Hannes' and Jana's paintover thread :D

[Janaschi]

Hey everyone!!

Hannes and me have some spare time and after getting the scholarships we thought it would be nice to try and give something back to the community. Anyone who's been on cgtalk might have seen that thread by Steven Stahlberg where people can post their images and he'd try to help them by doing paintovers and explaining and critiquing. We thought we might start a similar thing here, we're both no Stahlbergs but maybe we can help at least a few people

So here's how it works:

1. Post an image you're currently working on

2. Wait while we'll try to help D:

3. ???

4. Profit!

Cheers!
Hannes and Jana

[algenpfleger]

Let's do it!

[Quigleyer]

Makes me want to start something just to get owned.

This would be a nice thread to sticky, as I know where I'm going the first time I need a critique now .

Thanks guys. You're awesome.

[alexson]

Nice initiative of you guys, I can start if you think its worth the time, otherwise it's ok.

I'm nervous, it's for this weeks CHOW.

[Janaschi]

Youre welcome < 3
Now show us your wips so we can do something! XD!

edit: wow that was fast! :3

[algenpfleger]

Done with the first one!

Attachment 1003623

[Janaschi]

Hi Alexson!

Here is my overpaint:

I'm not very good at writing and I hope the overpaint mostly speaks for itself (thats why I like overpaints) but Hannes literally forced me to do () so here is a try:

The monster and the girl dont really look at each other, I know changing the monsters' head would mean that you cant show the dragons head directly but it would help the storytelling I also think the dragon needs a bit more space. Important image elements should have got enough place to breathe!

Did you use any refs for the girl, especially her face? If yes, it looks like you also reffed the colors. Try to think how the skin would look like in that kind of light situation. The whole light situation looks a lot like "studio"lighting. There should be a lot cool light reflecting from the sky around that scene.

Ah and I also added a layer of waves between the monster and the girl, hoping it will bring more depth in the picture Dont know if it makes sense.


I hope it helps! D:

Attachment 1004080

[alexson]

Hi Jana!
Hm, I don't even know how to say how much you improved what I spent hours on in like 10 minutes. Every brush stroke I would do from now on would make it crappier and crappier I think.
What I mean is thank you very much!
I only used a mirror for her face as a reference with the girl during the sketching but the weird light I think is the type I'm most comfortable with from studies etc.
I just need to study more, basically. And I will

Thanks again, jana and hannes!

[Danilo]

this looks great, ill might have something for you guys as well, keep it up!

[Reedux]

So hey!

I dont really have any Wips that are.. good enough for a paintover but I do have these two recent images that I'd love some thoughts on

You guys are really awesome for doing this.

[Donna]

Aw you guys are too nice for doing this! I am not happy with any of my work right now, but a HUGE problem for me is not knowing how to fix mistakes even if I see them

Here is a fairly recent image, what bugs me the most is her face... don't know what to do with it anymore Any other thoughts on how to imrpove upon it are welcome, of course!



Thank you for making the thread ;_;

[Surion]

You 2 are awesome. I love what you are doing, what you do for the community, what you do for everyone.
I'm not an art hero myself, it's been a dream for a few years, but I have put the dream aside the moment I realized I'm just a huge art fan and nothing more: not an artist myself.
But I'm still wandering around on CA.org to fulfill the art-fan part of my life and you certainly got a HUGE fan over here.
Just,.. thanks, for everything, keep up the awesome work you are doing. Big respect from Belgium!

P.S.: this thread should have a big retweet button!

[tobbA]

Donna I'm not anyone of the OPs... And far less skilled. But I think the face is allright. What's bugging me more is her lower body. While her upper body is turned slightly to the right her legs and feet are facing straight towards us. The perspective is a little strange too as it looks like she's tip toed (though maybe her shoes are that way). I'd try to find a way to make her look less rigid and stand more comfortably.

(And yeah. Awesome thread. I'll see if I have anything to post later... thanks.)

[Gloominati]

hahaha you guys are so awesome!!

[zx52hg]

I'll drop one of mine in. I've only got a recent traditional painting so it doesn't matter much if anyone gives it a miss.

[yzeal]

You guys rock, really! |D

[algenpfleger]

Alright, this is for Reedux

I thought the overall composition was really nice, and you got really nice shapes too!
The two things that I mainly tried to improve were the lighting situation and the depth of the image... tried, mind you Lighting situations are something that can really help you divide your painting into spaces, for example, if the foreground is distinctly lit differently from the background it will obviously pop out. It also can add to the story. It's kind of a stretch but I thought this dramatic top lighting for the foreground would work better, it puts more emphasis on the characters playing chess (maybe too much) and brings out the forms with that strong bounce light, to also make it pop more from the background. Notice it's also way warmer, and way more contrasty than the background. Warm always comes to the front, and contrasty too. You can use this to your advantage, so maybe you could just spend some time learning about different kinds of contrast and how to control them, it will help your stuff a lot!

About depth, basically all it is is overlapping shapes. Yours were already really nice so I just hitned at some more flowers that are just silhouettes, pretty much like fully rendered form, but with zero contrast, which sounds stupid (reality always renders everything, but it might appear different), but it's true I tried to make the big flower sort of a middle ground, it's lit from below by the bounce light from the foreground, but it's low contrast like the background.

Still not sure if it's any better though, but maybe it will help to illustrate some principles... ah I feel like I should be posting my stuff in here and Jana should be the only one doing paintovers

What I'd advise you to do is maybe do some studies of movie stills and see how they use lighting to divide space and tell the story. You could also try to do a line art and then try out different palettes and lighting situations. It's interesting, give it a shot!

Attachment 1003777

[Marlee.]

Man, you two are the best. As if you haven't inspired the community enough.... great idea.

[Spikings]

Wow, you're both amazing for doing this...I can't thank you enough

I've got quite an old one here which doesn't represent what I can do now but I want it to, mainly for my university portfolio. Could you give me some good pointers/paintovers on where to improve the most maybe?

Attachment 1003778

[SM]

Great initiative!

Hannes, looking at that piece from Reedux and your paintover, I couldn't help but notice all the dark dead space at the top of 'em.

So I thought rather than crop some of that space why not put a large moon in there and just keep it in lower contrast so it doesn't grab too much attention? The bottom crescent is also to further hint at where the action is happening.

Attachment 1003791

I hope you guys don't mind my unsought contribution.

[Reedux]

Duuuuuuuuuude That is fuckin sweet!
I feel like redrawing the whole pic now! (but in a good way)
Thanks a lot for the critique, it was Ace!

You actually gave me some good ideas for my new drawing!
(that I said wasn't good enough for a paintover but that I think is good enough now.. is it all right if I post another..?)

I love you SoeMeng, I think the moon actually works

[Quigleyer]

Funny because I was wondering what went wrong with this one. You guys wanna stab at it?

Keep in mind "start over" is still valid. Something's really off and I don't think I took it as far as I could through lack of interest and an understanding something wasn't "vibing."

I couldn't decide if the lense distortion present in my references worked or not, so I hit it somewhere in the middle. Any thoughts concerning this in particular would intrigue me.

If you'd like I can also present the references I shot for this.

Thanks for anything you can contribute.

[mc2mc2]

o sweeet...looks like I have to come up with something for you guys to fix for me
brb lol

[Pavel Sokov]

Paintovers are really the best type of feedback, and I am excited about this thread a lot!

I am currently working on this, it is really important to me. I feel as though I am struggling with the colours the most.
Without the colour layers turned on, I feel like I am doing just fine, but when I turn on the colours I am not sure if the picture benefits from them at all.
Please help!

[algenpfleger]

zx52hg, here's what I tried to do with yours
I thought the main problem here was value, everything is around a mid value, which really flattens out a painting. Maybe try to play around with how you can put dark versus light shapes, it can really help you make your stuff read. I also thought your painting was a bit oversaturated, which led to two things: 1. Hard to read and 2. doesn't work too well with the postapocalyptic scenery. So what I did was desaturate it and then separate the silhouettes by changing the values a bit. Things also tend to get more desaturated the further they are away, that's not always true but since saturated things pop out it's a good thing to have it in the back of your head
To further break up the shapes and have more light vs dark overlap I added that lighting from the side, just to make the value pattern more interesting and to separate the forground from the middleground a bit.

Media doesn't really have anything to do with it, the principles of painting are the same in traditional and digital, so don't worry about that

It might be a good idea for you to just do some more observation painting, and observe how light and contrast behave in reality, trust me, it really helps


Attachment 1004008



And SouMeng, damn that moon really helped it D: Thanks!!

[Lukas Esch]

Geile Sache ihr beiden
Finde das echt klasse dass ihr euch so einsetzt für uns!

[zx52hg]

zx52hg, here's what I tried to do with yours
I thought the main problem here was value, everything is around a mid value, which really flattens out a painting. Maybe try to play around with how you can put dark versus light shapes, it can really help you make your stuff read. I also thought your painting was a bit oversaturated, which led to two things: 1. Hard to read and 2. doesn't work too well with the postapocalyptic scenery. So what I did was desaturate it and then separate the silhouettes by changing the values a bit. Things also tend to get more desaturated the further they are away, that's not always true but since saturated things pop out it's a good thing to have it in the back of your head
To further break up the shapes and have more light vs dark overlap I added that lighting from the side, just to make the value pattern more interesting and to separate the forground from the middleground a bit.

Media doesn't really have anything to do with it, the principles of painting are the same in traditional and digital, so don't worry about that

It might be a good idea for you to just do some more observation painting, and observe how light and contrast behave in reality, trust me, it really helps

And SouMeng, damn that moon really helped it D: Thanks!!

Holy cow, I'm impressed! Many thanks for taking the time to do this.

[Janaschi]

Wheee the Thread is growing! < 3

Alexson: no problem! I'm glad I could help =D

Donna: very nice! I especially like the colors of the background
In my overpaint I focused on the face since you wrote you've got the most trouble with it.
I think the overall face structure is nice. Only the colors bothers me a bit. I think the face could work well with a lot less contrast. You also used very bright and saturated colors. Try to scale down that a bit. Maybe do some quick color studies from life from your face or hands and see how natural/diffuse daylight works. Frankly, I dont understand it by myself, but it will really help you to get rid of that digital/overlayish look in your paintings
Also, the light situation changed compleatly when you compare the dress with her skin.

Attachment 1004030



Spikings: Hi Here is my overpaint, I hope I didnt do too much!
First I tried to fix the proportions of the face a bit by using photoshop's liquefy tool. Before you start adding colors you should check your lines and proportions. I know sometimes you eager to finally start with colors but the drawing underneath isnt less important. In fact the painting will be as good as the drawing underneath is, no matter how good the colors are!
I also think you used a bit too much white for your highlights and too much black for your shadows. Thats a mistake nearly everyone makes in the beginning. Try to explore more ways to color by doing photostudies with different lightsituations for example. The light itself could be also a bit more "dramatic" with focus on the light snake

Attachment 1004031

[Janaschi]

Here is another one °_°/

Quigleyer: Basically I think you use too much black. Everything is a bit too dark and has too much contrast. I would suggest to work more in the midtones and with less black
Imagine a dark room with an open door where such a huge lightsource like in your painting comes in. The room is filled with diffuse light.

Composition: I think the element are a bit running out of corner. So I copied the flames down a bit for instance.

I also think your painting is waaaaay too saturated like you've put a huge orange overlay layer on top of it (totally sounds like me too, haha). I found out that the painting looks more realistic by just subducting the saturation a bit.

Attachment 1004068

[Reedux]

You guys!!

Too awesome I'm reading every crit!
I honestly thought this thread would be flooded by now

I promise I wont post another pic
This is a wip Im working on. (gonna redraw the dude, and was thinking of adding some blueish green to break all the warm colors)

No -need- to do a paintover, some pointers would be enough I think