The birds feet look extra saturated compared to the rest of the picture.
I think that was what you were going for though.
I have never seen a bird in real life.
yeah drobe i wanted them to be like super saturated so that the eye goes there first
jason manley was at illustration academy this year and he sort of drilled into my head that if you throw heavy contrast where you want the eye to go, it'll draw people there every time
he actually made the point using one bright saturated red jacket in a sea of more muted ones, and it really made sense!
are they too saturated though do you think? i can mute them a bit
I'm not sure about the saturation of the birds; it's not so much that it ruins the image, but you should probably experiment with tuning it down a litte and finding other ways to increase the contrast. I would probably try lightening the sky directly behind them, but I'm not sure if that would be too obvious.
My only crit would be that, composition-wise, it's very left and somewhat awkward feeling. Like literally, as soon as I saw the image I had a distict sensation of arrgh, everything's too far left.
Part of that, I think, is due to the driftwood looking like it should be centered but actually being a touch off to the left. Also, because we tend to naturally 'read' things left-to-right, your brain sort of hits the focal point "too early". I actually think the image works better horizontally flipped.
But it is still rather lovely regardless, excellent work.
Great crit guys!
There's actually also a slight tangent being formed between the water, sand and log there
Also a lot of contrast in that area.
Adjustments when I actually get my ass out of bed haha
But im not sure about the weeds in the foreground. I understand they are blurred because they are out of focus, but im thinking in regards to your style, it may work better being sharper.
gotta disagree with you there wck, in the original sketch, they were pulling too much attention
illustrations need focal points, the weeds are necessary to keep the eye moving around the page and not falling off at the corners, but when they're sharp like that, they create too much contrast and become their own focal points more than just guides for the eye to go where i want you to look.
composition-wise, it's very left and somewhat awkward feeling.
This intense asymmetry is still present, but now it's just reversed. There is a lot of movement to the right... maybe too much. It's overwhelming, and there's nothing to offset it. The birds (with their color jolt) are a strong design element; they might better serve the composition by looking into the page instead of away to the right. Also, psychologically, it's uncomfortable when you can't see what people (or birds) are staring at. Give them some look space (head space?).
quick idea:
Another (maybe totally subjective) criticism: I don't like the foreground weeds. Yeah, they do a decent job isolating the corners and pulling our eyes into the composition, but they look tacked on, flat, and unnatural. The way they look right now, they don't belong in this picture.
Goddamnit Beavo. I hate you. I hate you to death in a good way.
I actually like the birds facing to the right but they would need an anchor of some sort. A third bird sitting on the thicker branch immediately down and to their left might work.
alright so... it rained in LA the past few days, which is apparently unheard of, people are going so crazy about it, it's really funny. I did this study of the buildings across the street while I was in starbucks, and I liked it, so I was at home playing around with it trying to capture that drizzly feeling, but still make it feel like los angeles.
So I added in the bright yellow umbrellas... both to give a bit of contrast and some points of interest, but also just to play around with the composition a little and push myself to try something a little out of my comfort zone
I don't know how I feel about three distinct focal points all so close to the bottom of the image...
i feel like I want the thing to feel sort of haphazard and off kilter because the whole city literally goes into a tizzy when it rains, it's so funny to me!
Also I like the fact that the umbrellas are yellow and california is regarded as the sunshine state, so I brought the sunshine into the umbrellas... but
Hey Beavo, strange question here but are you left handed?
I might be out of my depth here, but it seems that your last couple of compositions have been weighted to the left and I think that breaks up your line, at least as I understand "line" from Art in Canada.
*Line: The line or direction the viewer's eye takes to go through the picture. The objects or forms within the picture should lead the eye to the focal point. When art is viewed, most people will begin in the bottom left corner, and continue through the picture to the right. A good composition will not allow the viewer to keep going right, all the way off the page. The viewer should be lead back into the painting in a flowing motion.
Now, I don't usually believe things I read on the internet at face value (except for AC forum posters), but given the example your seascape-and-birds above, it seems to be true. It worked best when the viewer started in the lower left, was drawn up along the driftwood, then focused on the birds, and ultimately went back into the painting to find out what the birds are looking at.
Applying that to this piece, I find that my eyes hit the big contrast of the tree and came to a full stop. But if I flip the canvas horizontally, my eyes have to traverse the entire piece before resting on the tree, like this:
The only suggestion I have is that it's a little hard for me to get from the right side to the left side of the tree at the top there. I think if you showed the dark treetop contrasting against the gray sky, my eyes would follow right along it and go directly to the telephone wires.
Bit of a tangent here, but does it feel weird to see your work flipped horizontally? I've talked to some manga artists who just can't stand to see their work flipped over for the western-style readers, even though it looks all good to me.
hey guys!
thanks for the crits!
unfortunately like an idiot, I didn't save an unflattened version of this, so I had to sort of improvise with a jpg. but I made a few adjustments that I think fixed it a bit... I don't think it's gonna be perfect, but hopefully step in the right direction?
slack: that's so funny.. I'm not left handed, I'm right handed! but I took what you said and added in the pole over top of the umbrella to try and keep the eye from running off with the power lines. also i think eveyone hates seeing their stuff flipped, it sort of jolts your brain a bit and makes you see things you didn't see before.. specifically, glaring flaws.
wasser: I cropped it, and tried to lighten the tree a bit, because I think you're right, it's pretty heavy.
any better? I'll probably move on soon cause studies are studies, and I learned some things, so I got what I needed to out of this one I think.
also i think eveyone hates seeing their stuff flipped, it sort of jolts your brain a bit and makes you see things you didn't see before.. specifically, glaring flaws.
This sounds like something one could use to their advantage. 8-)
So I keep talking about silhouettes all the time in here when doing character design crits
I just finished up a couple assets for an iPad game, and my client is allowing me to use them pre-release for my portfolio cause... well, they don't really give away anything in the game at all.
I thought it might be a good opportunity to show how I actually use this stuff that I'm always preaching in my work. so here's what I start with when doing something like this:
I will mess around with these more than anything else
If I get one I like, I'll duplicate that, and tweak it, exaggerate some things, make some things smaller, play around with it a bit! more often than not, doing that gives me something even better!
The rest is so easy
once you have a strong silhouette, you can really do whatever you want to the rest of it honestly:
...not gonna post the finals here, cause the game's not out yet, but cleaning them up is just tightening the sketches and adding color so eh.
easy peasy!
the important part is silhouette
if your silhouette reads, the rest will be easy
if it doesn't, you're going to struggle with getting things to look right.
start big, work towards the small stuff
sure giraffes have spots on them, but if the shape's wrong, it's not gonna look like a giraffe.
can you still tell which one of the silhouettes is a giraffe? can you see it's spots in that one? nope.
eaaaasy!
also if you guys wanna crit these, go for it! feedback is an important part of this too, it's easy to miss stuff when you've got a bunch of crap on your mind... and deadlines WOOO deadlines! hahah.
beavotron on
0
MustangArbiter of Unpopular OpinionsRegistered Userregular
edited October 2010
Best giraffe ever....thanks for the protip beavs, I might have a crack over the next few days.
Man. I love the original umbrellas one. I see what people mean when they say the bird one (which is also quite nice) is too heavily weighted to the left. That jumps out at me immediately, but the umbrella one does not have that problem for me.
The silhouettes are incredible and the bench is great too. Really nice work!
Wow Beavo, this turned out great! I love the colors! Hmm, I'd like to see that warm glow radiate farther into the left, and I think the bench (along with the rest of the page) could be shortened a bit. You know, to close the gap. That blue guy doesn't need to be so far away to feel isolated.
Oh and starting with silhouettes is great! Sometimes I scribble them out furiously, and in a fit I'll make a whole bunch of them. And then--like you said--once you have those it's so easy.
Posts
I think that was what you were going for though.
I have never seen a bird in real life.
better?
yeah drobe i wanted them to be like super saturated so that the eye goes there first
jason manley was at illustration academy this year and he sort of drilled into my head that if you throw heavy contrast where you want the eye to go, it'll draw people there every time
he actually made the point using one bright saturated red jacket in a sea of more muted ones, and it really made sense!
are they too saturated though do you think? i can mute them a bit
I'm not sure about the saturation of the birds; it's not so much that it ruins the image, but you should probably experiment with tuning it down a litte and finding other ways to increase the contrast. I would probably try lightening the sky directly behind them, but I'm not sure if that would be too obvious.
My only crit would be that, composition-wise, it's very left and somewhat awkward feeling. Like literally, as soon as I saw the image I had a distict sensation of arrgh, everything's too far left.
Part of that, I think, is due to the driftwood looking like it should be centered but actually being a touch off to the left. Also, because we tend to naturally 'read' things left-to-right, your brain sort of hits the focal point "too early". I actually think the image works better horizontally flipped.
But it is still rather lovely regardless, excellent work.
That could be solved with the horizontal flipping Grenn suggested.
There's actually also a slight tangent being formed between the water, sand and log there
Also a lot of contrast in that area.
Adjustments when I actually get my ass out of bed haha
But im not sure about the weeds in the foreground. I understand they are blurred because they are out of focus, but im thinking in regards to your style, it may work better being sharper.
edit
sharper like in this initial rough
illustrations need focal points, the weeds are necessary to keep the eye moving around the page and not falling off at the corners, but when they're sharp like that, they create too much contrast and become their own focal points more than just guides for the eye to go where i want you to look.
This intense asymmetry is still present, but now it's just reversed. There is a lot of movement to the right... maybe too much. It's overwhelming, and there's nothing to offset it. The birds (with their color jolt) are a strong design element; they might better serve the composition by looking into the page instead of away to the right. Also, psychologically, it's uncomfortable when you can't see what people (or birds) are staring at. Give them some look space (head space?).
Another (maybe totally subjective) criticism: I don't like the foreground weeds. Yeah, they do a decent job isolating the corners and pulling our eyes into the composition, but they look tacked on, flat, and unnatural. The way they look right now, they don't belong in this picture.
Soon as I saw the flipped version, I thought "hmmm I'd perhaps try the birds facing back the other way..."
and hey presto. :^:
I actually like the birds facing to the right but they would need an anchor of some sort. A third bird sitting on the thicker branch immediately down and to their left might work.
Thanks guys!
Wasser, I assure you the feelings are mutual...in a good way
was thinking EXACTLY the same thing.
alright so... it rained in LA the past few days, which is apparently unheard of, people are going so crazy about it, it's really funny. I did this study of the buildings across the street while I was in starbucks, and I liked it, so I was at home playing around with it trying to capture that drizzly feeling, but still make it feel like los angeles.
So I added in the bright yellow umbrellas... both to give a bit of contrast and some points of interest, but also just to play around with the composition a little and push myself to try something a little out of my comfort zone
I don't know how I feel about three distinct focal points all so close to the bottom of the image...
i feel like I want the thing to feel sort of haphazard and off kilter because the whole city literally goes into a tizzy when it rains, it's so funny to me!
Also I like the fact that the umbrellas are yellow and california is regarded as the sunshine state, so I brought the sunshine into the umbrellas... but
... i dunno, what do you guys think?
Hey Beavo, strange question here but are you left handed?
I might be out of my depth here, but it seems that your last couple of compositions have been weighted to the left and I think that breaks up your line, at least as I understand "line" from Art in Canada.
*Line: The line or direction the viewer's eye takes to go through the picture. The objects or forms within the picture should lead the eye to the focal point. When art is viewed, most people will begin in the bottom left corner, and continue through the picture to the right. A good composition will not allow the viewer to keep going right, all the way off the page. The viewer should be lead back into the painting in a flowing motion.
Now, I don't usually believe things I read on the internet at face value (except for AC forum posters), but given the example your seascape-and-birds above, it seems to be true. It worked best when the viewer started in the lower left, was drawn up along the driftwood, then focused on the birds, and ultimately went back into the painting to find out what the birds are looking at.
Applying that to this piece, I find that my eyes hit the big contrast of the tree and came to a full stop. But if I flip the canvas horizontally, my eyes have to traverse the entire piece before resting on the tree, like this:
The only suggestion I have is that it's a little hard for me to get from the right side to the left side of the tree at the top there. I think if you showed the dark treetop contrasting against the gray sky, my eyes would follow right along it and go directly to the telephone wires.
Bit of a tangent here, but does it feel weird to see your work flipped horizontally? I've talked to some manga artists who just can't stand to see their work flipped over for the western-style readers, even though it looks all good to me.
Makes me think of Florida though :P
We get really awesome thunderstorms too.
artistjeffc.tumblr.com http://www.etsy.com/shop/artistjeffc
thanks for the crits!
unfortunately like an idiot, I didn't save an unflattened version of this, so I had to sort of improvise with a jpg. but I made a few adjustments that I think fixed it a bit... I don't think it's gonna be perfect, but hopefully step in the right direction?
slack: that's so funny.. I'm not left handed, I'm right handed! but I took what you said and added in the pole over top of the umbrella to try and keep the eye from running off with the power lines. also i think eveyone hates seeing their stuff flipped, it sort of jolts your brain a bit and makes you see things you didn't see before.. specifically, glaring flaws.
wasser: I cropped it, and tried to lighten the tree a bit, because I think you're right, it's pretty heavy.
any better? I'll probably move on soon cause studies are studies, and I learned some things, so I got what I needed to out of this one I think.
This sounds like something one could use to their advantage. 8-)
i also like flipping it upside down, that's a whole other kettle of fish for your brain to digest
most good designers/illustrators recommend doing that with your work. or holding it up to a mirror if you're working traditionally.
I just finished up a couple assets for an iPad game, and my client is allowing me to use them pre-release for my portfolio cause... well, they don't really give away anything in the game at all.
I thought it might be a good opportunity to show how I actually use this stuff that I'm always preaching in my work. so here's what I start with when doing something like this:
I will mess around with these more than anything else
If I get one I like, I'll duplicate that, and tweak it, exaggerate some things, make some things smaller, play around with it a bit! more often than not, doing that gives me something even better!
The rest is so easy
once you have a strong silhouette, you can really do whatever you want to the rest of it honestly:
...not gonna post the finals here, cause the game's not out yet, but cleaning them up is just tightening the sketches and adding color so eh.
easy peasy!
the important part is silhouette
if your silhouette reads, the rest will be easy
if it doesn't, you're going to struggle with getting things to look right.
start big, work towards the small stuff
sure giraffes have spots on them, but if the shape's wrong, it's not gonna look like a giraffe.
can you still tell which one of the silhouettes is a giraffe? can you see it's spots in that one? nope.
eaaaasy!
also if you guys wanna crit these, go for it! feedback is an important part of this too, it's easy to miss stuff when you've got a bunch of crap on your mind... and deadlines WOOO deadlines! hahah.
eh i worked on this too long tonight i'll probably come back to it tomorrow and find a bunch of stuff i hate
The silhouettes are incredible and the bench is great too. Really nice work!
Oh and starting with silhouettes is great! Sometimes I scribble them out furiously, and in a fit I'll make a whole bunch of them. And then--like you said--once you have those it's so easy.
edit:
It made me think of Florida too. Sunshine State nostalgia.