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saltiness · November 2006

This is coming along very nicely! I'm flattered you cited my work as inspiration.

It looks like you're grasping the concept of planes and blocks of color very, very well, although you might want to try using a larger brush size to make it easier. Don't be afraid to go a little crazy with your colors! Use some that aren't actually there.

The only real obvious problems I'm seeing are proportions, especially with her nose and lower lip (I'm sure just having me mention them you'll see what the issues are) and value range. Right now you've got a pretty narrow value range (look closely at the value difference between her cheek bone and the space below her lips). Exaggerating the value range can really make your painting pop out.

That's all I can think of. It looks like you're pretty much in the same boat as me - knowing the concepts but remembering to apply them and not being afraid to do so.

edit: Damn, I was just about to go to sleep and you make me want to bust out the oils and get painting!

Ape2001 · November 2006

Though I'm a horrible painter I will try to give you my opinion, too ^^

At first I'm extremly impressed what you achieved in only 2hours. To me it seems like you captured her face very well. Except for her eyes.
These and the space around them (eye-lid, temple) deserve more work for they don't match with the photo.

You got painter, too? Maybe you should give that a try, too, for it's known for better emulation of stuff like oil colours.

Yay, hang on!

Scosglen · November 2006

I really can't call myself much of a painter, but from the looks of it the ref is being followed faithfully and you've preserved the "patchy" look you're shooting for. The trick is to retrain yourself from over blending; not everything looks like plastic in the real world. I've found that some good textured brushes used judiciously can break the *too smooth* appearance very well with a little practice.

NightDragon · November 2006

Ape2001 wrote:

You got painter, too? Maybe you should give that a try, too, for it's known for better emulation of stuff like oil colours.

Yeah, I've opened Painter maybe three times and have been so confused and angry each time that I've since given up, haha. I'll go back to it once I have the time and patience to actually learn it. Photoshop is just something I really know, so it's like a safehaven, heh...but the only way I learned it was by fooling around with it for a number of years. I think my initial reaction with Painter was, "Wait, this isn't Photoshop at all!" and so I ran away.

Saltiness - a part of me was hoping you'd comment on this, haha...thanks for taking the time to do so!

It really is hard for me to pick appropriate colors to use for "popping". When I see paintings with random colors that jump out at you, yet blend with the picture, I'm amazed. It was really recent that I absorbed the idea of having multiple colors in a face, some even contrasting, like blue..and I learned it from this picture. I'd seen paintings like that a billion times before, but I think when I sat down and decided to actually look and analyze is when I figured it out (somewhat). The other thing that amazes me is painting in "blocks", like how I saw in your paintings. I think one of my problems is that I've been "over-blending" for so long (to get a "porcelain" look), that learning how to add texture is really difficult (one of the reasons I find Alduar's stuff so intriguing). I'll take your advice though, and try to push myself into using a bigger brush/more "popping" colors. Thankee

Yay for typing too much! XD

Scosglen wrote:

I really can't call myself much of a painter, but from the looks of it the ref is being followed faithfully and you've preserved the "patchy" look you're shooting for. The trick is to retrain yourself from over blending; not everything looks like plastic in the real world. I've found that some good textured brushes used judiciously can break the *too smooth* appearance very well with a little practice.

Yeah, the "texturey" look I've been getting from using the smudge tool, and I've been making an effort to paint more than blend. When I started this, I decided I was going to use just a round brush and no "texture" brushes...I have a way of looking at texture'd drawings - there's the "rough" texture - (Craig Mullins), and then there's the "clean" texture (saltiness's paintings). I thought I'd try to pull off the "clean" texture in this one. Actually, that may be a good idea - doing a "clean" version and a "rough" version.

Lly · November 2006

I had that exact same reaction to painter.

Haven't touched it since!

-SPI- · November 2006

That's looking really really good NightDragon.

saltiness wrote:

Damn, I was just about to go to sleep and you make me want to bust out the oils and get painting!

Tell me about it! Everytime I enter a thread like this I feel this invisible tug of my paintbrush and my paints. One I am slowly realising that I can ignore NO LONGER!

saltiness · November 2006

Painting from life helps a lot with recognizing those extra colors. Unfortunately painting from life is not only more difficult than painting from a picture, it also requires you to have a model who can sit for 2+ hours at a time.

srsizzy · November 2006

That's pretty great. It's a little soft, but amazingly close to the original picture. I don't have a ton to say, but that's really good.

AlyceInWonderland · November 2006

I actually have a really nice way of learning how to make the "popping" colors, and unblended look.

Take a rather large photo of your face, and open it up in photoshop. Then, make another layer over it, and find yourself a pretty good sized textured brush (but, you can change the size of the brush along the way too so it doesn't look like poo) and use the eyedropper to copy the color of a small portion of the face, and then paint over it.

It's a good exercise, and the more you do it, the more you'll understand where to place the large strokes, and you'll be less compelled to blend.

If this doesn't make sense (I"m rather tired) I'll gladly post an example of what I did.

Edit: great painting there by the way. It's really beautiful.

Tam · November 2006

AlyceInWonderland wrote:

I actually have a really nice way of learning how to make the "popping" colors, and unblended look.

Take a rather large photo of your face, and open it up in photoshop. Then, make another layer over it, and find yourself a pretty good sized textured brush (but, you can change the size of the brush along the way too so it doesn't look like poo) and use the eyedropper to copy the color of a small portion of the face, and then paint over it.

It's a good exercise, and the more you do it, the more you'll understand where to place the large strokes, and you'll be less compelled to blend.

If this doesn't make sense (I"m rather tired) I'll gladly post an example of what I did.

Edit: great painting there by the way. It's really beautiful.

Post it. EDIT: Please.

Also, NightDragon, you might be trying to fight it, but I think the blending in this painting lends it a nice stylistic character. IF you're going to blend though, maybe you ought to use a larger blending brush; then you wouldn't have the little fuzzy patterns where you blended.

NightDragon · November 2006

saltiness - I'll remember that. Usually, my way for compensating for the lack of models in my daily life is to try to observe people I see every day, and try to absorb information that way. I've got one friend who's a real sport for modelling for me, but she's not available very often. Maybe I can convince her into sitting with me for a quick study.

srsizzy - Thankee!

Alyce - Yeah, I've actually done that before, and it can be a good exersize...but it never ends up looking the way I want it to.

I'm just very picky.

Tam - I've been going over some of the bad-blend areas with a weaker smudge tool to even things out. I do kinda like the texture it gives in other parts, and I've decided to keep those, so yeah. Agree'd with you on those things. :P

Thanks for all the comments, guys. I'll be posting an update soon (I worked on a texture'd background last night, as somebody [in one of the three forums I posted this in] said the background in the source pic was a little weak, which I can agree with. I just need to figure out how I'm going to simplify her shirt, and I'll be set.

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