/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

(2/2) [Plus closeup of an early Ruanjia sketch]

Being aware of your Lights & Darks - look under the lip at the temple of the helmet, almost completely black. In reality the contrast probably wouldn’t be that high but crushing your shadows down and separating the lights/darks makes everything pop. In each value range he is considerate of what’s being lit and what isn’t. Look at his paintings with brightly lit rubble in the background, even that has incredibly defined lights/shadows despite being in such a bright value range. Shadows are not just for dark areas. >>2301284 would be much better off thinking about where the light is falling and where it isn’t.

Temperature shifts are ruanjia’s kingdom, look at how the metal turns from cold grey to warm brownish tones as it curves around the surface, look at his other paintings and see how he uses them and try think why/how they’re there.

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Instead of just copying OP's image inspect and deconstruct everything you can see. See what strokes were put down last and think about why they were done in that order. What would’ve it looked like before those final stages? He made this image by himself, you get the benefit of getting to deconstruct his thought process .My example is a bit shoddy, but that’s the way I approached it, give it a try.