Valya's Sketchbook - harsh critique welcome (update: 23/03/2013)

[SkyrimBox]

Hello, I saw all your work from the beginning to end of this thread and I absolutely love everything you have done. I can see a progress and is amazing!!!

[teapo]

val, the self portraits are looking excellent. what's your approach with them? i'm curious i've just been slabbing on a general silhouette of my head but keeping in mind the structure when i try to facet the features in-- however, i must study more head structure as my knowledge is flawed. yours are looking great however and the ability to render them in color is amazing another thing i take note of your rendering is you have a nice mix-up between tightly rendered areas with some loosely detailed sections.

anyway, keep it going

[Valyavande]

woha, so many comments! thanks guys!
Greenhouse: you're welcome! I'm always glad when I can help someone. Thank you too for visiting!

shockowaffel: Oh, I always use more than one book for learning anatomy =) I noticed that everyone has own ways to show muscles and stuff, so I always compare. And some people guess that Bridgman was just drunk sometimes while drawing. At least, that would explain the shit he had done from time to time. XD
And the thing about colours, whether and focus in the environment is absolutly true. Will be kind of a hard fight to think of all that at the same time. Practice will help. As always. Thank you!

Lightship: thank you a lot for your nice words! And I think if it comes again to WIPs of bigger pictures you will have same great ideas about the concept and story again as I experienced it in the critique center. That's even a great thing, because there can always be a lack of ideas, even if the technical part is ok.

Voodoo Mama: thank for visiting and the links! I kind of know them, but startet to forget them already! So it's good to remember them again. Still, I have always the problem to find the intelligent way to apply that edges stuff to my pictures. I always wonder where it makes sense to do this or that. But seems like always studing and practising is the only way to find out.

Rotor: woah, thanks! Sounds like I'm on the right path to get better with values if someone can see that I try to make something happening there.

aks9: thanks for visiting too! And there's a high possibility that the problem is about the values. But I try working on it =)

LordLouis: I haven't even thought that I improved so much, so I'm kind of surprised to read that you think so! But it makes me happy. I'm just doing my stuff and try to fight against comfort zones and missing knowledge.
The self portraits are all done with a mirror. But it's not too easy to get the different angles without having a mirror landing on my head! I just try to fix it somehow on my shelf that's standing here on my desk.
And I'm so glad you like the creatures! They're absolutly fun to do, even if I just do them from time to time.
And there's no secret about my colours. I'm just messing around and try to apply what I learned in the studies. That may work, or even don't work sometimes (I know, that's really not a good answer!)

LittleMaiden: thank you! And I'm not lying! If I look back how slow I improved over the years, you're much faster now than I was. I always hope that this sketchbook and the nice comments can make me a bit faster too. Because I start messing around if I have no direction or idea what to work on.
As for environments, let us say, they're stupid bitches who like to annoy us!

SkyrimBox: thanks for the kind words!

teapo: hey teapo, nice to see around in this sketchbook! I try to use the self portraits to get a better understanding of the features of the head and how they work in depth. So, values are a point too. But I think I can learn better if I try to master the values together with colours, because I really can't work with grayscales as a basic for a picture. I need to work with colours from the beginning. But I need to do more studies of the overall headstructure too. Let us keep up the stuff!


Ok, now we come to the update. Not to much to show because I started a bigger image and had not too many time for studies.

First, a crappy self portrait. I tried to focus more on the brushwork, but it didn't went too well.


Stilllife painting where I tried to combine different more or less white objects


and a bigger painting. A girly thing. Too girly *cough* So far I wouldn't call it done. So, if someone has advices to make it better, I'm open for every word =)

[Greenhouse]

Nice update! The last one is very beautiful, I like the colors.
It doesn’t matter if it’s girly or not I think a lot of people will like it.
Keep it up Valyavande, I love your work!

[Nele Klumpe]

Last Painting = win!!!!

[rumpenstiltzkin]

wish i had anything useful to say but that last one is gorgeous really! love the colors

[LtPlissken]

Forest Goddess = sooooo soooo beautiful

i can see her nipples

[Black Spot]

I don't think it's that girly - you should see some of the stuff some of the guys come up with.

On the self portraits, I think being consistent in getting the face recognisable is the main goal, showing what you're thinking is tough.

[diana6echo]

your last work is truly amazing: colors, lights and general mood. I really like it

[Valyavande]

Thank you all for the nice feedback

This thing is going to kill me... I'm working and working and working on it and I get no good feeling about it. Hmpf. At least it's different now. Whatever that means.


And a photostudy should've taken more time to do.


But there's even a more positive thing to talk about. I may start an internship in April (if I find a flat in Hamburg so fast) at Daedalic Entertainment, a company that develops mostly adventure games with beautiful painted backgrounds. I'm looking forward to make some great experiences =)

[witcrack]

That girl with a dead bird, I like the face and the dead bird's pose on the previous version better. But the lighting is better on the latest version. Just my opinion, hope it helps

Keep it up!

[rumpenstiltzkin]

the progress looks good to me! and i wish you the best with the internship, sounds exiting!

[jondawo]

Hey, your self portraits are coming along really well. They show a good grasp of colour I think that the latest version of the girl with the bird is a little dark but the directional lighting coming across her face works very well. I also like the framing with the tree and the leaves.

[Greenhouse]

Good work on the girl with the bird! I love her eyes, I’ve always huge problem to get both eyes in the right shape!
She looks like she has aged some years. I like the light on her face, though I liked the first very much as well. But this last has a more warmth about her.
Maybe you could add some more shadow and light on the bird. It doesn’t stand out in the picture. The broken wing was better in the first. But you know, I love this image either way!

About the internship, what a great moment for you! You’ll learn so much. I hope to hear more about it! Good luck!

[Valyavande]

thanks again all of you!
I changed now the wing of the bird again, because even I liked it more in the way it was in the first version. The face is bugging me still a bit. There is something that I liked more in the first version, but I can't get it here. Maybe the different light situations are causing that problem. I'm not sure.
Anyway, I'm happy to read that people like the way of the light in the face =) Was a new experience for me.
I worked mostly on details now. Changed the fingers a bit, reworked the ornaments of the dress, made the lower arms thinner and some more stuff. I think, in all the time I do digital painting now, I never worked so long on one piece. For god's sake, rendering is terrible and evil for me. Just too much time consuming. But I need that I should care about it and give my best. So, this was a step in the right direction.

And as far as possible, I will tell some details about my internship in the future =)

[Voodoo_Mama]

That last illustration is very pretty! I don't have anything to crit on it. I like how you showed those light spots, it helps give the feeling that's she's in a forest under trees.
That photostudy turned out really well. Specially the veil of the woman.

[Greenhouse]

Ah, I like the change of the bird. The details are just beautiful. The flowers, moss, snake, ladybug, butterfly and even the tiny little drop make the whole picture interesting.
The light and shadow is much stronger now and it gives more depth to the whole image. And I also like how the leaves at the top frames it. Très bon !

[Valyavande]

thhhaaaaaanks a lot

Small update... I have not to much time to paint because I need to prepare many things to move at the end of this week. Looking forward to be in Hamburg =)

[Satu]

Love the girl on post #285! Really love the light on her face and her eyes are so beautiful and captivatings. Good work!

[Macska]

The "girlish" thing turned out well on #285, I love such things. And I love the atmosphere of the ent like pic. Sorry I can't criticize your work as useful as you did at my sb.

[Lightship69]

Hi there matey

I just swung by to see what there was to see and WOW!! I just kove the girlie with the bird in her hands, I like pictures like this that make me fill in the story in my mind, has she found it and is sad, is she a dryad or other tree sprite that is showing us how careless we are. I really like that mate its good, I have no crit to offer sorry.....

all the best with the next ones.

[Black Spot]

I don't know what's going on re her lower arms. The texture is odd.

Congrats on the internship and hope it goes well.

[LordLouis]

Internship? Hamburg?

Updates!!

[Valyavande]

Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry that I didn't update for such a long time! There was just too much happening in RL.

Well, as planned, I moved to Hamburg and started my internship at the beginning of April. Now I'm at Daedalic Entertainment.
And I'm happy. The work and the people there are great. I have to say that I wasn't really sure that I can paint at work and be creative the whole day without problems. But it is really what I wanted. Couldn't be any better. I'm doing some character concepts and ingame graphics for still secret projects. So there is no way to tell you more about that or even show you something.
I just can update my sketchbook now with the few things I did for myself. It's not too much, but I'm not dead yet XD

[MeteorCat]

It's good to see you're back. I wondered where you were, checking your blog almost daily. Congratulations on everything!

Cool update too!

[rumpenstiltzkin]

love those enviros! friggin awesome work, and also congrats again, and its good to hear you en joy it too!

[sammfshields]

Awesome sketchbook, great inspiration to see your improvement! Luke steele from empire of the sun is from my city and I know his brother and cousin

[aks9]

that last enviroment is fantastic. congrats on the internship

[Umbravita]

Congrats on the internship. It sounds like you're really happy there.

That first pic in your latest post is gorgeous. Love the colours.

[Lightship69]

Thanks for the SB visit my mate, it was great to see your comments and I would just like to say that I am so happy that you got the job/ internship, That can only be a good thing working and learning as you go, brilliant!

all the best with it all and please keep posting.