A colorful piece :) (an attempt at surrealism, strange)

[Murlodont]

Well, as the title of the thread says, this was an attempt of mine at surrealism. I started off with a sketch, and moved on to color it in photoshop. Granted, I'm not too good at coloring, I'm still happy that the piece turned out as good as it did :confident Let me know what you think, crits will only help.

Oh, and I'm calling it Repentance.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v219/Anghardel67/christone2.jpg

This is the uncolored original sketch. It only took about 20 minutes or so, and yes, I'm slow :P. I started with a person simply in front of the cross in that particular position, but I decided to move on in light of a picture I was looking at by Giorgio De Chirico, who I've become interested in lately--hence the floorboards beneath the character. Then I simply went with the ideas I had in my head. It turned out to be what I wanted in the end, thankfully not having too many unecessary things, and not too complicated to deal with :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v219/Anghardel67/christone23.jpg

This is, obviously, the colored piece. I hate computers, every time I upload something the quality of the picture is somehow taken away, not sure why. Perhaps the color looks funky since I'm not too friendly with pixels, and did it in photoshop--other than that, it's one of my first few real attempts at coloring. Symbolism abound, the cross on his head--the swastika on his shoulder (which I am not sure to be in the correct position); the shattered glass mirror represents a shattered reflection, thus the title "repentance", which is what he is trying to do I suppose. I added the 'night sky' in the background because I thought it would add to the effect of darkness, without being excessively gloomy.The black 'lines' holding the yin-yang symbol are supposed to be an extension of a shadow on the wood--ooo, creepy--the yin-yang representing something of the male/female aspect in everything, symbolizing the repentance to be aimed not as one specific gender (which people sometimes pick up for some reason)--also the genderless head tries to support this, *cough* tries.

That's about it--let me know what you think :)

Stephen

[Kenny_Callicutt]

I know this is going to sound harsh but im going to say it anyways. That colouring is absolutely horrible. Now ill tell you why. your color chocies are way to saturated and seem arbitrary, even if it is surrealism you can put thought into what colors should go where and where our attention should progress from place to place. As for your colouring technique to me it looks like a blatant paintbucket>fill space> burn/dodge. Dont use burn/dodge to shade, it looks terrible and you can spot it a mile away. Pick an actual darker/lighter color and paint with it. Another note is, you explained everything, which to me seems to defeat the purpouse of surrealism. I was under the impression the viewer determines their own personal meaning, or at least thats what my professors who have lectured on the topic or something similar have said.

In the future I would post in the helpful critiques section, because your more likely to get a helpful critique.

Dont let my harsh crit get you down im just giving you something to think about. Also I have the feeling you coloured it with a mouse in photoshop, if you plan on continuing with digital colouring id suggest hitting up www.wacom.com for a tablet if your are serious about it.

~peace

[Woodrodius]

I agree with everything Ken says except the necessity of a Wacom tablet. Great work can be done with a mouse, and for some it's a more natural tool.

[Murlodont]

hey crits are crits, and you pretty much hit the nail on the head as far as my technique goes. I'll keep in mind also to try and not explain so much of the picture in the future (thanks for pointing it out).

Since I'm pretty new at coloring I suppose I'll have to take a look around and maybe bug some people for tips before heading out to do so again--I thought it looked alright, but apparently I'm far too obvious. I forsee a lot of practice, mostly because the painting in with a different shade for darks and lights has been bugging me for a while--whenever I tried it that is.

Thanks again man, crits are what I post here for :)

Stephen

[Woodrodius]

If you look at your B&W version, what makes it really stand out is the contrast. You lose that in the colored version. Try working in a monochromatic scale, I think you'll find the results a lot more aesthetically pleasing.