The Bum-(digital portraits)

[Sirio_Brozzi]

This is my first time doing portraits in Photoshop. Im looking to get better at digital painting in any way or form. The subject matter was a bum. I just drew the lineart, then made up two different lighting conditions and applied them to the images. Critique this to death!.. So I can keep improving as I continue practicing.

I included the process.



Thanks in advance :)

[stoph]

ok please promise me that, in order to improve, youll never use greys to imply shadow. thats a big no no. it flattens the image out, and is not even the slightest bit accurate. one thing you can do is take the original skin tone and lessen the saturation, deepen the value. alternatively, you can mix colours to achieve the correct shadow by selecting your original skin tone, then finding the exact opposite and applying that with a low opacity brush. yellow is to purple as green is to red, that sort of thing. youll get whatever brown is suited to the skin tone, and will achieve a more accurate shade. meh ive probably got that all wrong.. but it seems to work!

[el norteno]

[http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v634/Barum1138/hopethishelpsu.jpg my writing might be hard to read basicaly watch your forms, turn that ear in a little should be about 3/4,your showing side view. as for colors never use dark grey for your shadows.instead use a darker value of the skin tone you started with...keep it up ...hoped this helped at all

[Pixeldragoon]

The fingers themsleves look nice, but I think the hand should be longer. Also, He should probably be laening on his arm... otherwise... Oh- If he IS leaning on his arm, make it more apparent by foldling the skin over his knuckles. Thas all here. LAter!

[Sirio_Brozzi]

Stoph: I promise :3 Thanks for pointing those color issues out. Especially using opposite colors to get deeper values! It all makes sense now.

El Norteno: Thanks for pointing out the anatomical quibbles. Ill be sure to be more clean in my digital lineart from now on and vary my lines. I went back and fixed the lineart already.

PixelDragon: I didnt notice that! Thanks for pointing that out. I went back and fixed that little problem so his hand didnt just look like it was floating in front of his face.

Thanks for all the comments/crits so far. Theyve helped alot. :^^:

[Elwell]

You have to decide whether are coloring a drawing or making a painting. The middle version, with the flat color, is working the best technically, althought the choice of color could be better. You can push this style slightly by adding some subtle gradients or a second value to each color, but the linework should still dominate. If you push the values and modelling much further, then it crosses the line from drawing to painting, and the lines start to interfere. In that case they should be played down (by reducing opacity or changing their color) or eliminated completely.

[Sirio_Brozzi]

You have to decide whether are coloring a drawing or making a painting. The middle version, with the flat color, is working the best technically, althought the choice of color could be better. You can push this style slightly by adding some subtle gradients or a second value to each color, but the linework should still dominate. If you push the values and modelling much further, then it crosses the line from drawing to painting, and the lines start to interfere. In that case they should be played down (by reducing opacity or changing their color) or eliminated completely.

That actually makes a lot of sense. I guess I might have gone too far, and as you and some other people noted, the lines started to interfere with the rendering. From now on, Ill be sure to keep those questions in my head..Colored drawing, or painting? Thanks for the useful advice.

[emily g]

I'm glad you included the process. The second pic works the best because it is clearly still a drawing, and it has a nice graphic look.

I actually like the skin color in this version, but it really doesn't work when you started shading. The color needs to be much more realistic, not just straight pink.

best,
emily