/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

>>2165498
(1/2)
I'd try to shy away from using duplication and flipping in your process entirely - unless of course you were making a character sheet or something that requires exact symmetry.

The current background has too much visual noise and is distracting, so I'd try to steer away from that direction. I also don't like the near tangent between the horizon and the shoulders - the fact that they're both similar grays doesn't help either. It's very flat at the moment.

I'd add a little more breathing room above the head. Still feels a little cramped. I noticed my paintover had the same height over the head in terms of pixels, so I'd say the absolute size of the head make a big difference. The ratio between the gaps of the top, bottom and sides as well as whether there's content in the background affects this too - so you'd have to go by feel paying closest attention to the thumbnail size of the image.

The two biggest issues are still inconsistencies with lighting direction, and the apparent lens. The cast shadow under the nose for example is extremely long, implying the light is straight overhead. Most of the rest of the face looks like the light is mostly frontal though.

For the apparent lens, it's the features taking up too much space compared to the cranium. Pic related shows comparisons between long lens, normal lens and wide lens. Many of the examples in the middle look similar to how the human eye distorts, but each implies a different distance between the viewer and the subject - more perspective distortion implies that we're closer. Make sure the implied distance matches the how you want the viewer to feel about the character - rather than letting your cropping dictate our proximity. I'm assuming you want your character to read as cool, aloof and distant, so I'd stay away from wide angle lens that put us super close and personal to his face.

>>1928283
The ones under 50mm are wide angle lenses.

>>1823603
>>1823604
>>1823605
First of all, don't try to draw with grids, as it won't properly teach you how to measure proportions, focus on the whole, capture gesture, etc, but instead teach you to just copy small arbitrary abstract shapes until you have something that resembles the reference. There are much better ways to measure and check your proportions without hindering your learning process. Look up things like sight measuring, and look into the Bargue and Gerome Drawing Course. In short, you want any measurements of angles and proportions you make to relate to the drawing itself, and not some arbitrary grid.

More on grids here:
http://www.ctrlpaint.com/blog/on-cheating-rulers-grids-and-tracing

Second of all, that's a terrible reference for a portrait (lens distortion, lighting, and even the expression will give you problems). Even a proficient artist wouldn't be able to make that look appealing as a drawing or painting without changing it substantially. Try to find photo references without lens distortion, with a single, clear directional light source, and avoid funny expressions (especially teeth - they're very difficult to translate well in a drawing or painting, so just stay away from them for now).

Pic related for lens distortion.

>>1772025
>I was just wondering how I could go about improving this piece
I know this isn't what you want to hear, but there isn't much you can do to improve this. The problem is that you relied on a reference with horrible lens distortion. When it's present in a photograph, the viewer is willing to accept it as 'true to life', but as soon as you make a drawing/painting from it, and replicate the proportions perfectly, it will always look and feel 'off' because it is no longer a photograph. To the viewer, it looks like a mistake on the artist's part, rather than the reference.

Pic related

>>1699890
Substantial lens distortion, very poor clarity, somewhat lackluster lighting. The lens distortion is the biggest issue. Learn how long lenses and wide lenses distort an image as compared to normal human vision.

>>1540699
>>1540703
>>1540709
Seconding request for the ref. Without seeing it I can already tell you that there was some serious lens distortion going on. Just because it comes from a photo, does not mean that it's true to life. Pic related.

>>1507026
Yeah, it's something that's not readily apparent, but needs careful attention.

With the human eye, objects appear differently depending on how far away they are from the observer. With cameras, there's no one lens focal length that correctly mimics the human eye from all viewing distances. A competent photographer is needed to suitable photos for reference purposes.

Pic related. These photos were taken with the same distance to the model, but a different focal length lens.

>>1440125
Not the guy you've been speaking with, but I feel this photo isn't quite suitable reference material for a painting. The lighting is mostly frontal, so there are no interesting cast and form shadows to work with - everything is mostly in the light half.

More importantly, the camera looks like it was much too close to her for that lens focal length - giving a subtle distortion to the head and features. Note that it isn't an overwhelming amount of distortion, but it's still enough that will make the end painting look 'like a photo' instead of 'like life'. Pic related.