this has been a success. I am reasonably happy with it for a start, and i managed to take it to a level above what i thought i might be able to achieve (which is funny because in a way i know i can do better still, but it did surprise me with how well it worked)
Turns out this year has had a MUCH larger effect on me that i thought. When im painting, i think of all the main important things unconciously, which is good. I use photoshop and painter so much more efficiently, and all those brush tricks and shit are actually starting to be useful. and I managed to keep my interest in this for longer than i thought too. Maybe 10-20 hours?
If u guys can pick anything u think needs changing - maybe some colour/lighting issues i cant see etc, id appreciate it. IF i can change it, thats even better.
Crit me hard. This is like my exam piece or something, im seeing what my 'bar' is set at.
edit - its a book cover. Hence the composition. The spine goes straight down the middle on that post thing. and space above/below characters is for title and author. Most of back is covered with text too.
First off well bloody done, it works really well compositionally and I'm particularly in awe of your treatment of the rocks and mountains. The upper arch of the cave catches me as being wonderfully solid and the green tint on the mountains is perfect.
ReplyDeleteAnd now I'm going to give you hell.
You seem to have five light sources on your fore character, Daylight, snow reflective light, the two blue lights and the characters own hair.
As they are now they are all quite bright and very white, which means your shadows are mostly black.
The daylight works well elsewhere as a glaring white on snow but on your character it might work better as the anthisis of your shadow colours, you've gone with soft green-blues in post of the picture and a rather stronger navy under the character. From the direction and colours the sun is at maybe a mid morning, and the light could safely be a pale yellow tinge when it hits your character. It won't look quite as bright either as when it hits the snow.
Reflective lights are a bit brighter then they need to be, but I'm not entirely sure, the legs are white, it looks partially because the metal is white and partially because o the reflective light.. but if the metal isn't white then you'll need to down the light source a lot. just a slightly lighter strip rather then glaring white. (same on the sword and hand)
The expression on the face is great and its important people be able to see it even on a tiny book cover but for the lighting thats there the highlights are too bright. A low opacity layer over whats there already, making everything just one shade darker would be a lot closer, hopefully without taking anything from the expression.
Orb light: Its a wonderfully strong blue so no need to white that out by the time it hits your character, just use the same blues that are there. And where the blue light hits it could be good to put some stronger reds in your shadow colours. (Thats goes for purpilsh blues where the sunlight hits as well.)
All this crit is very subtle changes (and mostly a couple of brush strokes) but I think it'd make a big difference to your figure.
This is such nitpicking I don't want to post it, but I'll just trust you'll do the same for me..
Oh and the light on the arm is much more from behind, its very side on where it is now.
ReplyDeleteI'll stop now.
Thanks very much. Ill look into making some changes later. My problem with the figure was always what you suggested.
ReplyDeleteIts a battle between the realistic lighting colour and making sure the character/face/armor are all recognisable and stand out.
I see a few of ure points though, her greaves i seem to have painted white almost needlessy and same with some other spots. i think im gonna darken down most of the legs and rethink the lighting on them. I rushed the the robed and lighting of the orb so that needs more attention.
Thanks alot for all this. glad you picked all this out for me. cheers faye
Good composition and the scenery is of course shit hot, but there are a few problems with the characters, they're a little awkward. With the elf, there are some minor anatomy issues, like her thighs being too thin (and the left too short), lack of hips, her right bicep is too long, there isn't much of a right palm and the fingers look really awkwardly positioned, even more so if you include the other two that you can't see.
ReplyDeleteThe hair looks nice and stylish, it's not really worth changing but there doesn't seem to be much relation to any wind or directional movement, which might make her gesture clearer- I'd personally prefer some more immediacy to it, maybe by changing her expression from spaced out to pained but focusing on the cthulu style creature or on the sword, or otherwise change the general pose to make it seem more like she staggered or fell, possible even dropping the sword or bracing herself:
http://s704.photobucket.com/albums/ww42/the634/?action=view¤t=andycrit.jpg
(no internet at home, so an old fashioned drawing to show it!)
The Monster looks really short too, I'm not sure if it was intentional or not- like it's on tentacles or it's knees (cue pointless but fun to do pic):
http://s704.photobucket.com/albums/ww42/the634/?action=view¤t=andycritB.jpg
It's made confusing by the large head and long arms, and because of the lighting on his robes you can't actually tell how far away he is from the elf, which makes the whole pic look a little flat. Extra lighting on the lower robes would also help the elf stand out more, without having to change her colour scheme. [Also, with left arm the forearms thicker than the bicep, and the hand is pretty big too, depending on how humanistic you want him to be]
His right arm is completely lost too, unless you look closely- a quick fix would be to define the elbow with lighting, so it doesn't look like his arm is fading into the darkness behind, and also define the hand more (lighten it) so you can see that the spell's from his hand and not his mouthy orofice of doom.
I'd say change his hues ever so slightly to a warmer purple, so he stands out more from his purple BG, and although I like it as it is, it might be worth changing the hue for the elf too, just to see if it helps her stand out a little more.
If you were to make the monster taller, he'd be looming over her coup de grace style too :)
Loving the textures and rendering though! I think if you changed the pose for the elf the lighting problems would change to stylistic choices.
Carl's here too, he says that it seems wierd that the sky blue you used isn't really used in the right of the piece, so maybe use a little more red/purple on the left or something (he's left, I've forgotten the rest...)
It's really frustrating having to deal with this flea situation, it's stopping me from doing anything other than sketching since I can't stay in the house too much, and we're probably going to have to have the place fumigated, which is a joy. Need some major art catchup soon!
Well, i just wrote a nice response, but blogger, being shit, deleted it when i had to sign in before posting it. so fuck that. it said soemthing like this.
ReplyDeleteI draw scenery differen to characters, going to do it more like that. I dont think of nearly 10% of all the stuff i actually know when drawing, it seems 'too intuitive', if thats a bad thing.
Gonna redo the whole of the characters and shop em. Spend some time really 'thinking' instead of just drawing.
cheers guys