Painting for roadside hotel rooms (finished pic on 2)

Mustang

Well I think I'm well past due exposing my art genitals to the viracious beatings that only PA forum goers can administer. This is reffed from an old photo of mine, it's pretty well much a direct copy only changing the position of the gulls and the relative height of the seaweed that inreality looks more like a mound of dirt. Painting seaweed is hard.

NightDragon

I hope you're planning on painting out the background, rather than blurring it. Blurring something is usually horribly obvious in most cases. You may also want to jazz up the silhouette of the horizon, too...make it less monotonous in the repetition of the same shape.

Mustang

The photo ref has really shallow depth of field so I was just pretty well much copying that....I hadn't really thought that it looks lazy, but I guess it does.
Thanks ND.

winter_combat_knight

Also, the seagull on the far right looks more 'finished' than the other two. If you added a little more detail to the others i'd think it would look much better.

That blurry background is really distracting my eyes. Even if you still keep it simple, i think a harder edge would look better than a blurred colour.

EDIT: I really like that seagull!

Mustang

Also, the seagull on the far right looks more 'finished' than the other two.

That's because it is. I'm still working on it.

Thanks WCK, i'll definately do something else with the background.

winter_combat_knight

Yeah, i assumed you where still working on it Just thought i'd be an ass and point out the obvious.

Mustang

Update

winter_combat_knight

Ahhh. Very nice. I think you've done the birds really well.

Mustang

Okay, I think I'm finished with this. If all else fails I learnt a fair bit about colour doing it.
Crits?

srsizzy

Well, it's kind of boring. The colors are flat, the brush strokes are clear, there is little contrast, and the details are rushed. I don't mean to be mean, but some people would consider this a sketch. I don't know what you were trying to achieve personally, so I don't know. It could go a lot further, but if you're happy with it that's what matters I guess.

JohnTWM

I think it looks finished to me, so I disagree with the rushed details/sketch comment, but I would agree with the first things he said. It doesn't really pop due to the sort of pastel color choices, but that's the thing about the beach. I can't really define a period for this, but living in Texas I see a lot of paintings done of the Gulf Coast area and this reminds me a lot of those.. they all have the same sort of color palette. Basically I think it's pretty good, but looks like hotel art (which I guess it is?).

Mustang

It could go a lot further, but if you're happy with it that's what matters I guess.

I was concerned about over detailing it, I guess that comes down to my lack of confidence with where to go from here. It really was more of a practice study than a fully fledged bit of art, so I didn't want to invest to much time into what was essentially a fairly boring concept (it was always shit hotel art from the beginning)....that and I'm just really fucking lazy.

I agree on the lack of contrast....I just don't know....this is actually a real place, so the position of the sun is in kind of a shitty spot late afternoon, which isn't an excuse, I think i've just made it more difficult for myself is all.

Thanks for the crits guys, much appreciated.

Uberslug

I think the head of the one on the far right is too tall.

Scalfin

Uberslug wrote: »

I think the head of the one on the far right is too tall.

Hard to tell because, as we all know,

Mustang

Good point.
The ref photo bird has extended his head for looking. The others heads are squashed down into their bodies for chillin.

desperaterobots

I think it's pretty awesome actually. It has a photographic quality that really impresses me. I guess it could be rendered with more polish but for something that actually makes me feel the beach? It's pretty damn good. The colours are great. Did you pick them from the photo or select them with your eye?

winter_combat_knight

Where was the original photo taken? Somewhere in Adelaide?

beavotron

I really like this
no real crits
great work mustang!

Uberslug

But they're seagulls right? Seagulls have long heads.

Ravenshadow

It looks fine to me. Maybe a tiny bit too tall, but thats kinda nit picky.

Nice job Mustang

[edit] And perhaps I'm not being very critical, but I've seen Mustangs other stuff and this is a giant improvement. (no offense intended) So I'm willing to let it slide in favor of the :^:

NightDragon

Yeah, I was thinking the entire shape of the bird just didn't look right. Beaks, either.

I know you're not planning on going back to this, but maybe pay closer attention to the anatomy next time? You used a reference photo, right? The seagulls could've used a little more attention, methinks.

[edit] sorry, I live on the shoreline, I'm picky about seagulls :P

Mustang

Jesus, you have some brutish looking seagulls there. They look more like an albatross'.
Ours are a lot more dainty.
Hang on, i'll upload the ref.

Did you pick them from the photo or select them with your eye?

I'd like to say they were all from the eye, but 70% were picked from a few different refs.

Where was the original photo taken? Somewhere in Adelaide?

Yorke Peninsula, Corny point to be exact. The pic is a mix of three different photo refs.

Thanks for all the comments folks.

NightDragon

You've got some weirdo seagulls! Haha. Alright, well I guess the body shape isn't as off as I supposed. The beaks may look a bit better if you add some more "beak" at the end of 'em - both in length, slightly, and in width. The beaks in your drawing look like > ...and the reference birds look like their beaks are a bit different than that.

Mustang

Okay I decided to have another crack at this, I've revised the beaks, played with some custom brushes for the water and I'm trying to nut out the seaweed again with some home made brushes. I've got a feeling that my monitor is calibrated to brightly, can you make out any grey details in the weed or is it just a big blotch of dark?

Scalfin

I can see the right side, but there's a huge swath of left that's all black.

Mustang

Shit, it's come up even darker in PNG, I've really fucked this up. I think I need to re-do the whole thing from scratch. I really struggle with random objects.

desperaterobots

Yeah. I got black.

winter_combat_knight

I like what you've done with the water Mustang! I can kinda see the new seaweed, but it looks a little dark.

Scalfin

Can you give it a little glare? I think spots of sunlight reflecting off the wet/smooth surfaces would do the trick.

Mustang

*rubs temples* Okay I think this is about as close to dried seaweed as I can get, I tried to get a wet sheen on there but the highlights just blended in with the grey's or it drew in the eye too much, so I gave it a miss for now.
I've done some other dicking around too, shrunk the background with the transform tool, it just felt too close to the foreground. I don't know if that was a mistake, but I'll have to deal with it.

Umm I'm not sure where else to take it, except just general blending and tidying up. Any idea's or thoughts? I was kinda hoping to print this up and give it to my folks as a xmas gift, but I still feel it's not as good as it could be.

winter_combat_knight

Serious dude, that has turned out awesome. HUGE improvement. It is really cool to look back at each stage of the painting. Top stuff. I like!

EDIT: Maybe make it into some postcards or something.

JohnTWM

Ok, so I think you did the sea weed TOO well now, it has surpassed the rest of the picture!

Mustang

I was afraid someone would say that, I actually toned it down a bit because it originally looked like a screen print. I don't know, I could try blurring the layer see if that helps, apart from that I'm stumped with what to do.

nakirush

Don't blur the seaweed. Just take some more time and bring the rest of the painting up to that level. You have a solid foundation here and just need to work on some details.

JohnTWM

nakirush wrote: »

Don't blur the seaweed. Just take some more time and bring the rest of the painting up to that level. You have a solid foundation here and just need to work on some details.

Yeah, like some texture detail on the birds wings, just something to give them the feel that they are as well rendered. You can probably get away with the back ground as it is, just pull the birds in so they look as... in focus as the rest of it.

Mustang

Noted, I did try blurring it yesterday but it lost more than I gained so I backed it out.
I'll spend some time cleaning up the birds and see how it looks from there.

desperaterobots

yeah I think the birds could use a highlight.

Also that main cloud in the top left irritates the shit out of me. It doesn't seem to follow any particular wind movement, it's just flailing around in all directions.

Otherwise looks pretty damn good.

Mustang

Well I talked to the cloud and he said you can't come to his birthday party anymore.

Actually the whole sky has been nagging me lately, I'm thinking about saturating the colours a bit and redoing or at least modifying the clouds. Y'know I read somewhere that you should never ref clouds too closely or they look unrealistic, looks like that's true in this case.

Rankenphile

I would desaturate the background jetty and lighthouse a bit to add a touch of atmospheric perspective, but damn this is improving a lot man nice work

desperaterobots

"The birds could use a highlight"? I give terrible advice.

I mean, they could use some highlights to denote their feathers, because the black bits are a bit mushy at the moment. Sharpen that shit up (I do not mean 'use the sharpen tool here') and it will start to feel a lot more like it's close and infocus, like the seaweed, and you might get that real depth of field thing happening.

Mustang

Well that was awesome advise, at least it will be when I get around to implementing said advise.