DefiledVisions Sketchbook 2.0 | Back to the basics | apr15

[lilou]

wooow!!! the last one has some good potential! like... some underwater scene or something! I know these are very rough pieces, but may I suggest you try to create interesting moods and atmosphere, by using gradients, layer settings and stuff. the earlyer you do this in your works the sooner you will get a better feeling for the scene you're painting.

I know this motivation issues... but still, never let it keep you from paintig too long!
I had a good weekend and soon will be able to update some sketches again

[DefiledVisions]

Lilou - Thanks! yea I really gotta think of that.. it worked out for the dragon, so theres no reason why it won't work here I just get so frustrated though.. when I try to paint something special I get nowhere.. after I've been stuck for half an hour or so I just go random rage and doodle some crap.. and those 10-20 minute doodles I produce often turn out better than the piece I worked on for 1 hour.. haha.
Sorry, enough whine from me. Thanks! glad to see you back Diana

random crap (15-20 minutes/ piece) and Art crusade battle vs Nightblue... stuck on that piece.

*edit* page 5 ?! my shortest page ever! ooh.. new goal, page 6 within 2 weeks.

[lilou]

oh my gosh!!! all these updates are fantastic!!! can't tell which one I like most!!!

I think you set yourself too much under pressure! I bet you think 'this sketch has great potential, I GOTTA make something out of it' !!! and this urge not to mess it up makes you loose the overview.
Try to relax, you don't have to prove anything!

I'm sure you'll be fine! *hugs*

gotta go to work now! bye bye

[Dannelf]

The last drawing is amazing! Love the way you're able to catch motion in a picture (even though I've possible already said it).

Kör hårt!

[DefiledVisions]

Lilou - thanks! With each visist you make, my dull day gets a little brighter. Yea I got all stuck in not messing it up.. couldn't work any more on it.. waiting for your updates

Dannelf - Hey man! thanks .. du med!

A piece with the theme "Underwater city" .. in this case.. ruins. I'm happy on how it went until about stage 5.. then I kinda lost it

[Nightblue]

Love the underwater piece, the composition is really nice. I think the reason you don't like the last steps is all parts of the painting have similar level of details and sharpness. Have you tried using softer brushes or air brushes? While I've never been able to use airbrush as a rendering brush, I found it very useful to create atmosphere/luminosity/depth or do small adjustments to part of an image. The softness of airbrush would also make a lot of sense in an underwater scene.

I hope you don't mind me doing a paint-over with a few very quick blue, red, and black airbrush strokes: http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/d..._paintover.jpg

[Giorge]

Nice perspective on 122 man , really love to see how the finished piece looks like.

[lilou]

whoa Murli, that was so nice of you to say, made me really happy to read *BIG hug*
but you shouldn't let your day be dull :/ there are tons of cool things you can do, don't stress yourself so much, remember painting is something fun to you, you do it cos you like it, and you're in the very comfortable position where you don't have to prove anything, so just paint, try to learn and enjoy the mistakes
As for your under water scene I agree with Nightblue, its the same thing I mentioned before, like tryig to use some gradients ( or big soft airbrushes) and layer options to create more atmosphere in your pics. it helps a lot
but some of the orange tones are way too bright ( in the lower ground) they take my eyes away from the ship and keep me from moving into the far bg of the scene... I think you don't need so many 'highlights' in this one

I'll try to update my sb as soon as I get to a scanner... sorry for my lazyness... always so tired after work...

keep on rockin'
bye

[DefiledVisions]

Nihtblue - thanks for the insight. And a thousand thanks for paintover! you really shouldn't have.. using spare time on me thanks. I've been given so much good information and nice tips, I need to start taking them more into consideration... damn me.

Flamable thanks man. I'm sad to say I never really finnished it... just added some lame colour.. hehe

Lilou .. Diana, I'd kiss you if you were here thank you so much for the encouragement and feedback. There's nothing wrong with being lazy either.. take your time, enjoy what life has to offer - and an occasional don't give a shit about anything

thank you .. I borrowed a book from school about landscape painting for oil. In theory this also applies to digi painting, so.. here goes a sunset. More to come from this book.

[Grafguy]

nice sketchbook
the last piece looks good! lovely use of colors
though ,if the sun is hanging that low that the sky is glowing red/orange
then the 'world' wouldnt be that bright anymore
the rocks look as if the sun is at its brightest

cheers!

[ReviseTheMethod]

Hey mate! =D
Damn, that one in #125 was badass! ^^
I like your composition studies, keep working on those and inspire the rest of us

Keep it up!

[DefiledVisions]

Grafguy - thanks! and damn you for pointing that out I guess it's mid-day then. My book didn't say anything about the time of the day, but all the yellow made me think sunset - guess it's more late noon? hehe

ReviseTheMethod - Thank you man! good seeing you around here again


Wheew.. In a good mood today. For some reason I have the song "I'm so horny" by Mousse-T echoing in my head.. that's a good thing right?

Today I discovered something important - a new way of painting.. or actually, some, in my opinion, key principals behind painting:

Light and contrast
Control of colors, saturation especially.

It all came when I was checking out Dile_'s homepage and I saw a concept piece of a fishlike humanoid holding a spear.. And after looking at it a while, reflecting over how he had painted the piece, a eureka moment appeared.

The crocodile was made before I had my 'eureka' enjoy.

[ReviseTheMethod]

Ooooh! Killer stuff =)

Like with all your lizard-ish designs, the crocodile looks really cool =)
It would probably be good to try and push out the head a bit more, since it blends in a bit too much with the rest of the body.
Adding some well placed highlights would really make it pop =)

Sweet work on the new style! Nice sense of movement in the phoenix, and the colors are working well too.
From a more critique oriented viewpoint: I think that it needs another leg in the shot to really come across as an easily read phoenix =)
I had some trouble "seeing" the phoenix, although I knew that that's what it was

Keep up the great work! :>

[Dannelf]

Cool updates as usual, dude!
As ReviseTheMethod said, I hope you take the drawings to the next level. Especially the Phoenix! I like the attidue and the colours.
Maybe the smoke could use a little bit more softness (If you know what I mean).
I admire your way of drawing with such hard brushes. that's how You've managed to make the pheonix's head in center of the picture, with putting more details on it!

It's really inspiring whatching your works man! It's really instructive.

Kör hårt!
I'll be back!

~Dan

[Mokinzi]

Your beasts just rocks! Love the phoenix you are working on now, it looks really awesome and fierce.
And it is amazing to see how much you are improving at humans and portraits! Pretty stunning. Keep it up!
Remember me, by the way? Vilde from Elfwood?

[Giorge]

Oh god love those dragons , i was planing on doing some dragon shadows , ill see what i come up with , anyway . You can always finish it , that's the beauty of digital medium ^^. And one of those dragons sketches , could look nice rendered . You's on my must see list mate

[Jaytea]

O_O wow, so much good stuff in so little time. Respect, man. Keep it up!

[Lingmerth]

I think you should extend the phoenix picture further to the right and maybe even cropping it more on the left. The focus point (the head) is too far to the right and to close to the border of the picture, it leads the eye out of the frame.

And I would change the background color for the reactor creature, it competes to much with the creature, something more subdued would make the creature pop out more.

[lilou]

whoa O_O !!! your progress is impressing! your paintings are getting better and better, my fav is the second in post #132, great texture, super awesome smoke like, great movement and the desaturated colors fit quite well !!! the phoenix has great feel of movement too, and the fire is captured masterfully...

I'm glad you discovered new ways of painting, this is a great sign of your improovement! It's really not easy to look carefully at a painting you would like to learn from, and find out what it is that makes it so much better than your own works... I still find myself looking at loads of great pictures but I do not learn from them, maybe I just don't look carefully enough... dunno...

however, you're deffinetly on the right track!
Oh and thanks for the imaginary internet kiss, hahaha guess I should kiss you back then... and you don't have to thank me for anything, I'm just babbling on your sketchbook, don't even have constructive things to write...
uuuuuh, I should better go drawing now...

oh, and that Mousse-T song is alarming!! but I won't say why, whehee *evilgrin*

bye bye
Di

[Lotet]

great updates mate, ur pencils are getting really tight.

[DefiledVisions]

ReviseTheMethod - Thank you very much, great inputs. I havn't planned on polishing them any more than what they are since they're concepts. But I'll take your advice with me for later stuff!
thanks.

Dannelf- Thanks alot man! Yea I realise now the piece has the same amount of hardness over all.. and you're very right about the smoke thanks.

Mokinzi - Thanks alot! - ofcourse I remember you

Flamable - haha thanks!.. I really should be doing more dragons now I want to do more dragons!

Shalite - Thanks! keep pushing it yourself

Lingmerth - THanks for the critique! very much appreciated. I did some different crops, and it looked a lot better when I cut a part of the left so the head got more centered. And you're very right about the background for Reactor.. didn't have a clue about what to do so just took a bright yellow (what the hell?) I just might give it a new background. thanks.

Lilou - THank you! I hope you keep babbling cause I like to read it .. and I also hope you update with some new art about watching other people's art .. I find it dificult with complete illustrations - I just find myself being lost in the awesomeness.. haha, however what really helps is to see the wip's behind the piece, or some tutorial - because I think the information given by the different steps is really good.

Lotet - thanks man!


many replies.. not much today - some weapons. More digital up during the weekend.

[DefiledVisions]

Some thoughts about this week's chow - Spike, the dragon dentist

[DARAF]

I like the weopon ideation you got going on here. Rock on.

[grenappels]

huh, i really like this book, you have really awesome spirally shapes going on, they are really effective (http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1225232125 and the one above it). and your weapon experimentation is a really good idea, you landed on a few really good designs there. cool beans

[DefiledVisions]

DARAF - thanks! I've got some more concepts going on so there will be more.

Grenapples - I'm not quite sure what you mena with spiral shapes. You mean the flames on the wing? thanks by the way

Color wip on the chow... I know the orange is too intense, working on that

[Mokinzi]

I liked the weapons! The hammer was really cool

And a dragon dentist?! Pretty genious ^^ Looking forward to see how it will turn out!

[grenappels]

yeah i guess i was vague, but that's what i meant. are you using photoshop? if so what brushes?

[DefiledVisions]

Mokinzi - thanks! yea me too

Grenapples - Yes, working in photoshop cs3 .. um currently I'm using basic round brush in different opacities / softnesses and some custom brushes I got from somewhere, can't remember really - but they give that textury brushy feeling.

Some Nov 1. selfportraits! and man.. I don't look this asian really.. I must be doing something right

somehow I turn out different every time I do a selfportrait.. guess I need to study more!

[towy]

very good progress here
i like really your line and now your speed paint are amazing, often when you work more your drawing i think it's less good, i supose you know that
you are in the good way

[Nightblue]

love the weapon designs! The energy and flow to the phoenix is awesome. Good to see you tackling self portraits too! keep rocking