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At 7/22/14 07:10 PM, Kashi wrote: how to lighten parts of the pic that I put too much marker on? Tips appreciated

I don't really have much experience with markers, but I imagine careful planning and using a hard pencil to make sure the outlines read properly before blacking out with markers would be my approach!

If that doesn't work, fake it digitally!

At 7/22/14 04:56 PM, BazookaBonsai wrote: Faces, lots of them.
60 seconds beween each.

Those looks great! Do you have a specific focus in mind while doing these?

I've found setting a focus can boost improvement by quite a bit - for instance in this earlier set of mine, you can see a lot of them are literally just lines for the placement of the hairline, eyes, nose, and mouth. After doing that set I was more confident about placing guidelines like that, and I'm free to move to more advanced stuff like applying loomis or bridgemans construction techniques, or trying to understand the underlying structure better.

Anyway it's cool to see other people doing these! Do keep posting!

It may seem pointless and unnecessary to upload these strips of faces, but it's a real help for me to make sure I don't slip and get blank days. I guess it's also fun to see process and development. For instance the box technique is getting some practice, and I can start to imagine the bounding boxes of faces. It's also relevant to the perspective practices I've been focusing on lately.

GraphicsGale is a fairly intuitive pixel art specific program that has most the tools you could want.

GrafX2 is a little more technical with a few more features that goes specifically towards manipulating colours.

Both are free, and both are used by great pixel artists to create amazing works

lllll

Started out as a digital painting of what's outside my window, but by the time I had noted the colours and made the most basic placements, the sun had shifted beneath the horizon, so I changed things about to practice composition while keeping the colour scheme.

Here's a picture for reference

At 7/21/14 11:58 AM, Havegum wrote: Probably missing the point completely

Vasily Surikov - Monument to Peter I
5~ hours more or less. Somewhat fragmented because I have to deal with clients and orders as they pop up while I'm at work.

There is a use of geometric shapes and repetition here. Obviously the structure in the background is a clear example of this, with its bold horizontal and vertical shapes. But there is also a triangle that goes from the top of the structure, and down towards the rock that the sculpture is standing on. This triangle shape is echoed in the rock itself. I feel this is more emphasized because the side of the building pointing towards the rock has a sloped roof, while the one on the other side has a pillar pointing upwards. The left side is also emphasized with a clearer contrast to the sky, lit up by the moon on one side, but downplayed on the other - it's showing what's important. There's also some symmetry to this with the far left sloped rooftop echoing that triangle, and leading the eye back to the sculpture.

The sculpture is also displayed with almost the highest value contrast to its background, contested only by the secondary focus, which effect is being negated because where the sculpture has plenty of negative space around him, the guy closest to the viewer is blending into the crowd in the background.

The people has their purpose though, you can tell every person put in here are looking like tired, sloppy blobs going about their everyday routine. The statue on the other hand is full of life, he's got a proper posture, and he is - in contrast to the other people, looking up. If you divide the picture into two parts, you can clearly see there's the regular people with the feet on the ground, and then you have this monument of a silhouette, leaping up towards the sky.

Oh boy here we go, details in next post

At 7/20/14 08:29 PM, theclassybutler wrote: FINISHED!!! FINALLY!

You gotta be careful using too saturated colours, especially when doing night scenes. google some images or go out yourself in the nighttime - is the grass really that green? the trees that vibrant? the sky so deep neon? I understand that you're not going for realism, but you need to know how light behaves if you want to manipulate it and have it be believable.

At 7/19/14 11:25 PM, ImaFreekozoid wrote: Nice! Are you doing all your head/face gestures digital by the way? It's hard to tell, my digital lines don't usually look that natural.

I do all of them digitally yeah, I never thought of my lines as clean, but thanks! I guess it's a combination of ctrl+z and confidence in drawing correct lines. I've also started practicing a steadier hand, so I'm filling a handful of A5 papers with straight lines in various directions as well as circles and ellipses. I made a small scrapbook out of cheap paper and a couple of staples, and to be honest it looks like the scribbles of an obsessed person ... Straight lines are hard!

At 7/20/14 04:08 AM, BazookaBonsai wrote: Great study mate. You really captured the atmosphere of the original.

Thanks! I don't know if I'm doing it properly though, I don't feel like I'm learning so much, but I guess it's nice to have an activity to come to every day.

I'm unconsciously phasing out face gestures. Some days I just think what's the point, you know? On the bright side I'm focusing the time freed on practicing perspective. I'm usually just going to a random place in google maps and trying to deconstruct the buildings. Maybe I'll scan those in later when they're not so shitty!

Here's todays faces (hardly any!) and a preview of a master study I'm 3-ish hours into so far:

At 7/20/14 04:58 PM, aaronjoyce99 wrote: For a yt channel called ELITE GAMING thanks

50 euros please

At 7/20/14 02:52 PM, Chronamut wrote: you have a right to your opinion. Personally I like them, and that is why they are on my wall - the best thing about life is not everyone has to like everything :)

Have you considered that might be mostly because it's your own creation, and a symbol of hours (days?) of work?

At 7/20/14 01:30 AM, theclassybutler wrote: This is how far I have gotten in this pic so far. I plan on adding a background with the moon behind her, to reinforce the lighting.

judging by the lightning on her thighs and chest, the primary light source should be coming somewhere above and in front of her.

Also, light creates hard and soft shadows naturally, it all has to do with the shape and material of the plane light is hitting. That said, I don't see any major problems with the lightning on her body, however her face looks completely flat, have you tried using reference?

Also here's a master study of an untitled watercolour painting by David Roberts.
Time spent would be 2 1/2 hours ish.

The reason I chose this was because I liked the large contrasts and harmonic colours. When I first started the study I almost thought there were only a total of four colours in this piece, namely orange, brown, black, and blue. I quickly saw there were many slight variations of these, but mostly It's a mix of the named colours with a splash of extra orange and white added specifically on the main gate the boats are entering.

There is a rythmic quality to the gates placement. The idea of gates is that they're meant to pass through, and you can sort of "pass though" all the three gates in one sweep of the eye. This concept is further enforced by having boats sitting next to all the gates. There's also rythmic details in the gates themselves, like the back one with the choppy vertical lines, followed by the wavier pillars, and even the negative space inbetween.

In the bottom right corner there's some stones, which just as the boats and gates, comes in three levels, and they slope roughly the same way as the gates, and almost echoing the perspective of the giant wall. The stones also serves as a framing, both for literally the corner of the painting, but also in sense of depth. It marks the closest area so that we know where we're seeing this landscape from and get a clearer sense of space. Its highlights also point directly towards the wall, creating a contrast in direction.

In fact there's a lot of playing with direction here as well. Horizontal lines are long and bold on the right hand side, but shorter, more subtle on the left side. Conversively there are more and bolder vertical lines on the left side. This is what makes the directional contrast of the sail of the center boat so apparent.

However, by far the best thing is the dude donning three hats!

Not too many faces today, but I don't think it's too bad considering I've also got a no ref portrait done (with its huge eyes and tiny shoulders).

More

At 7/18/14 08:32 AM, Havegum wrote:

more to come

Whoops, fell asleep!

It's obvious you've made some seriously amazing improvement since you started at FZD, what's a typical day for you over there? How are the classes and what do you do?

At 7/17/14 07:53 AM, AngelsDead wrote: Light in the dark.

I think some more contrast here would suit this image. I imagine you're going for a similar effect to this, so I'd suggest study how the light is being captured there and how you can apply that to your own works!

spooOOooky skeleton study

more to come

They all have almost identical body shapes and facial features, but perhaps was that the intention?

Doing this box thing is so frustrating!
Big girl no ref tho, so I guess it's helping

At 7/17/14 12:47 PM, M-Maher wrote: Yo, How do you think they made this?

I'm thinking it's maya with a bit of other things thrown into the pot but you know, I'm not so sure, also those motion graphics are pretty hype, wouldn't mind trying some of it out but that's just me.

I know after effects is supposed to have some neat functions with vector animation, and quite a few of those flat things looked like 3d shapes rendered without lightning.

So my guess would be some 3D software, after effects for effects and vector animations, premiere to fit things together, and most definitely a whole bunch of papers full of sketches and ideas.

I've noticed a recurring trend in your illustrations, particularly backgrounds - They tend to be clustered with busy, vibrant colours and filled with large contrasts. In this landscape painting there are large areas of pure white and pure black, some of which are right next to eachother, creating a very stark contrast.

Generally when making compositions you'll want to be able to lead the eye of the viewer in such a way that they're seeing your world as you envisioned it. I suggest that you look for ways to practice composition, and how to apply it in your own works. Specifically, Conceptart has a free workshop sample with an introduction to the subject, and FZD school has nearly a hundred free videos with in-depth explanations and examples

The first change I made was to establish a hierarchy of values (the brightness of things). This was in order to create a better sense of space and separate the objects from eachother. While doing this I added the house on the right side to create a point to fixate on. I made slight changes to the trees, and fence in order to make their rythm flow towards that house.

After that I recoloured the painting with a palette made from some colours extracted from the original. I used less colours that blends more to eachother to create unity in the colours.

I hope you don't mind the repaint!

Boxes boxes boxes boxes.

I'm also trying to get into drawing with my elbow and shoulder, and not my wrist, which is why there's a bit of a drop in line quality. I'll get that sorted with some practice!

At 7/16/14 04:17 PM, Sternoclydomastoid wrote: Here is my drawing! What do you think? Would you mind if I uploaded it to my page?

Copying the lines on top of the image isn't very impressive!

I think it would be much more interesting to see you copying the image only by looking at it, instead of drawing on top of it! See example below

I get that it's supposed to be busy and stuff, but the character in the middle is sort of lost in the composition, and there's nothing to really lead the eye anywhere other than maybe the tongue and the giant hand. In a composition like this I think it'd be cool to have some sort of continuity leading the eye around the canvas.

I also think it might be a good idea to be more economic in your use of color, value and level of detail. If everything's equally detailed and busy, then nothing seems detailed and busy. By adding areas where not much is going on, you'll be putting more emphasis on the areas where shit's happening, making it pop even more!

19 turning 20 late October.
Though I hardly come to general anymore so I guess I'm not a reg

At 7/15/14 04:15 PM, M-Maher wrote: whatever.

I dig how the sharp and soft, matte and shiny surfaces meet and mingle!