Journey of a daltonic - BloomingSkull's sketchbook

[BloomingSkull]

Hello world!
I'm a bit afraid to start posting here mainly for 2 reasons:
1- I'm a complete newbie of digital painting
2- I suffer of daltonism (I'm not completely color blind, I mean, I see colors but I fail most of ishihara color tests so I think I'm just partially cursed)

BUT I'm also quite stubborn so I decided to start my sketchbook anyway. :)

In the last weeks I've browsed so many sketchbooks here on CA and everyone improved so much from the first page to last one that's unbelivable, I just hope it will happen to me too.


I'll post mainly work in progress and sketches because I'm just not able to finish anything.
All the comments and critics (and tutorials and lessons :) ) are more than welcome.


here is my 1st try of digital painting. I know it's not truely a colored piece (just red and black) but right now I'm trying to learn brushes without going into colors yet.
I keep getting confused with brushes, jumping from one to another without any real reason (I think I used 20 different brushes just cause I couldn't find the right ones...)

Anyway I'm kind of stuck. I don't know what i did wrong and what right, and also what to do next... HELP!!

[BloomingSkull]

Trying to go on...

[BloomingSkull]

Last step before going to bed!
As i wrote in the first post, c&c are more than welcome!

[Jacky-Boy]

It's looking good man.
Keep experimenting with those brushes, you'll find the ones your comfortable with eventually
By the way are you using Painter or Photoshop ?

Critique wise, the light source doesn't feel right yet, and this is throwing off the form of the guy a bit. Sometimes with a near monochromatic piece like this it's good to revert to grayscale, and then make sure the light and forms look right there. Then you can easily splash some colour on afterwards without the risk of messing up the picture.
Hope this helps :}

[BloomingSkull]

Jacky-Boy: Thank you very much!Yes I'll need a lot of experimenting with brushes. About reverting to grayscale that's sounds like a good idea! I'll do it tomorrow morning as I woke up (but I'm not sure how I could put colors back in then... :( Is there a common method of putting colors back in? )
I'm using photoshop, Painter has way too many brushes... I dunno whick ones to use, it makes me crazy.

[BloomingSkull]

I tried to tweak the curves a bit cause it was quite dull and added some lights.

[bharat]

smart light n shadow....ply.

[Jacky-Boy]

Hmmm yeah I only really use painter, so I can't help ya there buddy.
I think the easiest way to add colour back on to a greyscale is to create a new layer on top, fill it white, and set it's layer options to 'multiply'.
Now you can paint your colours on this layer and it'll work kinda like a colouring in book