I know that it's fan art and is not even modeled by me (I have no idea where how to start + my pc is garbarge) but I'm having so much fun playing around with Source Film Maker.
This is what I got in 6-7 hours.
You also might want to consider how the horizon-line and the perspective might affect the story you're trying to tell with the image. Right now we're just about eye-level with the undead knight, which is a comfort zone. Lowering the horizon line will make us look up at him, causing more awe in the viewer. Raising the horizon line will make us look down on him, creating a feeling of superiority in the viewer, etc.
I think you're letting Curiosity get swallowed up there, Zerg. Aside from the mast-cam, the rover is completely engulfed by the mountains in the background and it's giving it a weirdly shrink-wrapped look. Maybe horizontally flip the mountains and bump them down/bump the rover up a bit so the silhouette stands out.
Restarted a piece I had put up a week ago
Trying to get better at composition.
I agree with Chico's advice and the link.
I have some more to say about value composition and I did a little paintover demonstrating how I might go about solving some of the issues with the image.
I like to think of value extremes and value contrast as a precious resource that must be used wisely and sparingly. I try not to "waste" them unnecessarily outside of the focal areas of the composition. The eye is naturally drawn to contrast, and by doing this you help reinforce the areas of your painting that you intend to be interesting by packing them with eye-bait. This trick works for more than just value contrast too--saving your fiddly details and carefully designed shapes for your focal points also contributes to their visual gravity.
So how does this translate to your painting? You've got the basic framework of a triangular composition established between the the skull of the character, the orb in his hand, and the big sun or whatever in the background, but it needs to be punched up a bit. Having several points of interest within a single painting can help to keep the eye circulating the image and continually examining it, and a triangular composition is a very simple way to do that.
With that in mind, I have to make those focal areas more interesting. Immediately I've gone in with a transparent mid gray over most of the painting to mute out the value contrast of anything outside our areas of focus. The mountains in the background and the fiddly bits of the armor were the main targets of that operation.
The mountains needed this attention because they are frankly just not that important or interesting visually, and the darks in them are popping way too much to the point that they are distracting. We also have a naturalistic excuse; we expect landscape that far in the distance to be affected by some degree of atmospheric haze, so making them less contrast-y helps push them back in space.
The armor needed to be toned down because we want to lead the eye into the heart of the image and keep it moving around, but we have a problem with a really busy concentration of high contrast detail that is trapping our eye on the very left edge of the canvas. The concentration of the dark darks on the left compared to the rest of the relatively light canvas only exacerbates the image being too "heavy" on that edge. The obvious sun/moon/whatever presents us an easy opportunity to turn this more into a rimlight situation, so the easy fix was to tone down the lighter parts of the armor by quite a lot and lighten up the blacks a smidgeon, so now this area looks to be shadowed and isn't as busy.
I removed the vertical hook things from the pauldrons because I felt they were doing more harm to the composition than they were worth for their interest as a piece of design. It's important sometimes to reign in your designs to help serve the composition when necessary, or if you have a specific design that needs to be represented as is, to be sure that your composition works harmoniously with it. In this case it felt to me like the one on the right in particular was potentially leading the eye off in directions I didn't want, and was somewhat blocking off the skull from connecting directly with the other points of interest. I also made the sun a bit smaller because it felt like it was echoing the size of the orb in his hand a little too closely and it seemed like a smaller (dramatically bigger could be fun too) shape would help circulation a bit more. Composition is as much an art as a science, and some of what I've done is certainly a gut-call and very subjective, so maybe you disagree about these.
Anyway, now that things are a bit muted the fun part is to go back in and add that contrast in the areas we want. The rimlight sets us up an easy opportunity to hit the skull and some of the nearby armor with some hot white highlights, which combined with the blacks that I've allowed to remain, will create a lot of visual interest concentrated there. More contrast is created on the hand itself and the orb is given a crisp rimlight and a slightly darker core shadow. The sun has a similar hard round edge and is set off well by the darker sky around it.
A note on anatomy: I went in and crudely cleaned up some of the anatomy on the skull to make it more believable. Knowing the basic structure of the human skull is very important for portraiture in general, but it's obviously absolutely critical to get it right when you are literally painting a skeleton. Pay particular attention to the distinctive shape of the zygomatic arch (cheekbone) and the in-out-in-out rhythm of the frontal plane of the face along the bridge of the nose, maxilla, and mandible. Pay close attention to your reference, and absolutely use reference for it if you aren't. It's impossible to wing a good looking skull if you haven't spent some time studying it.
Anyway, hopefully you find this helpful. Or, as Chico says, maybe I am full of it.
Thanks a ton for this, I have a skull on my desk just for this, I just hadn't looked at it much for the rough piece.
Man, it looks so much better without those stupid hooks.
We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.
Severed, his pose is very 2D--his knee and arms are both straight out to the sides, and so forth--when the pose looks like it's begging for depth. The drawing and painting have advanced enough that I think it's time for you to start really focusing on foreshortening.
Sef, draw more comics damn it. I'm going to fly to the Dutcherlands to strangle you. The stylization of the musculature is rad.
Zerg, I agree with Fug. Also, what's with all of the (mostly) empty sky? It's really hard to capture Mucha without cramming the image full of (well-designed) fiddly little details.
---
Had my friend Renee over for an art party. Done a few. I do a quick sketch, she watercolors it, and I ink/paint pen/apply gouache shojo flowers over it. She gave me way brighter Hirohiko Araki colors than I was expecting.
Pretty nice lines there dmac, that shark looks like a total softie.
I've been working on this for a few days when I've had the time, and I'm calling it done for now.
And to be clear: I didn't totally ignore Scosglen's advice, I'd just finished most of the piece by the time I read it, and didn't want to it for a 3rd time >.>
Still, its fine
...I did this for Dmac before I posted just because I saw his name and though it
Or a sordid pac-man love affair?
Shankbone on
We shall see that at which dogs howl in the dark, and that at which cats prick up their ears after midnight.
I decided to finish up a piece I started a couple of months ago of Andrew from the movie Chronicle. Trying something a little weird with the coloring (for me anyway).
Amazing movie. Akira live. The drawing ages him somewhat. Can't quite pinpoint why.. maybe the dirt on his face shows up as wrinkles in my inebriated state.
Hey guys. Sorry it's been a while. My internet went section 8 and in the middle of that I had family over for a few days. And since I don't currently have wifi, my scanner won't work, which is why I had to take a crappy phone picture.
Anyway, I just finished playing Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare and decide to doodle this up. I call 'em Corpsey the Kid. I'm debating on whether I should put the effort into lining and coloring it or just leave it as a rough sketch.
Posts
Also, goatman:
Stylized text... My arch nemesis.
The cover art for the zombie safety & awareness coloring/activity book I'm doing the artwork for. Hopefully it'll reach its funding goal.
My Portfolio Site
then I looked at the name info on it and did the "whoa I know who that is" double take
awesome, DMAC!
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
I feel like my anatomy is looking better
there's some website for working on it I saw a while ago but I can't remember what it is
Still WIP, crits super welcome.
The skeleton is going to continue down, and I plan on making another bunny kinda ghostlike over the bunny skeleton.
My Portfolio Site
Did a quick Mignola'esque creature from the black lagoon.
Trying to get the likeness better on this Arnie, any improvement?
Also did a Brucey.
The Scoundrel & The Bastard
My Comics Thread
makes me think of Deep Ones from Call of Cthulhu
Your Arnie is skinny, sharky t.
he needs a little more neck and jawbone-- but he is not random dude anymore, the face likeness is there.
Bruce Willis is cool, he needs a little more nasolabial line and maybe paler, squintier eyes? Even back in the 80s he had that squint.
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
Trying to get better at composition.
This is what I got in 6-7 hours.
Big-ass images inside:
My Portfolio Site
You also might want to consider how the horizon-line and the perspective might affect the story you're trying to tell with the image. Right now we're just about eye-level with the undead knight, which is a comfort zone. Lowering the horizon line will make us look up at him, causing more awe in the viewer. Raising the horizon line will make us look down on him, creating a feeling of superiority in the viewer, etc.
Or maybe I'm full of it.
I agree with Chico's advice and the link.
I have some more to say about value composition and I did a little paintover demonstrating how I might go about solving some of the issues with the image.
I like to think of value extremes and value contrast as a precious resource that must be used wisely and sparingly. I try not to "waste" them unnecessarily outside of the focal areas of the composition. The eye is naturally drawn to contrast, and by doing this you help reinforce the areas of your painting that you intend to be interesting by packing them with eye-bait. This trick works for more than just value contrast too--saving your fiddly details and carefully designed shapes for your focal points also contributes to their visual gravity.
So how does this translate to your painting? You've got the basic framework of a triangular composition established between the the skull of the character, the orb in his hand, and the big sun or whatever in the background, but it needs to be punched up a bit. Having several points of interest within a single painting can help to keep the eye circulating the image and continually examining it, and a triangular composition is a very simple way to do that.
With that in mind, I have to make those focal areas more interesting. Immediately I've gone in with a transparent mid gray over most of the painting to mute out the value contrast of anything outside our areas of focus. The mountains in the background and the fiddly bits of the armor were the main targets of that operation.
The mountains needed this attention because they are frankly just not that important or interesting visually, and the darks in them are popping way too much to the point that they are distracting. We also have a naturalistic excuse; we expect landscape that far in the distance to be affected by some degree of atmospheric haze, so making them less contrast-y helps push them back in space.
The armor needed to be toned down because we want to lead the eye into the heart of the image and keep it moving around, but we have a problem with a really busy concentration of high contrast detail that is trapping our eye on the very left edge of the canvas. The concentration of the dark darks on the left compared to the rest of the relatively light canvas only exacerbates the image being too "heavy" on that edge. The obvious sun/moon/whatever presents us an easy opportunity to turn this more into a rimlight situation, so the easy fix was to tone down the lighter parts of the armor by quite a lot and lighten up the blacks a smidgeon, so now this area looks to be shadowed and isn't as busy.
I removed the vertical hook things from the pauldrons because I felt they were doing more harm to the composition than they were worth for their interest as a piece of design. It's important sometimes to reign in your designs to help serve the composition when necessary, or if you have a specific design that needs to be represented as is, to be sure that your composition works harmoniously with it. In this case it felt to me like the one on the right in particular was potentially leading the eye off in directions I didn't want, and was somewhat blocking off the skull from connecting directly with the other points of interest. I also made the sun a bit smaller because it felt like it was echoing the size of the orb in his hand a little too closely and it seemed like a smaller (dramatically bigger could be fun too) shape would help circulation a bit more. Composition is as much an art as a science, and some of what I've done is certainly a gut-call and very subjective, so maybe you disagree about these.
Anyway, now that things are a bit muted the fun part is to go back in and add that contrast in the areas we want. The rimlight sets us up an easy opportunity to hit the skull and some of the nearby armor with some hot white highlights, which combined with the blacks that I've allowed to remain, will create a lot of visual interest concentrated there. More contrast is created on the hand itself and the orb is given a crisp rimlight and a slightly darker core shadow. The sun has a similar hard round edge and is set off well by the darker sky around it.
A note on anatomy: I went in and crudely cleaned up some of the anatomy on the skull to make it more believable. Knowing the basic structure of the human skull is very important for portraiture in general, but it's obviously absolutely critical to get it right when you are literally painting a skeleton. Pay particular attention to the distinctive shape of the zygomatic arch (cheekbone) and the in-out-in-out rhythm of the frontal plane of the face along the bridge of the nose, maxilla, and mandible. Pay close attention to your reference, and absolutely use reference for it if you aren't. It's impossible to wing a good looking skull if you haven't spent some time studying it.
Anyway, hopefully you find this helpful. Or, as Chico says, maybe I am full of it.
Thanks a ton for this, I have a skull on my desk just for this, I just hadn't looked at it much for the rough piece.
Man, it looks so much better without those stupid hooks.
Sef, draw more comics damn it. I'm going to fly to the Dutcherlands to strangle you. The stylization of the musculature is rad.
Zerg, I agree with Fug. Also, what's with all of the (mostly) empty sky? It's really hard to capture Mucha without cramming the image full of (well-designed) fiddly little details.
---
Had my friend Renee over for an art party. Done a few. I do a quick sketch, she watercolors it, and I ink/paint pen/apply gouache shojo flowers over it. She gave me way brighter Hirohiko Araki colors than I was expecting.
I've been working on this for a few days when I've had the time, and I'm calling it done for now.
And to be clear: I didn't totally ignore Scosglen's advice, I'd just finished most of the piece by the time I read it, and didn't want to it for a 3rd time >.>
Still, its fine
...I did this for Dmac before I posted just because I saw his name and though it
Or a sordid pac-man love affair?
I decided to finish up a piece I started a couple of months ago of Andrew from the movie Chronicle. Trying something a little weird with the coloring (for me anyway).
Lots of fixed up old s***, plus a new doodle.
And something else I doodled as a warm up:
Anyway, I just finished playing Red Dead Redemption's Undead Nightmare and decide to doodle this up. I call 'em Corpsey the Kid. I'm debating on whether I should put the effort into lining and coloring it or just leave it as a rough sketch.