Wizard Girl - NEED C AND C BADLY

[JJH]

Ok, well, I don't know what to say. First off, I finish colouring this, I get many great comments that make me very happy. I felt great inside that colouring this good. Good as in, a great improvement from my previous. Then came along another friend of mine, who is actually an art student entering college like myself. He thinks that I should have shaded it with a pencil first. He said that the colours just don't look full. Personally, I like to actually paint instead of colouring lineart like comic books. I told him that it's the way I do it and that I don't like to just. Paint bucket areas and leave the tones to the pencil shading. I was hoping that he will like it but he just never likes anything that I do. I know I should accept CC, I did though. I told him it's the way I work, but he just can't 'accept' it as a working style.

I'm probably all wrong about myself. He could be right. But I would like anybody at all to let me know what they think about my colouring. I know that there is always a way to improve it, which is why I am always working on it, but can anyone just let me know about all these improvements I could make to better my CGing? And I know that she is too short. =D

http://www.geocities.com/jeffreyjhcheung/wizgirljpg2.txt

If image does not show, go here please.
http://www.deviantart.com/view/9010652/

[one2hit]

First off...what is your first language because I know it's not English. French maybe? I had a little difficulty understanding everything. Your friend is right, however. There are plenty of small white areas that just do not need to be there. If you look between her fingers...where her hair falls...and some other small areas, the color is not filling up the space entirely. What you need to be doing (and I don't think you are) is laying a base color down first. Take off pressure, and pressure opecity in your brush and fill the areas with solid colors, then mix, and paint on top of them with a different brush that picks up the colors underneath (acts like the paint is still wet). You can use the paint bucket if you want. I usually don't...whenever I do that I get a weird white outline (using a mask or selection) so I just fill the area up first with a big solid color and start painting afterwards.

The idea, and composition are all fine. But what you have here isn't a "working style" there is nothing that's been rendered properly. I can see one very harsh light source coming from the right, but all your shadows and tone are just floating around with no reason behind their placement. For example. Her shirt. You can see a base color of grey, and then lines over it that go, White, Black, White Black. The lines from the top of the shirt, and the bottom don't match, and the lines don't go through, or behind her arm, showing me that you rendered each part of the shirt seperatly and not as one piece. Sorry for the all negative crits. I would suggest doing another painting paying attention to full base colors first, and then concentrating on placement of wrinkles and how shadows define where wrinkles are. This might be the wrong way to go about it though, because I'm a horrible painter...*shrugs* someone might chime in and give you better advice than I can give you though ^_^

[JJH]

I thank you for spending your time to tell me what is wrong and how to improve. I realized many of the problems in the painting through your words. One thing however, I _did_ put down a base colour on everything before I started to paint over it. The main problem was fold dynamics, and light and shadow placement.

"""I would suggest doing another painting paying attention to full base colors first, and then concentrating on placement of wrinkles and how shadows define where wrinkles are. This might be the wrong way to go about it though"""

I will continue to practice for sure, but I need more specific steps to focus on when working on my next painting. I appreciate your help! Thanks again.

If anybody else has something to say, please do so.

[Tengu]

After reading your post and visit your site. I can see that you are very enthuse about your work. I got a few suggestions on top of what One2Hit already gave you. Something for you to focus on.

you should take a step back and put paint aside ( at least for now ). and draw as much as you can ( I think this is probably the most repeated suggestion on this forum). Learn the basic shading and drawing first...try to understand light and shadow and how you can create mass and volume out of them. If you want to paint in Photoshop then try to using only greyscale. Once u understand how shadow and values work then u can start picking up paint again.

To quote Mr.Manley "work just on drawing at first...save painting for when you have mastered value."

Keep it up and good luck!!

PS. Do not underestimate "colouring lineart like comic books"....Moebius has created art out of "colored lineart". ;-)

[JJH]

Hey I love that suggestion. I will definitely focus on what you said now. Thank you greatly!

I am going to be attending a college in Sept. that will force me to do life-drawing like crazy. I know that will boost my skill up a lot. I think one reason I am not great at colour yet is because I have not been formally or thorougly taught about Colour theory, and that light and shadow stuff. I will sketch in my sketchbook daily, and try to understand how the light hits an object and how it creates the shadow.