This piece looks to be my first major art piece. It might take a long time to complete. These are my initial colour passes for them. A lot of detail is required.
@Endless_Serpents
You might want to watch your values when composing with a background- right now most of your values are very close together, making for a sorta muddy read. Generally, the eye is going to be pulled towards the areas of greatest contrast (in value, in color, in shape design, etc.), so managing where you put your emphasize and where you subdue your contrasts can be a really useful tool in drawing the eye where you want.
Did a quicky paintover where I just basically lasso-tooled the head area and reversed the values in the background, so instead of a dark foreground shape appearing against a dark background shape, there's a dark foreground shape against a a lighter background shape. This 'punches out' the head by creating that area of contrast, drawing the eye there (since that seemed like the most important part of the picture I'd want to draw the most attention to in this instance), and giving a lot more distinction of the silhouette, making all that good design work done in the drawing phase come across as lot better in the finished painting. The other areas that have less 'first read' importance can have more subtle distinctions.
Putting the flame beneath the dragon was the obviously better option, but here’s a quick edit of that sketch with a bit more saturation and light on it. Here’s to better compositions in the future.
Well now the head is just a light shape against a light shape, meaning there's still no contrast here- there's contrast between the back/tail and the darker background now, but is the first thing you want to draw the viewer's eye to the dragon's hinder?
Line up of the original, my paintover, and this new one. Get up from your chair and look at them together from across the room- which one reads? When given some distance, the head just disappears without the contrast.
In the paintover, I used a light background because the head was dark, so I knew the lighter background would make it stand out.
If you change the head to be lighter and want it to stand out, now you'd have to make the background darker instead of lighter in order to stand out.
If you for some non-negotiable reason need both a light background and a light head, you'll need to figure out some other way of making that head read and not get lost- ie: the head color is light and gets blown out at the edges, but the lighting design is such that the cast shadows provide enough contrast to make out the head, or using some secondary darker value patterning in the skin to get the shape across.
I don't know if you're using Photoshop, but if you are, a good way to keep an eye on these issues is using the 'Window>Arrange>New WIndow for ___________' feature. This will give a little duplicate window you can make real teeny tiny to side, so you can keep an eye on the 'big read' of the picture even as you get into all the finicky zoomed-in details. You can also use 'View>Proof Setup>Custom...' and scroll down to sGray, which will make just that one window grayscale, so you can keep an eye on the values even when working in color in another window.
If you're using another program that doesn't have these features, or if you're working traditionally, you can always use the old school test of getting up, and looking at a piece from the other side of the room, and seeing if it still reads. If something's getting lost, it's usually going to be a value contrast issue that needs to be worked out.
Progress report!
* 40% through that biker woman piece. Will get it done this week.
* Scrapped webcomic and starting again. I realised it’s just a gag comic and my first comic, so I should just do it in a rough sketch style. There’s been plenty of webcomics over the years that are just someone’s doodles that are as acclaimed as the beautiful work of say, the author of Kill 6 Billion Demons. Plus I’m not after recognition, just to get these fools out of my head in 100 strips.
* I’ve been without real art supplies for months, so I’ve ordered some canvases and paint.
* Gonna draw a different dragon after work!
I did this without a reference and it really shows. It was nice just to do it off the cuff in a couple minutes. Made me feel like an artist until I stopped to look at it.
Thank you! It’ll take a while but I’ll be making more comics soon, and in the background I’m plugging away at a webcomic I’m only gonna show when I finish it.
So that’s for an art competition, not that I’ll win it! It’s about a hypothetical sequel to a game called Bloodborne. I guess I’ll send it with a little blurb done in the weirdly vague style of that game’s item descriptions and notes.
Sleepless Eudora
Driven from her ailing homeland by the ring of the hunt, Eudora pursues purpose under this new moon. The harpoon she is burdened with, an archaic trick weapon, hails from a forgotten shore. Perhaps you’ll consider her an ally...
It’ll be a bit until I have time, but just as a design experience I’m gonna make a tile set for a rip-off Legend of Zelda. It’ll look something like this:
Wish I had more time lately, I was getting pretty good again, I think! 2 minutes worth of doodle for you. I don’t have any original characters dear to my heart, but I just remembered a comic idea I liked this morning.
Posts
This is just a sketch. I’m putting it here as a reminder because I need to get it done by next Sunday.
The party of my last D&D game.
I made this. It’s not perfect but when I get time I’m itching to make lots more music.
You might want to watch your values when composing with a background- right now most of your values are very close together, making for a sorta muddy read. Generally, the eye is going to be pulled towards the areas of greatest contrast (in value, in color, in shape design, etc.), so managing where you put your emphasize and where you subdue your contrasts can be a really useful tool in drawing the eye where you want.
Did a quicky paintover where I just basically lasso-tooled the head area and reversed the values in the background, so instead of a dark foreground shape appearing against a dark background shape, there's a dark foreground shape against a a lighter background shape. This 'punches out' the head by creating that area of contrast, drawing the eye there (since that seemed like the most important part of the picture I'd want to draw the most attention to in this instance), and giving a lot more distinction of the silhouette, making all that good design work done in the drawing phase come across as lot better in the finished painting. The other areas that have less 'first read' importance can have more subtle distinctions.
Twitter
Line up of the original, my paintover, and this new one. Get up from your chair and look at them together from across the room- which one reads? When given some distance, the head just disappears without the contrast.
In the paintover, I used a light background because the head was dark, so I knew the lighter background would make it stand out.
If you change the head to be lighter and want it to stand out, now you'd have to make the background darker instead of lighter in order to stand out.
If you for some non-negotiable reason need both a light background and a light head, you'll need to figure out some other way of making that head read and not get lost- ie: the head color is light and gets blown out at the edges, but the lighting design is such that the cast shadows provide enough contrast to make out the head, or using some secondary darker value patterning in the skin to get the shape across.
I don't know if you're using Photoshop, but if you are, a good way to keep an eye on these issues is using the 'Window>Arrange>New WIndow for ___________' feature. This will give a little duplicate window you can make real teeny tiny to side, so you can keep an eye on the 'big read' of the picture even as you get into all the finicky zoomed-in details. You can also use 'View>Proof Setup>Custom...' and scroll down to sGray, which will make just that one window grayscale, so you can keep an eye on the values even when working in color in another window.
If you're using another program that doesn't have these features, or if you're working traditionally, you can always use the old school test of getting up, and looking at a piece from the other side of the room, and seeing if it still reads. If something's getting lost, it's usually going to be a value contrast issue that needs to be worked out.
Twitter
* 40% through that biker woman piece. Will get it done this week.
* Scrapped webcomic and starting again. I realised it’s just a gag comic and my first comic, so I should just do it in a rough sketch style. There’s been plenty of webcomics over the years that are just someone’s doodles that are as acclaimed as the beautiful work of say, the author of Kill 6 Billion Demons. Plus I’m not after recognition, just to get these fools out of my head in 100 strips.
* I’ve been without real art supplies for months, so I’ve ordered some canvases and paint.
* Gonna draw a different dragon after work!
I got an old doodle out and smashed it with layers. I am adaptable, if not skilled.
Blame Peas.
I did this without a reference and it really shows. It was nice just to do it off the cuff in a couple minutes. Made me feel like an artist until I stopped to look at it.
I’ll get back to properly colouring things and having smooth lines from now on. It was just nice to doodle freely.
For tonight, anyway...
Sorry I’ve been really busy here is a dog I know.
Dirb.
B I R D .
Junk.