Project Spitfire

[Project_Spitfire]

Friend of mine has been nagging me to do this for ages, so I guess I should get on with it :D. I work largely in Photoshop, but I also really enjoy Copic Markers.

Lets kick this off with some work I did for my final major in college around last June. Probably wont upload anything older than that.

[Project_Spitfire]

The first is based off a sketch I did whilst on holiday in Scotland. I saw these two rocks sticking out the sea that appeared to have faces.

The second was a bit of skin tone practice. Friend of mine very bravely volunteered his face. Unfinished, as is most of my work :P.

[Project_Spitfire]

This year Christmas card design plus some Copic marker stuff. The Copic Angel is missing chunks out of his wings because of my damned scanner. >:(

[tehmeh]

It's a good start, and there is potential but a lot of fundamentals need working on, your digital pieces lack both proper lighting as well as contrast in design. You would really benefit from reading up on some colour theory and how light works, http://www.huevaluechroma.com/ is a good start.

by lack of contrast I mean they are very grey, especially the first too pieces. desaturating them will reveal what I mean, values are really important to show both form of objects being lit and distance from the viewer, having more contrast in the foreground would really add the depth those lack.

the colour is another thing that can be worked, those surfaces that are lit affect the colour of all the surfaces near them they can bounce to, reflective light is really important to include and the best way to get good at that is by painting some well-lit still lifes of things around you, experimenting with light on different objects and colours. http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107217 is a really good thread for that, and http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm has some great stuff too.

Keep it up, I don't know if you want to take this professional but if so I would spend more time on fundamental studies with pencils and digital still lifes instead of original works for now. If not, carry on but these pointers should help!

[Project_Spitfire]

Thankyou Tehmeh, really appreciate the feedback :). Yes, the dream is to take my art to a professional level, but its so hard to find useful criticism and tuition.

The web links look very helpful, will study them in depth.

Thanks again :).

[devastacio]

Hi there,

As tehmeh mentioned once you learn the color theory properly you can do better work.
Anyways try this link. Its good at the beginning i guess since it can help you to choose proper color values for a painting. Although i strongly suggest getting your eye familiar with color so don't be overly dependent on this software.

http://colorschemedesigner.com/

Good luck mate.

[Project_Spitfire]

devastacio: Thanks for the link, looks good :).

Been reading through some of the links Tehmeh mentioned and I've started doing some still life paintings. The desk I think I bit off more than I could chew, should really have picked a tighter area as the whole scene became sloppy and uninteresting. Plus I needed to read that Thor comic before I could finish it :D.

Th fruit turned out ok, though I think I need to work on the form as they both look rather flat. Perhaps drawing them in relation to my desk, as opposed to sitting on white paper.

Constructive crits more than welcome. :)

[TacoMeat]

In PS, I find it easier to establish the value first before I apply my color. Try to expand your value range more because your work looks a little flat to me. Adding more values will create more depth. Happy Painting!

[Project_Spitfire]

Cheers TacoMeat, Ill take that on board for the next painting :).

Here's some life drawing and hand studies. There was more but yet again my scanner butchered them, so I shal upload them later. I know the guy on the left has stumpy legs, but any other crits, appreciated as always :).

[Project_Spitfire]

Two versions of the same thing, first one I had the blind open, which kinda screwed up the lighting. So I tried again with just the desk lamp. Their both pretty rubbish though :p.

[Project_Spitfire]

Finally got my scanner back, so here's some of my recent life drawings.

[BHCS]

Oi.

Where are my updates?

[Project_Spitfire]

Time to fix my awful colour theory with lots and lots of still life. My first effort in ages is below. Shadows and highlights aren't strong enough...

[Project_Spitfire]

Well this is royally borked. Rediscovered how much of a nightmare screen calibration is; the reference material looked a lot more orange when I dragged it from screen to cinteq.

[BHCS]

Well this is royally borked. Rediscovered how much of a nightmare screen calibration is; the reference material looked a lot more orange when I dragged it from screen to cinteq.

Woot, updates! :D

You can use my Spyder 3 screen calibration thingy if you want, its pretty good for matching monitors.
When it comes to still lifes, dont think. Just try to observe what you see, if the colour you have placed isn't right, undo it and correct it, any small mistakes will eff up your colours, try to be as accurate as possible.

As for working from reference, you should still be able to get good impression of form without the colours being accurate. Currently your strokes dont seem to compliment the actual form of the objects, instead you are shading up/down the shadow lines making it all look very blocky. Again, paint what you see, not what you think you see, even if that means your lines not being crisp at first.

[Project_Spitfire]

Thanks for the feedback mate. Yeah, the spyder would be great. I do have a Pantone huey, but its useless, never worked properly :/.

[Project_Spitfire]

More terrible work in my search for better colour theory. Overblown saturation this time.