Good stuff on this page so far! In general the top three balls seem a little more successful than the bottom three, with both lighting and texture. Edge variety plays a big part!
I feel like the first one is suffering from some sort of lighting issue. Maybe the lack of an occlusion shadow? It seems to not be placed on the surface properly. Its really close, though.
The last couple of weeks have been incredibly busy, I've barely had time to draw. It's been a really busy couple of weeks, but I've managed to review my 3D modelling so that I can start to go through some of the portfolio builders from Ctrl Paint.
Do you have a reference as to what you're shooting for the ultimate style of this to be, or where you're planning on going with it next? I've got suggestions I would do if this was just handed to me to paintover, just based on my own personal instincts (more color/value variation on surfaces to play up the form rounding/plane changes, play up the green reflected light bouncing off that algae(?), don't be afraid of dark shadows, could use some ambient occlusion indications, etc.), but how appropriate those suggestions are for what you're actually trying to accomplish/if this is all stuff you just haven't gotten around to in your process, I don't know.
Well the final product of the Ctrl Paint series I'm following is this. I'm not necessarily aiming for something which looks like that, but I'm sure it's been a big subconscious influence on the choices I've been making. I'm actually a little unhappy about how cartoonish this design ended up looking, but now that I've come this far I'm rolling with it.
As for a reference for what I'd actually like to achieve - I don't have one. It's the first time I've ever taken an environment to this level of polish, so my process has been pretty muddled. All of the points you raise are things that I had intended on doing eventually, but I haven't figured out how or when I should.
Values have been a particular trouble for this painting. For the house I've been sticking to the shadows being halfway to black relative to the full-light values, but it's been bothering me how little contrast there is, particularly on the left side of the image. I'd really like to push them to be much darker, but I don't have a good idea how dark I can go without making the lighting feel unrealistic.
I need to take prokos courses. Love whats going on there. The proportions on skull/ribcage seem skewed, though, the far eye socket strikes me as bigger than the near one. I assume the far shoulder is raised to show the clavicle structure?
Really like the 20's looking dude, but the highlights on the back of his head look like off to me, like they're making his head look polygonal. The area behind the ear is kind of glaring to me as well for some reason.
Those prokos make me want to take the class and I'm looking forward to how that enviro will turn out.
Good call on the eye socket Iruka. Most of the bones are from reference, but since the reference cut off at the clavicle for the rightmost bones the ribcage and the skull are only semi referenced. And yeah, the far shoulder is meant to be raised, I'd post the reference only it is part of the premium course.
Yeah, capturing Leyendecker's forms is pretty difficult. The original reference has a weird plane break there too, but Leyendecker did it better. The swamp house is on hold because I wasn't sure how to proceed. Instead I'm working on my rendering and colour theory with the goal of working back towards more complex environments.
Wow I love the Ctrl Paint environment project up there. Have you worked on that any more at all? I actually purchased that video series a while back but never got around to working on the project (story of my life!). I've been learning Blender lately though, so I think I might take a crack at it!
Thanks! I stopped about there because I felt like I had hit a wall, and I was working aimlessly. Since then I've learned a bunch, so I might return to it soon.
In the meantime here's some practice heads from imagination. I think I'm just starting to get the hang of them, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. I was super proud of these when I drew them, but looking at them now feels kind of bad
I like the steam coming off of some of the concepts, I like the way that implies the kitchen. It may not be important to make this scream restaurant at first glance, so it depends on what you are going for.
This stuff is looking nice, Flay. Those heads from imagination are pretty good especially since you went for a few different angles. The noodle bar concepts look really clean and interesting, and nicely varied, and I'm glad you chose to develop one that feels homey and comforting while still maintaining that interest. What are you planning to do with this?
Iruka: You make a good point, I could probably push that aspect harder
Lyrium: Thanks! Next step is to refine the lineart, check some of the perspective (The lantern seems kind of wonky) and do some more detailing, like adding actual Japanese instead of scribbles
Thanks! And yeah I noticed that. At the time I kind of liked that it looked like he was standing on an uneven surface, but in retrospect it looks kind of goofy so I might go back and fix it.
Posts
My only crit is, I don't know what the material on the bottom left is supposed to be.
Tynic: Righto. This is probably about as far as my current skills will take me, so I'll keep studying and come back to these.
Thanks guys!
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
My new apartment is finally in a liveable condition and I'm settling into this new job, so I'm starting to get back in to the rhythm of studying.
There's too much to learn and not enough time
I feel like the first one is suffering from some sort of lighting issue. Maybe the lack of an occlusion shadow? It seems to not be placed on the surface properly. Its really close, though.
Here's a thing that I've been working on:
My Portfolio Site
Twitter
As for a reference for what I'd actually like to achieve - I don't have one. It's the first time I've ever taken an environment to this level of polish, so my process has been pretty muddled. All of the points you raise are things that I had intended on doing eventually, but I haven't figured out how or when I should.
Values have been a particular trouble for this painting. For the house I've been sticking to the shadows being halfway to black relative to the full-light values, but it's been bothering me how little contrast there is, particularly on the left side of the image. I'd really like to push them to be much darker, but I don't have a good idea how dark I can go without making the lighting feel unrealistic.
Those prokos make me want to take the class and I'm looking forward to how that enviro will turn out.
Yeah, capturing Leyendecker's forms is pretty difficult. The original reference has a weird plane break there too, but Leyendecker did it better. The swamp house is on hold because I wasn't sure how to proceed. Instead I'm working on my rendering and colour theory with the goal of working back towards more complex environments.
Cheers guys.
My Portfolio Site
In the meantime here's some practice heads from imagination. I think I'm just starting to get the hang of them, but there's still a lot of room for improvement. I was super proud of these when I drew them, but looking at them now feels kind of bad
facebook.com/LauraCatherwoodArt
Lyrium: Thanks! Next step is to refine the lineart, check some of the perspective (The lantern seems kind of wonky) and do some more detailing, like adding actual Japanese instead of scribbles
To build my confidence here's a study from a reference, which I stylised and exaggerated
This has been a dumb weekend but it's been a while since I posted anything, so here's a bird study
I'd really appreciate some crits on the first one, because I'm feeling kind of stuck