's fairly important in ensuring that the visual arrangement of the large masses are interesting as an abstract design, and somehow represent the piece.

There are times when you won't want a very strong design, though that's getting into advanced territory where you'd have to really think and intend a purposefully muddled image. To that point, the thumbnail wouldn't be a good method of checking your own work with fresh eyes.

Attached isn't exactly related, I doodled a person at a cafe.

>>1839635

Ah shit, what? That's not it. Here, this one.

I didn't really intend on ever posting that one but I suppose I'm posting here too. That one's just an experiment that didn't turn out all too well, so I scrapped it.

Tell no one.

>>1839602

Read up on Sorolla and see if you can find some large details - this one should be particularly helpful.

Also remember that though everyone says he painted very quickly as his mature style emerged - 3 to 4 days to start and finish a huge canvas - this was with 20 years experience as a painter who regularly made it into Salon exhibits.

Just pay attention to how he layered his tones and paint. It's all very methodical - big form, little form.

It's stupid late over here but I'll try my best to keep this sensible and coherent. I did two quick ones.

>>1831680
It could be, and thank you! interestingly coincides with later anon's comments about utilizing less grey.

>>1831768

Noted. There's a perfect balance where the right grey makes the rest of the colors come alive, but I often overshoot it. I'll try to pay more attention to it, though I'm not sure how I did on this set - A bit too sleepy.

Also, broken in terms of how the colors vibrate together - like the background of the second one isn't just blue or blue green, it's green with blue overlain on top. There's a kid of balance to that, too - Frans Hals did it very well, like the perfect amount of smooth transitions paired with some very opaque brushstrokes, which could just be considered a texture as your frenetic strokes are.

>>1831757

This thread likes you too. Do something bright and vivid, with direct light.

>>1831947
There's improvement, to be sure. Remember to simplify so you don't have to deal with much of anything but color. It sounds like it'd be too easy, but even if you just paint a hill being lit from the side you're dealing with values, drawing, edges, hue shifts, and transitions within planes.

>>1832191

I'll use purple wherever I damn well please.

Hahaha and thank you for the advice, I agree. It did come out looking a little strange, didn't it? I suppose that's the point of experimentation, though. I would argue that it's just a case of it not being appropriate - if the environment felt hot and humid then the purple would be appropriate. As it is, it's a bit out of place.

>>1832526

Oh anon~

You posted earlier in this thread, yeah? These are looking lovely as well. You do have a habit in these of setting up your colors in a somewhat monochromatic/analogous fashion and then adding a small blip of focal color. It's not a good thing or a bad thing, just something to pay attention to so you don't end up doing it all the time.

Oh, fun stuff.

>>1830946
Looking good. I do think some of your color combinations come off as unnatural, but it'll just be that way for a long time as you develop better senses for it. Try reading up on huevaluechroma.com and studying the old masters for a bit - even just taking a color picker and seeing how simple their color choices actually are should help. Also, pay attention to the relationships of your tempatures - you can make anything look just about right with the correct value and temperature.

Also, grab some crutches when you're doing this sort of stuff. Find a photo you like and steal its composition, the value structure, and the form information, and then just have fun painting in colors in different combinations and lighting scenarios. It's harder to learn when you're juggling so many things at once, use every tool you can find to help you really focus on one thing at a time.

>>1831206
>>1831317
>>1831357

Lovely stuff, these are a bunch of fun to look at. I especially love the ones where things are pretty much broken - mostly in your second set. I'm curious to see how a few more would turn out if you utilized some extremely deep colors, like 90% saturated Cyan/Blue, or deep dark purples, reds. Try pushing some broken color too - like how Monet would.

>>1831468

You're tackling way too much at once, with way too many tools. These'll be hard enough just as color experiments and studies, so focus your energies on that and use crutches for everything else. There's a bunch of potential in these, you just need to keep it simple so you can focus on the colors and effects.

>>1813556

You have him painting right in front of you but you're staring at his paintbrush instead of the painting.

You have all the information right here, you don't need a tutorial or his brushes. Learning technique isn't about brushes and layer styles, it's about the building blocks of putting down paint and how you can stack them in different ways. Analyze the effect you want to achieve, write it down, and think about how he must have layered his paint, and then try it. Did he put down saturated tones and then paint on top opaquely? Did he start with desaturated tones, lay on saturated tones, and then softly paint the skin opaquely towards the light and transparently entering the midtone?

Just stuff like that. You'll learn a bunch along the way with mistakes and experimentation.

>>1810436

Have you looked at J.C Leyendecker as well? Looking at Franke's work I think it'd be a safe bet that he's at least very familiar with his work, and it might be nice to look at who he's taking inspiration from.

New personal piece, WIP. Some parts are going to be repainted, like the clouds with a warmer underpainting. Also, foreground and midground are unfinished, but I think I like the shapes well enough to start drawing it out. Any feedback, though?

>>1807732

Nicely done so far. I don't know exactly where you want to take this piece, but if I was painting it I would first lighten the background along with the distant structures, even just like 1 step with a bit of yellow in it, to push the turret out more as a focus. It'd also make the background structures less apparent, which would make the turret look larger and taller by contrast. Also, maybe darken the background directly behind the turret and play up the light hitting it - it'd make for a nice counterchange going upwards and things that are darker at the top typically feel heavier and more imposing. Again, though, I don't know exactly how you want this piece to feel - if you let me know I can probably critique it better.

>>1807847

See how from the thumbnail it's so close to working? Look at what information it's giving us that's convincing and you'll have the essence of the mass. You have the shape, just make a textured, flat midtone and draw the specular lit part on top. Then a few accents, like two to four. Look at Frans Hals' Malle Babbe, how the bonnet is just a gradiated midtone with a few strokes on top.

>>1802246
>>1803405

A little late into the thread, ah well.

Ran into a whole bunch of problems that I hadn't considered initially, so i'll probably end up coming back to it again. Fun stuff, though.