That elemental is quite good. The only criticism I would have is that it looks like you need some work on your lightning, but then I'm not all that good at lightning either.
Wow, that's some really nice pieces you have here. I commend you for your general painting skill and specially for your environment-rendering. The first and second piece have a really nice set-up of perspective and scale, which is something that gives me horrible trouble.
One remark, however - You tend to abuse smoothed surfaces, and it shows in paintings where the lighting reads as being strong and direct but the subject is painted as it was lit by a soft diffuse light, therefore not seeming very believable.
The picture of the Reaper, the city and Nova all suffer from this problem (while the soft shading is absolutely perfect for that picture of the Elemental), do you see it? I may botch this completely but... =P if it's alright by you, would you mind if I posted a paint-over for the lighting?
Wow, that's some really nice pieces you have here. I commend you for your general painting skill and specially for your environment-rendering. The first and second piece have a really nice set-up of perspective and scale, which is something that gives me horrible trouble.
One remark, however - You tend to abuse smoothed surfaces, and it shows in paintings where the lighting reads as being strong and direct but the subject is painted as it was lit by a soft diffuse light, therefore not seeming very believable.
The picture of the Reaper, the city and Nova all suffer from this problem (while the soft shading is absolutely perfect for that picture of the Elemental), do you see it? I may botch this completely but... =P if it's alright by you, would you mind if I posted a paint-over for the lighting?
Thanks for the feedback!
By all means go ahead! I haven't really had any formal art classes/schooling so it'd be nice to learn more!
There's three basic types of lights used in photography and naturalist painting. These are the high key light, low key light and the back light.
The high key lights are whatever your main lighting source is, but on its own it is rarely enough to do anything good. The low key lights come from other directions and add complexity and definition to the subject. The back light adds a light rim to the subject which is terrific to add definition and dramatism to stuff, and you should always look for ways to generate and exploit it (the jetpacks were really good for this).
There is also reflected light (light which bounces from a surface) which is extremely useful to highlight the details in your painting without having to add more light sources or (worse) "fake" the lighting in your painting just so you can cram in some more detail for the viewer's eyes. Everything produces reflected light but strong ambient light usually masks it so it is normally only visible in the shadows (see it for yourself, when you see a person standing in the sun under a clear sky you don't see the color of their shirt reflected on their skin... but once they move into the shade you can see their face glowing a bit red or green or w/e depending on the color of what they wear!), this light is very soft and saturated.
You mustn't rely overly on your main frontal light source other than for the principal focal point of your painting (in this case I took it was the shoulder pads and helmet which give the subject his aggressive 'character' so I made the lighting on them harder); light that hits from the back and side looks much better on secondary details like the tubes that go into the marine's helmet which I made to be lighted from the back light from the jetpack and the reflected light from the armor. In this way the 'small details' of a painting look more appealing because of the higher contrast, yet they don't compete visually with the main subject.
However, you also musn't abuse it. If your subject has overly hard low key lights, back lights and reflected light coming from everywhere it will look glossy, fake and kinda ridiculous. Comic book art usually is like it (in which case it doesn't bother me but I hate to see that everywhere).
That's quite good. I will say that it looks like some areas could use a little more contrast, and some better definition, but overall very good. Also, I don't know if it was intentional, but the lace on her outfit is off center.
EDIT: If you wouldn't mind, could I show you what I'm talking about? I only have Gimp available to me at the moment, but it should work.
Oh no, the composition is quite good. And since the lace is supposed to be off center, it's very good. Like I said, the biggest thing is the picture needs more contrast.
Your Aqua piece is beautiful. I have some questions and comments about it:
-How did you create the background?
-Did you use a model or a "paint-over" for the figure?
The forearm needs work, should you choose to revisit it. It should be larger- it is the closest thing in the art to the viewer by perspective, aside from the fabric at the bottom. It wont be hard to simply enlarge it. Also, the cross-stitching on the blouse is misaligned. Comparing it to the angle of the breasts, it should follow suit. The left side of it would naturally be far larger than the right side, due to the angle of perspective- if you chose to match that angle. Excellent job on the face, neck and shoulder!
You definitely got inspiration from somewhere; I swear, I've seen this before...
Hm.
Maybe I'm mistaken.
Either way, its absolutely stunning.
Needless to say, the water refraction stuff is good. The girl is too.
Only qualm I have is there's no sky. Less atmosphere, less depth. ;-;
Her head looks a bit off. Other than that, it looks quite good. Her head just looks like it's got to much pincushioning on it, which I'm sure wasn't intended. If it was lowered just a tad and skewed a bit to the upper left, it would look better.
You're showing much improvement. I'd highly suggest finding some good texture brushes and adding texture to different surfaces so they don't all look like they're smooth. Most of your work just needs refining. Keep it up, I can't wait to see you improve.
2013 update: I don't really have too much time to do free drawing anymore, but i'll post stuff when i remember
An elemental
SC2 Reaper (speed paint)
SC2 Smogling (1st place Starfeeder Unit Creation contest!)
Illustration for someone's story
Nova (more starcraft stuff)
Currently looking to buy miscut Homelands, (my wife thinks I'm crazy too).
Semper Gumby (Always Flexible)
I think around 1.5 hours? It was right before SC2 came out and I wanted to kill time before the midnight release
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
One remark, however - You tend to abuse smoothed surfaces, and it shows in paintings where the lighting reads as being strong and direct but the subject is painted as it was lit by a soft diffuse light, therefore not seeming very believable.
The picture of the Reaper, the city and Nova all suffer from this problem (while the soft shading is absolutely perfect for that picture of the Elemental), do you see it? I may botch this completely but... =P if it's alright by you, would you mind if I posted a paint-over for the lighting?
Thanks for the feedback!
By all means go ahead! I haven't really had any formal art classes/schooling so it'd be nice to learn more!
I don't have great expertise with lighting; a better artist could easily outdo what I attempted here but I do know the basics which I can explain to you.
There's three basic types of lights used in photography and naturalist painting. These are the high key light, low key light and the back light.
The high key lights are whatever your main lighting source is, but on its own it is rarely enough to do anything good. The low key lights come from other directions and add complexity and definition to the subject. The back light adds a light rim to the subject which is terrific to add definition and dramatism to stuff, and you should always look for ways to generate and exploit it (the jetpacks were really good for this).
There is also reflected light (light which bounces from a surface) which is extremely useful to highlight the details in your painting without having to add more light sources or (worse) "fake" the lighting in your painting just so you can cram in some more detail for the viewer's eyes. Everything produces reflected light but strong ambient light usually masks it so it is normally only visible in the shadows (see it for yourself, when you see a person standing in the sun under a clear sky you don't see the color of their shirt reflected on their skin... but once they move into the shade you can see their face glowing a bit red or green or w/e depending on the color of what they wear!), this light is very soft and saturated.
You mustn't rely overly on your main frontal light source other than for the principal focal point of your painting (in this case I took it was the shoulder pads and helmet which give the subject his aggressive 'character' so I made the lighting on them harder); light that hits from the back and side looks much better on secondary details like the tubes that go into the marine's helmet which I made to be lighted from the back light from the jetpack and the reflected light from the armor. In this way the 'small details' of a painting look more appealing because of the higher contrast, yet they don't compete visually with the main subject.
However, you also musn't abuse it. If your subject has overly hard low key lights, back lights and reflected light coming from everywhere it will look glossy, fake and kinda ridiculous. Comic book art usually is like it (in which case it doesn't bother me but I hate to see that everywhere).
Hopefully there's some improvement!
USE SPOILERS!
EDIT: If you wouldn't mind, could I show you what I'm talking about? I only have Gimp available to me at the moment, but it should work.
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
Her lace is supposed to be on both sides, but due to the angle...come to think of it that wasn't the best pose to draw her in :\
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
-How did you create the background?
-Did you use a model or a "paint-over" for the figure?
The forearm needs work, should you choose to revisit it. It should be larger- it is the closest thing in the art to the viewer by perspective, aside from the fabric at the bottom. It wont be hard to simply enlarge it. Also, the cross-stitching on the blouse is misaligned. Comparing it to the angle of the breasts, it should follow suit. The left side of it would naturally be far larger than the right side, due to the angle of perspective- if you chose to match that angle. Excellent job on the face, neck and shoulder!
The background was done with some hard round brushes, then I used some fractal brushes to finish stuff up along with a few cloud brushes.
The figure was just me sketching things in and having some friends pose for reference photos.
You can view my progress here: http://stormtitan.deviantart.com/art/Aqua-Process-186455867
@Trancebam:
I've gotten feedback that the contrast needs work from some others as well! I'll post up a fixed up version once I tinker with it
Walkin' on water!
Hm.
Maybe I'm mistaken.
Either way, its absolutely stunning.
Needless to say, the water refraction stuff is good. The girl is too.
Only qualm I have is there's no sky. Less atmosphere, less depth. ;-;
Realm of photoshops and Skittles!
Akroma has vigilance so you can't tap that.
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH
I did this as a companion piece to something I painted about a year ago, maybe it was that?:
http://stormtitan.deviantart.com/art/Ripples-152746474
@Trancebam:
Yeah little anatomy issues everywhere, one of my biggest weakness ):
USE SPOILERS
Update!
My art blog
Claims:
The kicker variant in WWK will be "Kicker without a kicked effect." - proven wrong Jan 2010 : 2 wrongs
Decks:
:symu::symb: Bloodchief Ascension - Modern
:symb::symr: Rakdos, the Defiler - EDH
:symu::symb::symw: Sharuum the Hegemon - EDH
:symw::symu::symb: Zur the Enchanter - EDH