I'm still working on this grid study. I'm just going box by box and trying to render through value. It's going slowly, but I'm learning an incredible amount.
And again, and again, until the gradation is smooth. Do it until you can barely see the strokes, *without* smudging.
Then, draw this:
Same thing. Do it over and over again until you can barely make out the individual strokes. Also, shade *along* the form, like in this example:
It will look much better than if you shaded the sphere with the random strokes you typically use (or even one-direction strokes). Curve the strokes for the best effect.
Final step - apply what you've learned to your drawings!
And again, and again, until the gradation is smooth. Do it until you can barely see the strokes, *without* smudging.
Then, draw this:
Same thing. Do it over and over again until you can barely make out the individual strokes. Also, shade *along* the form, like in this example:
It will look much better than if you shaded the sphere with the random strokes you typically use (or even one-direction strokes). Curve the strokes for the best effect.
Final step - apply what you've learned to your drawings!
I can definately see the benefit here, but why oh why must it be SO BORING! Can we throw some pipe cleaners and glitter on it? Maybe jazz it up with some gold stars?
It's not so much "learning to put up with the tedium" as "learning the foundations of what you're attempting". It will become much less tedious once you've got the technique down, and you'll just get faster and faster with it, naturally (as people do with anything they draw over and over).
As an example...you wouldn't jump into drawing a city without first learning perspective. You wouldn't start painting grapes without first understanding how shadows work on a curved surface.
It may be tedious at first, but it's highly beneficial once it's learned. Is learning perspective tedious? Sure as hell can be. Will learning perspective make your drawings of buildings (and almost anything, actually) look better? You bet.
So...will learning how to make proper gradations and shade nicely help out Orik? I absolutely think so.
i guess i should have phrased that a little less casually: i meant it more along the lines of 'acquiring discipline is part of learning the fundamentals'.
most of my problem up to this point is that i get impatient very easily. i've already done all of those sphere rendering studies and value gradations, but obviously i didn't take enough time with them the first time and shaded them the way i've done all along. so i'm doing them again.
oh my god, has it really been this long since i've updated?
well, i've been doing huge paintings, i figured i'd post my progress on the current one, since i spent a while talking in DR's thread about it.
here's my zombie painting, entitled 'diamonds are forever'.
it's huge, which means it's not in particularly good shape right now - most of the values need to be re-blocked in, because i messed up most of the facial colours and needed to whitewash them. (i still need to do it for the other non-central faces.)
so, it's not really in shape for colour critique, but i'd like drawing critique, because it's still in the stage where i can change it if necessary.
this is a shitty picture, too, sorry. i took it with the webcam on my laptop.
crawdaddio: Windsor-Newton water-mixable oils with semi-gloss medium. I know that a lot of fine art dudes and ladies turn up their nose at water-mixable oils, but frankly I don't have the time, money, or inclination to be messing around with paint thinner, filtration masks, and rubber gloves. This gives me a flexibility of location that I wouldn't get with traditional oils.
my immediate crit is that the scroll on the bottom isn't centered .. one side hits the edge and the other side doesn't. the feathers being cut off at the top are also distracting, for me.
were you not allowed to use any real colour?
to be blunt, i feel that the black on top of the muted brownish gray you've got going on there looks tacky. i also feel like the 'charity event & readings' bit was crammed into that area solely because it was the only source of white space. you likely planned to use that white space for that purpose -- im just saying it's how it looks
i think the most important crit i have in the design of this is that, while i like your font, my eye doesn't know where to focus. since i'm taking a hard look in order to offer (what i hope is) some constructive criticism, i've read it all, but i feel like if i were passing it in a hall way i would simply see "Book of my own" and move on.
i feel that flyers should be like newspaper columns, in a way -- all the important information is stated right away; that is to say, when i look at a flyer, i want the most important information to pop out at me first. what, where, when, how much.
mully on
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RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
edited March 2009
I don't see any particular area that draws my attention - it's busy and nothing really points to what areas are more important than others
The center text describing the proceedings is actually less important on a poster than most of the things you've got smaller on there. What, when, and where are what a person wants to know before why. If they're caught by the title or the people involved, they'll move they're eyes to look at a more detailed description.
Well, that's not 100% true, but I'd mostly just agree with Rakenphile. There's too many words taking up too much of the page. You can make words smaller and not lose attention. If someone is going to read it then they'll read it, and a smaller font doesn't impede their ability to do so.
srsizzy on
BRO LET ME GET REAL WITH YOU AND SAY THAT MY FINGERS ARE PREPPED AND HOT LIKE THE SURFACE OF THE SUN TO BRING RADICAL BEATS SO SMOOTH THE SHIT WILL BE MEDICINAL-GRADE TRIPNASTY MAKING ALL BRAINWAVES ROLL ON THE SURFACE OF A BALLS-FEISTY NEURAL RAINBOW CRACKA-LACKIN' YOUR PERCEPTION OF THE HERE-NOW SPACE-TIME SITUATION THAT ALL OF LIFE BE JAMMED UP IN THROUGH THE UNIVERSAL FLOW BEATS
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RankenphilePassersby were amazedby the unusually large amounts of blood.Registered User, Moderatormod
edited March 2009
like, consider the heirarchy of importance
what is the most critical
-title
-subtag explanation
-time/location (group these together)
-admission price/information
-explanatory text
-sponsor info
in that order
now look back at your design and see how you're presenting them - right now the title is muddied up and competing for attention with the graphic, making it hard to see
the subtitle explanation is split and gets lost
the location and time information is split up, when it is part of the same message - "here's when, here's where".
the admission price and info is being given the most defined area - it is separated away from all the rest of the flyer, so it jumps out and draws the eye, but nothing leads us back to the rest of the flyer. The scroll it is on is off-center and cuts off the page, and the type isn't parallel with the scroll, so it breaks the illusion.
the extra explanatory copy is given the second-most prominent space, leaving the eye to wander to it, but it is an irregular block of text and not inviting, so we just breeze past it.
I love ya, man, but I think you might need to go back to the drawing board for this one.
thanks for the excellent crits, guys. i was doing it as a favour to a friend, so i had to shoehorn all that info into it - thankfully, it ended up getting cancelled, so i'll do a revision more in line with your crits.
I dunno, it may not be what you're going for in terms of style, but I feel like the piece could be made a lot stronger with some stronger tonal contrasts. The colors all being so bright- almost like they're directly out of the tube- and local color based is making the focus be drawn away from the 2 central figures.
Also it feels like you're becoming enamored with the loose stroke/dripping paint effects, ("hey, that's kinda cool"), rather than stepping back and using discretion on how to apply them ("I want to use X effect here in order to accomplish Y").
Paintover: probably 95% of what I did was just laying in some blacks in there. Obviously oils (or waterbased oils...the painting does look more like a watercolor than oils at this point anyway) are going to be harder to just lay in a lot of rich black/darker colors at this point and not have them get muddy than just throwing them in in photoshop, but I'd say it's worth the extra effort probably.
Desaturated to just show tone:
Now, I solved the contrast problem through lighting, but that's not the only way you could do it- you could go more graphic and just arbitrarily boost the contrast on the central figures and desaturate the crowd behind, or you could tighten the rendering on the central ones and render the crowd more loosely/abstractly.
thanks, bacon. yeah, that is basically what i'm building towards. it looks quite a bit darker in person, but i can never get it to come out on camera the way it looks in person.
i really appreciate the crit, and i'll put it to good use.
highlights are really intense right now, the ones where it's a problem are going to get washed over and muted. that'll happen this weekend probably. new update on monday.
thanks, guys. it's kind of funny, because i really didn't do that much. i added some impasto highlights in the vein of bacon's crit, but the only *darker* paint i really added was in the background, yet it changed the whole piece. crazy.
it's getting brought down on friday. i just didn't get to it today. it'll be in a muted orange, more in-line witht he original logo. value-wise, it will be about the same as a dark grey.
Posts
Where the heck do you get a shirt printed up like that?
Because that's a nice job.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
although they actually fucked up that shirt by printing it too small
it's still nice
That shirt turned out great though.
this was supposed to be a warmup drawing! it didn't end up that way, because i'd just been reading about Dagon on wikipedia.
how's my figure?
EDIT:
Chico reminded me of the existence of shadows and the moon.
Make this:
And again, and again, until the gradation is smooth. Do it until you can barely see the strokes, *without* smudging.
Then, draw this:
Same thing. Do it over and over again until you can barely make out the individual strokes. Also, shade *along* the form, like in this example:
It will look much better than if you shaded the sphere with the random strokes you typically use (or even one-direction strokes). Curve the strokes for the best effect.
Final step - apply what you've learned to your drawings!
i was actually attempting to do the whole 'shade along the form' thing but i guess i just lapsed into bad habits.
I can definately see the benefit here, but why oh why must it be SO BORING! Can we throw some pipe cleaners and glitter on it? Maybe jazz it up with some gold stars?
As an example...you wouldn't jump into drawing a city without first learning perspective. You wouldn't start painting grapes without first understanding how shadows work on a curved surface.
It may be tedious at first, but it's highly beneficial once it's learned. Is learning perspective tedious? Sure as hell can be. Will learning perspective make your drawings of buildings (and almost anything, actually) look better? You bet.
So...will learning how to make proper gradations and shade nicely help out Orik? I absolutely think so.
most of my problem up to this point is that i get impatient very easily. i've already done all of those sphere rendering studies and value gradations, but obviously i didn't take enough time with them the first time and shaded them the way i've done all along. so i'm doing them again.
well, i've been doing huge paintings, i figured i'd post my progress on the current one, since i spent a while talking in DR's thread about it.
here's my zombie painting, entitled 'diamonds are forever'.
it's huge, which means it's not in particularly good shape right now - most of the values need to be re-blocked in, because i messed up most of the facial colours and needed to whitewash them. (i still need to do it for the other non-central faces.)
so, it's not really in shape for colour critique, but i'd like drawing critique, because it's still in the stage where i can change it if necessary.
this is a shitty picture, too, sorry. i took it with the webcam on my laptop.
today's update, slightly better picture. moving slowly towards completion!
crawdaddio: Windsor-Newton water-mixable oils with semi-gloss medium. I know that a lot of fine art dudes and ladies turn up their nose at water-mixable oils, but frankly I don't have the time, money, or inclination to be messing around with paint thinner, filtration masks, and rubber gloves. This gives me a flexibility of location that I wouldn't get with traditional oils.
e: also, a flyer i designed for an event that no longer is happening - i really want crits on this.
were you not allowed to use any real colour?
to be blunt, i feel that the black on top of the muted brownish gray you've got going on there looks tacky. i also feel like the 'charity event & readings' bit was crammed into that area solely because it was the only source of white space. you likely planned to use that white space for that purpose -- im just saying it's how it looks
i think the most important crit i have in the design of this is that, while i like your font, my eye doesn't know where to focus. since i'm taking a hard look in order to offer (what i hope is) some constructive criticism, i've read it all, but i feel like if i were passing it in a hall way i would simply see "Book of my own" and move on.
i feel that flyers should be like newspaper columns, in a way -- all the important information is stated right away; that is to say, when i look at a flyer, i want the most important information to pop out at me first. what, where, when, how much.
Well, that's not 100% true, but I'd mostly just agree with Rakenphile. There's too many words taking up too much of the page. You can make words smaller and not lose attention. If someone is going to read it then they'll read it, and a smaller font doesn't impede their ability to do so.
what is the most critical
-title
-subtag explanation
-time/location (group these together)
-admission price/information
-explanatory text
-sponsor info
in that order
now look back at your design and see how you're presenting them - right now the title is muddied up and competing for attention with the graphic, making it hard to see
the subtitle explanation is split and gets lost
the location and time information is split up, when it is part of the same message - "here's when, here's where".
the admission price and info is being given the most defined area - it is separated away from all the rest of the flyer, so it jumps out and draws the eye, but nothing leads us back to the rest of the flyer. The scroll it is on is off-center and cuts off the page, and the type isn't parallel with the scroll, so it breaks the illusion.
the extra explanatory copy is given the second-most prominent space, leaving the eye to wander to it, but it is an irregular block of text and not inviting, so we just breeze past it.
I love ya, man, but I think you might need to go back to the drawing board for this one.
Also it feels like you're becoming enamored with the loose stroke/dripping paint effects, ("hey, that's kinda cool"), rather than stepping back and using discretion on how to apply them ("I want to use X effect here in order to accomplish Y").
Paintover: probably 95% of what I did was just laying in some blacks in there. Obviously oils (or waterbased oils...the painting does look more like a watercolor than oils at this point anyway) are going to be harder to just lay in a lot of rich black/darker colors at this point and not have them get muddy than just throwing them in in photoshop, but I'd say it's worth the extra effort probably.
Desaturated to just show tone:
Now, I solved the contrast problem through lighting, but that's not the only way you could do it- you could go more graphic and just arbitrarily boost the contrast on the central figures and desaturate the crowd behind, or you could tighten the rendering on the central ones and render the crowd more loosely/abstractly.
Twitter
i really appreciate the crit, and i'll put it to good use.
trying to keep in mind bacon's crits. almost done i think.
in the meantime, i want to hear your crits!
INSTAGRAM
When the focus is on the two forefront characters do you need the side guy advertising a movie/book that strongly?
Satans..... hints.....
Diamonds are Forever
4'x5'
Water-minscible oil on canvas
2009
Love the colours too.
D3: Cymril#1411 || League of Legends/Steam/Xbox/Origin: Cymril