Forest creature (update 2)

[Prometheus|ANJ]

http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/in_progress/lotrcre1c.jpg

This is a painting I just started on in PS5.5. As usual I scanned a small pencil doodle that I colored. I've spent 2hrs on it so far.

As you may or may not notice I tried to do it 'Foster-style', ie, making a lot of black shadows and quite short (almost binary) gradiations to the brighter color. The design is supposed to be for the CGtalk lotr challange but I have absolute no idea what I'm doing.

---

Crits welcome as it's still wip. Here's my own:

I have to do something to bring the important parts forward. The character is a little hard to read pose wise perhaps? Halo?

The treetrunks are to close to the characters huewise?
Perhaps I can use color to separate the trunks from the characters?

It needs color somewhere. I think I can afford it. I might also afford to add some brighter highlights somewhere on the character. I'm tempted to do it somewhere on the upper part, chest or shoulder, or perhaps on the arm that doesn't separate from the tree trunk to the left. I need to do something about that. The darks on the upper part of the trunk doesn't continue on the lower part.

Do something with the focus on the corner front head and fogged creature? Should I nuke the foremost head?
Eyes should be lit on the fogged one.

The left corner needs something.

Anatomy probably needs to be checked as I used no ref.

The bottom is cut off badly?

Brushstroke quality needs to be better (I used ps5.5)

[I.was.ink]

I say you do nuke the head closest to us, and light up the eyes of the figure in shadows. Theres also something around the floor next to the monsters left foot. They look like rocks but are just confusing me. I think you need to knock back the color of the trees so that the figures stand out.

But before I said this, I saw that "PROMETHEUS" had made something new and I said " awww crap... i know its going to look cool, but it makes me feel like crap, damn it." but then I said "who cares, I know i'll like it and will learn from it a lot. Someday i'll be that good!:)

And then I clicked the thread and was amazed!

P.S I like the way you critisized your own stuff! more of us here should do that! Can't wait for an update:fruit:

[foster]

hey, this is cool! i think you already have a handle on what to change. this is good, you are able to edit yourself and get down to what is necessary and what just clouds the picture.

i think the creature is bright already. adding too many high key notes to a piece is something i have to consciously remind myself not to do. it is amazing what you can accomplish in your focal area with only a small and subtle value change.

when you get rid of the head in the foreground try to put something else for us to look around. something dark to keep us in the picture. more trees?

the only cropping problem is his foot, either on or off, no in between.

this is rocking finish it up.

jon

[foster]

oh yea,

be careful about similar line directions. his arm and the tree behind it go in the same direction. now this may have been good if they were in separate areas and it was a mimicking of direction, something to make pattern and rhythm. but since they are on top of each other it just serves to make the arm motionless, trapped. the lines of movement then become static and boring.

this is a pain but move the arm or the tree.

jon

[Prometheus|ANJ]

Thanks for the crits! Much apreciated!

I got an idea now than might fix some of the problems. If I remove the head, and the tree behind the arm I can make an egg-shaped blue background by adding a bent tree to the left.

This might work if I'm careful not to make it too geometrical. I can put some fogged trees in the background so it doesn't get too obvious.

I'll try adding some dark space at the bottom. Standing on the image border is a bad thing :G

...

But this has to be tomorrow, because I'm off to bed now.

[Fozzybar]

Definitely kick this big head on the left...

I would suggest to paint some branches and treeparts in the front, overlaying the foot...so you can avoid this cut-off problem and the image will make the viewer feel like an observer, who is right in the action, watching the creature...also the understanding of the creature as a forest creature will be pushed...

[Prometheus|ANJ]

http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/in_progress/lotrcre1c2.jpg

Here's an update. It's still quite sketchy. The trees are hard to do since I can't give em too much detail. That might lure the eye out to the image border which is bad as I understand it.

---

Some conclusions:

I must dare to make my shapes more figurative instead of just dabbing and hoping for the best. The green mushrooms up front are an attempt at this.

Sometimes I make futile attempts to make a detail work. I must learn to 'kill my darling' and see to the image as a whole instead.

I must not highlight everything to death, something I've become a bit better at lately I think.

I must be more bold with colors. Lately I've consulted the saturation and dodge/burn brush setting to get some bold ideas. I mix colors a lot, which often results in increasingly grey 'colors'.

I must learn composition and how to make the eye stay in the painting.

[Prometheus|ANJ]

http://home.swipnet.se/zebes/temp/lotrcre1.jpg

The thumbnail doodle.

[Prometheus|ANJ]

http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/in_progress/lotrcre1c3.jpg

With digital media you can experiment a lot so why not try...

To be honest I liked the big head. Someone at sijun thought the new one was too clean and I can agree with that.
From the start I wanted more than one creature in the composition to make it obvious that this creature is part of a race and not just a single freak. I added some extra space to the left so the head isn't cut off like it was before.

Better or worse?

Is the blue BG too clean? Add some trees back?

Perhaps I should flip it cuz you read left to right and then it will look like the foremost guy is walking into the pic?

Are the two guys competing about the attention too much?

[nick reynolds]

BETTTER! I like the big head on the left. great stuff.

[I.was.ink]

I like the new version better! now that we can see the rest of his body. It adds a lot. I think that they both are competing with each other. I suggest you knock one or the other back so one of them stands out. I like the bluish bg, but I would add a little more foliage across the top, so it looks more foresty, more lived in.

I think that if you were to add another creature behind the tress below the middle characters right hand. There's a little gap inbetween those trees there that I think would look better if another guy would be peaking out of the trees and we only get a hint of his glowing eyes. It might work or not, but I think it would help move our eyes around from creature to creature.

I love your painting style and love your technique. I would really like it if you could do a small tutorial, so that many of us here can learn from you. please!!!:(

It doesn't have to be something elaborate, but something like your little animal based creatures.:D

[Prometheus|ANJ]

The things that I need to fix appear to be:

The neck on the front head appear a bit odd, I need to move the shoulders.

The sky/fog area is too clean. I need something like the tree I had on the first one, and/or some leafs.

I'm tempted to add a little critter somewhere... Birds in the sky taking off cause of the monster stampede? Might work... I like images where there's a lot to look at.

The middle guy appear cought in the act of trespassing or something. His pose is frosen and a bit boring (as pure side or front poses tend to be). I don't think I can do much about this though. I should've spent more time on the initial sketch. This was not really meant to be taken this far tho.

---

Light experiment on the same theme.

http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/in_progress/lotrcre2c.jpg

I'm working on some sort of tutorial, but it will be a while since I need to do a lot of illustrations for it.

[I.was.ink]

Okay. Thanks for that tutorial consideration. For example the piece you showed above. Is amazing. I know its just a light experimentaion. but there are a lot of things in there that I would love to know how to do! anyways... I suggest that you save every couple of steps or so. That way you just work on your piece as usual and save as at different points and name each step a different step. Then just post them all and there you go a tutorial!

Oh man I can't wait to see the tutorial. Especially, how you begin!:D :D :eek:

[Don Wilkinson]

wow, that's really cool, i love the progression of the compostion between the 2 last picture updates, looking pretty good. Great piece so far

[rjm]

very spooky. hehehe. nice

[Crunch]

great concept man. great perspective of all the creatures. and the poses are very life like. just good work. you def. know what you are doing