That is a pretty great reference, got all kinds of good stuff going on. I might steal it and do my own study!
Is your work process usually that "patchy" Flay? You might find it easier if you put in some extra time in the early stages to nail down a well proportioned basic drawing before you start massing in values. The drawing doesn't have to be super detailed since you can work that in while rendering later, but I feel it helps to get a more tangible blueprint down during the early work when doing this kind of very careful study.
I also would encourage you to start thinking about edges a little earlier in your process, especially with something like a very tenderly sculpted piece of marble. I hope you continue working on it, because the real "meat" of doing this kind of study is the stuff you haven't actually gotten to on your piece yet.
Flay: Agreed with Scosglen about the patchiness. It's easier to start out by nailing big general shapes, which it appears you started out doing, but then it's important to make sure those are accurate before trying to add in all of the smaller things. The smaller things can't be right if the big things they fit into aren't right. Another thing about the patchiness is that your big areas of value start to break up. Remember to keep comparing values across the entire cast, checking what's lighter/darker, and pulling together the big areas. The cast is in general one large object being lit from one direction. Don't lose your sense of that when you start including info about all of the smaller planes.
Please keep working on it!
E:
There's not much more that I want to do with this one.
Thanks for the advice guys! I don't really have a typical workflow since I haven't done a whole lot of digital (or traditional) painting. I really wish I'd done a sketch before I started, nailing down the exact position of those forms early has been the main thing I've taken away from this study. My objective at the outset was to practice picking out tones by eye, and I was so focused on that I neglected the other parts, I think.
I was starting to feel like I was just making the image worse, but if there's more to be learned here then I'll keep going with it.
@lyrium I find myself wanting some more sharply defined edges in there amidst all the fuzziness. I'm guessing the whole thing was done mostly with charcoal and chalk "sticks", but some nicely sharpened charcoal and chalk pencils can give you really crisp edges that might punch your focal areas up substantially.
@Flay Try loading up a basic soft round brush set to pressure sensitive opacity or flow and try to make some of those value transitions as soft as they are in your reference.
@Halen The paper itself is gray-blue, it's just different exposures from the camera lyrium's using that are changing it slightly.
Yep, the paper is blue- the first two pictures are just paper+charcoal, and I added white chalk in the third picture. I'll sharpen my charcoal up a little and try to finish it off, Scos.
Here's basically the whole process for my Buffalo Soldier drawing a while back. Inked by hand, I couldn't find just a pencils version. I fooled around with a bunch of text options (hand drawn and premade fonts, but couldn't find something I was happy with. I also took a try at actual buffalo soldier colors at one point, but wasn't super happy with it.
@Siegfried that looks like it belongs in the 4 hour chef. @m3nace I was taught by my uncle to crack eggs this way when i was like 16... up until that point i would always have 3 tiny shell pieces in my eggs... this method is 2 steps and when done correctly prevents any shell from falling until after the egg white has drained completely.
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Reference
Is your work process usually that "patchy" Flay? You might find it easier if you put in some extra time in the early stages to nail down a well proportioned basic drawing before you start massing in values. The drawing doesn't have to be super detailed since you can work that in while rendering later, but I feel it helps to get a more tangible blueprint down during the early work when doing this kind of very careful study.
I also would encourage you to start thinking about edges a little earlier in your process, especially with something like a very tenderly sculpted piece of marble. I hope you continue working on it, because the real "meat" of doing this kind of study is the stuff you haven't actually gotten to on your piece yet.
Please keep working on it!
E:
There's not much more that I want to do with this one.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
I was starting to feel like I was just making the image worse, but if there's more to be learned here then I'll keep going with it.
@Flay Try loading up a basic soft round brush set to pressure sensitive opacity or flow and try to make some of those value transitions as soft as they are in your reference.
@Halen The paper itself is gray-blue, it's just different exposures from the camera lyrium's using that are changing it slightly.
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
Table of Contents process and variations
Introduction/Tutorial Section variations
I did what I could to tighten up the faces a little, and then it was time to give it away.
Here's the whole process:
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Flay that's pretty nice too, at first it bothered me that the shapes weren't centered but seeing how the perspective is set it works out nicely.
@m3nace I was taught by my uncle to crack eggs this way when i was like 16... up until that point i would always have 3 tiny shell pieces in my eggs... this method is 2 steps and when done correctly prevents any shell from falling until after the egg white has drained completely.