Daedelus Workshop Study Group

[Wheeljack18]

Hey guys, here is another installment of the sketchbook stuff and a head study. I dunno if this belongs in the Daedelus Thread or not but it is what I am working on that I can show and it's all part of the learning/studying process so I guess it's relevant.

I've been fiddling with Sketchbook Pro and to be honest, I haven't taken to it like I thought I would. Maybe it is because I am used to photoshop but it just isn't working. Perhaps with more practice. Anyways, here's a head, a Page of warm up/ study in PS and a page of Sketchbook Pro.
Painter IS a resource hog but hopefully with my new system I'll finally be able to flex my muscles and see if I can't whip up something decent. So far I only like Painter to blend colors and to Ink pencils. Otherwise, it's all photoshop.

Turpenoid: To be honest, once I found it, I stopped using anything else besides linseed oil for thinning pigment for glazes. I don't know why you can't get it but if you ever get a chance try it out.

For your Sketches and portraits Dave I'd say that these are your best yet. The portraits look real good and are starting to show something new in your work that I haven't seen before. Also the perspective work you did before is starting to come through with the I robot stuff. You still haven't finished the Tarzan piece and you are already onto the next?! Loads of ideas eh?

Keep it coming!

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Let's kiddy-up the old horse again, shall we peeps? We are back! Feel free to chime in with your own things, everyone!

Here's one I finished today:

http://eeliskyttanen.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d5kmbp8

And then here's one WIP I will be continuing tomorow:

[David Keen]

Alrighty! Let's get the old girl moving again shall we?! I really like the piece you're working on at the moment! The mostly blue grey colour palette with just hints of warmth is working really well! No real notes except I'd love to see you do something new and exciting with the architecture. Make is stand out and be unique not just a stock standard castle. I've got a good feeling about this one Eelis!

[David Keen]

I've made a little more progress on the Robbie painting I've been working on recently. I still need to do another pass on the girl and change up some anatomy as you suggested Mike, but the majority of the rest of the image is close to final values. I'll also throw in a colour version I played with quickly today, far from final, just some ideas as the moment. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

Talk soon guys.

[David Keen]

I pushed on with this a bit and am pretty close to calling it finished. Anything jumping out at you guys at this point?

[Wheeljack18]

Hey guys,

Looks like we are back on the horse again. This will be good and I'm surprised that we have been off site since August. I hope that the people here at CA noticed that there was a problem and maybe they will do something about it. But I digress.....

Eelis: The last piece looks fine. I thought that you were going to do some studies next?

David: My Comments still stand from our other discussion and it looks like you chose not to address them. It still remains unclear as to what the substance at the bottom is ie: Gas or Liquid. Did a pipe break? Is there a fire? Can you do more to suggest to the viewer what happened? I would either change the figures up top or remove them. Right now they don't seem to be reacting to the situation and take away from the narrative. Unless, their disinterest is part of the story then I would change the middle guys silhouette to a profile to suggest that he is walking past like the others. Right now, it suggests that he is looking directly at the scene below and watching dispassionately. The girl, you know my thoughts on her too so I won't harp on you.

I like what you have going on with the lighting beneath the surface stuff and how it reflects off of the robot. Right now the light is positioned below and behind the robot but the reflected light suggests that is is coming more from directly beneath him. To fix that you could add more reflected light to the rear of his spine and below the rib structure as well as some hints on the back and under carriage of the hip dome on the right, His left elbow spike and maybe just a bit to his lower skull and head piece. Lastly, the red head plate really stands out on the robot but I am unsure as to weather or not it is red light or that the plate is supposed to be colored red. Everything else on him is grey and green so the red piece confuses the design.

As for me, Not much to show ATM that is not work related. I have some studies etc that I've been piling up and unfinished stiff that I figure I'll post up now and maybe we can discuss them if you like. I have several ideas for that spectrum submission and I hope to get around to them and post them up for you to review within a week or two. The first is a half finished study or Eva Gardner that I plan on executing in an Al Buell style and the second is a Digital Charcoal drawing of Les Nessman from a favorite 80's sitcom WKRP in Cincinatti. I like drawing these characters and I plan on draing the whole cast just because I can. The likeness is ok and not bad for the first attempt.

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Ohop, sorry guys, I am bad with promises!

David, about your last piece: I mostly agree with Mike. The top half of the picture is way too empty though, you should try to emphasize the characters behind the class. Maybe move the lightsource of the wall up to the control room? Tht could create kinda nice dramatic lighting.

Another thing is the child's face. To me it looks like a middle aged woman even though the size of the body is real small. A midget? Anyway, I would really go through the face again while checking some refs. It might be the nose.

Mike: And I sure did! Plenty! Some digital painting copies of boots, glass etc. Also a few jolt downs of the colour schemes some of the masters have used. Then I have been studying trees and wildlife with watercolours, especially trying to learn the way Omar Rayaan does his magic with em. I've got some nice results so far. Going to make A4 size christmas themed watercolour painting next, it will be a blast!

But I still need to do that real tight still life still.

I also visited a maritime museum today and took so many notes and photos of their great ship models. That was the research for the ship & ocean piece I am going to start after I am done with this winterscape. Going to share that resource too!

I don't know if you peeps saw this, but I finished it on sunday. I quite like it personally, was fun!

Anyway otherwise everything's rolling.

Good job on the drawings! Especially the portrait of Nessman is great!

Cheers

Eelis

[Wheeljack18]

Hey Boys,

I just dumped a bunch more work off on my SB but here are a few more since my last post. It's weird but I've been focused on other work and have not really drawn much in a while and I feel all rusty and blocked. These charcoal drawings are my attempt at working through it. What I really think needs to be done is a good old long pose study. Now if I can only make the time.

Eelis: I really like this one. The lighting in the clouds is very epic. Good job. I see that you managed to sneak Crick in there! 2 points. 1: The structure in the foreground has a vertical line along the border that is distracting. I'd either work it up or remove it entirely. 2nd: The obelisk/ zepplin thingy could use a little more attention. The basic light and forms are fine but this item is such a big part of the narrative, it deserves more attention and detail to help it have more impact. Have you thought about doing matte painting? That might be right up your alley.

Cheers!

[David Keen]

Hey guys, sorry for the late reply. I've been flat out getting my stuff together for the end of the semester at uni, but thankfully that wrapped up yesterday and now it's all done! I'll have some more time now to dedicate to studying with you guys and portfolio work, hooray!

Mike, thank you very much for your continued help on the Robbie piece. I totally agree with you on a few points and I'd like to take another pass on the piece and to improve the finish. I'll be taking another shot at the girl especially and try to work her up to a more finished and convincing state. I did some study yesterday for how I'd like to do this and think it'll be greatly improved after including your advice. I'll also address the points you raised about lighting, thanks for taking the time to figure that out for me. There will be a fresh version up tomorrow evening for your input.

I like the figure work and studies you've been doing recently Mike. You've achieved a pretty nice charcoal effect on the Les Nessman piece and done some good drawing. I'll always be a big fan of the line drawing work you do like the sketchbook studies in you're most recent post. For me it's still some of your strongest stuff and appears so elegant because of your confidence with that technique. I can't wait to see some Spectrum stuff. Where are you headed with that now? Have you completely settled on an idea?

You're recent piece is looking good Eelis. I saw you post it on Team Awesome and you've done some good work iterating with people's feedback. I saw a few people mention flipping the direction on the obelisk and I agree with them that it acts like a big arrow pointing right off the page. I've done a quick PO tinkering with a few little things, I enjoyed playing with your beautiful colours and lighting and I hope you'll let me know what you think. I'm looking forward to seeing some more work on the ship piece, sounds like a tough challenge!



Great work guys, I'm looking forward to getting into some Daedelus stuff full time while I'm on uni break for a while.

Talk soon,

Dave.

[Wheeljack18]

Thanks for the compliments Dave. Now to only transfer that energy into my color work. To keep along with that theme of improvement. Here is another WKRP Study. This time in color! This one took about 1 hour all in and I used only one brush. I have such a huge collection of brushes and I need to spend more time with them and working on whittling it down a bit. I have nothing for you RE a spectrum Piece. I 'll going on a road trip this weekend so maybe I'll have some me time to noodle around with ideas.

Thanks and I'm looking forward to seeing those revisions!

Cheers

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Hey!

Sorry for silence guys, been busy painting some nice watercolour illustrations! Will share tomorrow. They are in quite weird forward though because the class required it, but I took it as a chance to practice with watercolours still. I have two underdrawings ready to be painted too! Starting them after these.

Anyway, thanks a lot for the paintover David! However, there are some problems regarding that approach, I personally tried all the changes you made.

First off, I experimented with details, a lot. The problem is that to keep an ultimate size one has to be really wary of how much detail is added. The changes you proposed bring the size of the cone down by a great deal.

Some people mentioned the problem that it is pointing outwards of the picture. However, I really, really disliked the flipped version myself when I experimented with it. It is against the "rules" yes, but I couldn't bring myself to keep that design. It wasn't mentioned by most of the people either, so I let it be.

I also feel that the birds you added create really, really strong force, which I was seeking to avoid throughout the picture.

Thanks a lot again for taking your time though! It is good for me too to break the picture down like this.

Mike: Darn, this must be the first piece I almost completely disagree with you guys! I really thought the straight vertical piece in the foreground helps to move the attention back to the figures, as I couldn't make the rimlight strong.

One thing I agree with though, I could have given more attention to the structure by adding stronger light coming from the left. But yeah, done is done! Good stuff to remember for the future.

Hmh, this marks probably the first time I have painted a child! Oh well, I am quite happy how she turned out. I still dislike human figures though!

About matte painting, I have thought about it but it doesn't really interest me that much. :/ I rather paint everything from scratch!

About my ship project: Yesh! One more painting and I will start up with that one. I will share my nice little reference package about huge 1700-century warships! Damn those things are intriguing, all o those little details, I love it!

I haven't been able to work on this one that much, but it is coming along. I am going to add somekind of a group of figures in line to the foreground. Also working on enhancing the building's architecture. Forest is a pain, seriously, but I will work it out! There is also some other problems in the mountainline and such.

Mike: Glad you are doing some pencil stuff too! Good portraits all along too.

Do I have to add that I am completely obsessed with watercolours now? Can't wait to do more full scale ones! I also need a better detail brush with super sharp tip, will buy one tomorrow! I have heard that only those made of animal hair keep their shape though...is this true? I gotta do the research! I would really like to avoid buying such a brush at all costs...if I am not sure it is not manufactured ethnically that is.

I also can't wait to get my hands on my acrylics. They are so damn flexible. This guy's landscape art with em has me completely obsessed with them too!

http://www.joehush.co.uk/index.html

Going to visit Finland for a month in 3 weeks and grabbing them too at the same time!

Anyway, cheers!

Eelis

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Heh, it is so easy to take and upload photos with the tablet that I must share this one!

These are for the school assigment, there is also a third picture at the top covered by the book. Sorry for the stupid cropping, but it was mandatory for the class.

[David Keen]

Hey guys,

Nice work with the most recent portrait Mike. I also have more brushes than I'll ever need but have been trying to whittle them down. Most of the time I just end up using the hard round, soft round and a chalky textured brush for little touches. Working with just one brush for a painting looks like a great exercise and you've certainly explored a variety of edges and strokes. Some nice skin tones in this one too!

Eelis I appreciate your feedback on the paint over, you certainly have some valid points. On the subject of details though I think there could be some more exploration. We've been discussing the "payoff" at length in the mentorship as a way of rewarding the viewer for looking at the parts of a painting you want to emphasise. In your piece above it's clear that the floating obelisk is the focus of the image and everything leads the viewers eye to explore and enjoy that awesomely dramatic structure. But by taking a more simplified approach there isn't really a lot for the viewer to discover and explore on the focal point. In your most recent piece the castle is the clear focal point and once we arrive at that part of the image there is a heap of cool details and interesting little pieces for us to look at and soak up. By contrast the previous image the obelisk doesn't really give us a great idea of what it is or what purpose it's serving which is perhaps something that could have been explained through further development. I know you don't love all of Feng's work but he manages this problem pretty well, treading that fine line of creating something MASSIVE while also giving the viewer a heap of cool stuff to look at. I really like what you've done on this piece and think it so close to being something really special which is the only reason I'd love to see you take it that extra 10% and knock that shit out of the park!

Great to see some more watercolour stuff man. How are you finding settling in to using a new media? It looks like you're starting to really get the hang of it. Will you be exploring other painting media for you classes as well further down the line? I can't wait to see some of your work once you get into opaque media! For the brushes quite often the synthetic ones will actually hold their tip a little bit better, especially in bristle brushes. For your watercolour work their is a synthetic brush type called white taklon which is pretty good, some of the synthetic and natural blends can work well too. Ask the guys at your local art shop which types of brushes they'd recommend for job and see which ones suit your price range. The other good thing about the synthetics is that they're generally pretty cheap.

I can't wait to see more watercolour work when you get a chance to scan it!

I needed a little break from my other pieces and have been working on an updated version of one of my old paintings. I'll post it up on here tomorrow.

All the best guys,

Dave.

[Wheeljack18]

Hey Guys,

Eelis: Good thing that this is a free country because you can do whatever you want with your painting. I could provide you with a long explanation about why you are wrong about how you did the left side structure but you'll figure it out in time and it's not my place to tell you what to do. Dave and I can only provide feedback and in the end it's up to you to make the decision and stand by that. You are sounding like a "Fine artist already" lol. I thought matte painting might be up your alley and be a nice tool to add to your skill set and you are wrong if you think that matte painters can't or don't paint everything from scratch. Prior to the digital age, all matte painting was done traditionally and is still a useful skill especially for the budding environmental artist.

Good work on taking the previous castle WIP to the next level, can you take it even further? Hint Hint Looking forward to seeing the ship idea and the other water color studies. Regarding water color brushes and tools in general. It's not the brush, its the artist. That being said, I've never sprung for a sable haired brush and for water color I always used synthetic student / professional quality brushes. Stay away from small brushes for water color unless you plan on working small. I've found that bigger brushes hold more pigment, can accomplish just the same amount of detail and generally are more useful that a small brush. Tiny ones are good for tiny details but you will find that you will be reloading the brush quite a bit if you plan on using it for any length of time. If you are really interested in Acrylics, I heard of a similiar product that is a hybrid water soluble oil that might be worth looking into. Acrylics also work nice for under paintings. I have a couple of pics of my place being swamped by snowfall and I though about sending them to you to help with the homesickness but I though that maybe you wouldn't appreciate it Hang in there Christmas is only a few weeks away!


Dave:

I like trying new things, it helps keep things fresh in my mind and I want to start taking my studies further as I think I've hit a wall and I want to push past that. I'll keep posting them and the feedback is always appreciated.

Cheers

Mike

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Oww, Mike! Don't crucify me yet. You know that I am often quite critical when it comes to my own work, so I am still quite amazed that the horizontal fence doesn't get me at all. I did a few rounds of questions today though among my friends and the consensus was that it was problematic, so I think I am probably just wrong this time.

About matte painting, no! I don't definitely think it is just throwing some photos together, not at all! I absolutely love the old oil matte paintings created for TV series like Star Trek for example and now the newer ones like Rivendell for LotR. I am definitely going to learn that skill too, because the more skills you have the better, but it doesn't interest me that much. It is //definitely// not about being "pure" or anything like that, but I just enjoy painting the whole piece by myself a lot more than enhancing the realism with textures and photos! I am definitely not trying to downplay anything, far from it!

That would also open some doors to the movie industry, so it is a worthwhile considearion. But for now I really want to keep on honing my basic painting skills. And drawing!

About the castle, I am definitely going to ampe it up and refine the architecture. It looks way too blocky atm and I am going to work on it alot.

Your mention about brushes, yes, it is definitely the artist but as you said tiny ones are good for tiny details, and I haven't got any tiny brushes in my (really small and cheap) set. I invested on one today, thanks for the recommendations both of ya!

Oh, and please send any snow pictures on my way, I don't mind! They are a good references and Finland is just a few weeks away anyway, so np! I will be there for a month and then back here, hopefully with the dog!

David: I understand what you mean by emphasising the obelisk, making it more dramatic and detailing it, but little design details, like carvings, really bring the size down fast. Instead I should have focused on the overall texture of the surface of the cone. Here's a good example of what I was trying to achieve:

http://www.artpad.org/gallery/portfolio/5730545

By Jaime Jones. So yeah, it is a trickery payoff between the size and details, and I wasn't skilled enough yet to do the beautiful execution. But live and learn! It was especially difficult because I had some quite big character in the foreground.

About watercolours: Yesh, it is coming along! Background in digital art quite helps since I already have some knowledge of how to work with colours. Just about getting the hang of the media now! I am definitely going to give acrylics a shot when I get them from Finland.

Sadly I couldn't scan the watercolour pieces yet because my teachers took them all to their secret hideout. I took a quick picture instead, going to post it a bit later!

Oh, and lastly, Mike, about your comment on water soluable oils, they are really, really expensive! Acrylics seems to be quite flexible too, so I am hoping to achieve some nice results with them only.

Cheers guys! Hopefully I cleared it up.

Eelis

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Here we go. Crappy photos are crappy, but you get the idea! The lowest one was done in colour graphite. I had a deadline so couldnt invest huge amounts of time into em, but sure was good practice for my own project!

We were forced to use bristol board which was not suitable for watercolours at all. That added to the difficulties. I can't still fathom why they wouldnt let us buy same sized watercolour paper. Some peeps still did, and nothing was said. I was pretty darn pissed.

Plenty of lessons learnt: do even more accurate underdrawing with roots planned and so on. Don't paint characters and backgrounds with same colour (duh!). Study some contemporary watercolour master's progress even closer!

Cheers

Eelis

PS: I had forgotten to buy watertight painting container and it was flooding today. Result was slightly curled paper which added to the woes of the day on it's own accord. :p

[David Keen]

Hey guys, I'm completely wiped out and will have to do a full reply tomorrow but I quickly wanted to upload my blast from the past painting for you to have a look at.

Sorry and I'll be in touch tomorrow.

[Wheeljack18]

Hey Guys,

Eelis, Don't worry about it, I didn't mean to come off harsh. Perhaps I was just having an " off day". About Water color on Bristol. It Can be done, I also have painted on many types of board and I prefer the heavy weight / Hot press stuff. You can try painting the backside with a couple of coats of Gesso to help firm up the board and prevent warping. It doesn't always work depending on how wet you choose to work. Another option is to paint on Water Color Blocks. I used to use Arches Blocks and they worked out pretty well for me for most things. I disagree that painting the character and the background with the same color is a bad thing. Most under paintings are simply monochromatic value studies and then the pigment is washed in on top. A Master of this would be Alex Ross. It all depends on what you are going for. An underpanting is a good way to unify your image as a whole. Keep at it and I sent those Snow pics earlier today.

Dave: Whoa! I was not expecting new people in the picture. It is definitely looking more biblical now. You've spent a lot more time remodeling the figures and the variety of hand gestures is nice. It is an improvement for sure. My main crit is the anatomy of the floating guy. His hands and fore arms are very large and out of proportion with the rest of his body. It appears that you are still working on this and that it is unfinished. One thing to stay on top of are those Rim lights you have here and there but they need to be uniformly added to all of the figures.

So far so good and keep it coming.

For me, Not much to report. I have one study I did today to warm up and in between work. It's more of a technical sketch of an airplane landing gear and some ground crew. I wanted to just draw it freehand and focus on draftsmanship and accuracy " Old School". I might work it up to a more polished image, we'll see. There is only so much time in the day right?

Cheers!

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Hey guys! Just a super-quick update here, I will do in-depth commentary of both of your work tomorrow (today), PROMISE!

I had to abandon the other castle work for a while because I realized that I want to join the illustration club fall show anyway. Here's the current state: It is missing some boats still, architecture isn't ready and I am still playing with the size of the foreground. Figure completely placeholder, just wanted to demonstrate how I will be having some nice overlapping there in the end, be it figure or tree or something else:

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Hey peeps, here's a quick update. I'll copypaste what I wrote to team awesome:


Hey!

Here's a followup of the thumbnail I posted up yesterday. I am not quite sure about the composition of the figures yet, especially in the utmost right side, those two hooded fellas. Architecture still under refinement etc but please pick apart!

oh, and the middle guy will be in for some serious overlapping.

[David Keen]

Hey guys,

Eelis after looking at Jaime's piece I understand now the kind of look you were going for. As Mike mentioned earlier I don't ever mean to tell you how paint your paintings, I just want to try and communicate the way things look on my end. You're work is continuing to progress very quickly, there has been a huge change in the scope of subject matter in your pieces recently. It's great that you're feeling more comfortable trying different things in your work and it's starting to really pay off in the execution of your new paintings. Talking about new paintings it looks like you've been hard at work recently! The new piece has a beautiful eerie mood. In the top version it looks to me like the people are emerging from bunkers after a nuclear holocaust to find their city ruined. But in the lower version the city is looking much more intact. If that's the case what's up with the random dudes in robes? Although I know the figures are place holders at this time there is a bit of a disconnect between the fantasy looking characters and the contemporary city. Personally I'd love the city to be wrecked and these are the survivors but the choice is yours. The figures on the left bank also look a little big compared to the buildings near them.

Your water colours are looking good! As you keep developing your drawing they'll only get better and better. Maybe you could trying do a full value drawing soon and the glaze your colours in with the watercolours at the end. I know guys like Justin Gerard often work like that with great results (have a look down the bottom end of that link where he has a whole bunch of process posts).

Mike: Thanks for the feedback on the painting. I've tried to address the anatomical issues you've raised and am at this point ready to call this one done. It's been a long road, working away on the various iterations of this piece but I'm happy to have stuck it out and gotten to a better result than what was there earlier. Thanks for the help you both gave me with this painting!

I like your most recent drawing. As far as draftsmanship goes this is a damn good effort. Especially nice job on those tricky ellipses. How do you find drawing like this on the cintiq? I still feel like my pencil drawing is a lot more accurate than what I can produce on the tablet but I've heard that using the cintiq is more analogous to sketching on paper. It's not something I'm in the market for at this time but maybe a few years down the line if I had a little extra money. I'm not sure if this one warrants a polished image. I'd rather see you pouring that spare time into your project for Spectrum. Get those sketches going now so we can iterate forever!

p.s. I wrote a whole spiel about the last painting on my blog check it out if you're interested.

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Thanks David!


Oh, by no means never hesitate to tell me how you would tackle a problem in any of my stuff! That's why we are here, to share to each other what we think! Let there be no boundaries on this one. I've got so much great critique and ideas from you and Mike, but of course sometimes I might be hesitant to agree. Since I am not so experienced yet that I can say for sure how some stuff should be, when I am uncertain I do a question round with other friends who are ready to state their truthful opinion. If everyone agrees that the problematic point needs fixing I am sure I was wrong.

So yes! Never be afraid to tell me what you would do the other way.

On to another subject? Hah! Straight into the bull's eye, it was about a medieval apocalypse at first. But sadly I had to fit it inside the given subject "Underworlds and Afterlives" (which is the subject of the illustration club's fallshow) so I changed it up a bit. Now the painting will be titled "The Lost Souls", and I hope that the middle guy that's trying to gaze around gives out that these peeps are pretty lost. Also the one guy in the leftmost middle, touching the water. What do you think?

And yesh, I have had some problems with the figures on the leftbank. Fixin' that!

Mm, full value drawing you say? I will have to do a bit of research, but that would be interesting. I am starting out my first full-scale watercolour painting from imagination tomorrow. I've had the underdrawing quite ready for a while now, posting it to you guys tomorrow!

As of the painting you completed, I won't dwell into the anatomical things too much, Mike aces that! The background clouds could've used a bit more hard edges maybe, but overally I quite like what you did there. Also, maybe a bit more loosing of the details to make it appear bigger, but yeah! Overally a good idea to try the painting out again digitally.

Mike: Yush, no problem! I didn't take it seriously at all, but sometimes it is indeed hard to explain oneself through written form! Especially with english as my second language. You should've been in my art history seminar class last week when I made a comment about first peoples fighting over their land against the westerners, and somehow I managed to word it so that the seminar leader thought I was blaming the aborginals for the bloodshed! The stare guys, the stare....

Fortunately I realized it and managed to fix myself, but that surely wasn't the first time people have got completely wrong picture of what I was trying to say. I've got another nice example. I was telling someone how I am not the greatest fan of pure human character design, and the guy next to me thought for a month that I think life drawing is utter waste of time! Man, sometimes it gets really, really bad.

But alas, I am getting better at English all the time, so hopefully that'll get fix'd soon.

Anyway, enough about me. I have to say that I quite like the study you did. It somehow reminds me of that one flight pilot commission I saw on your site, but I am not sure why! Good stuff.

Oh well, that's it for me! I have got to crunch this picture together now because the deadline of submissions is on monday...and I've got to submit this for printing tomorrow!

Cheers

Eelis

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Oh yeah, almost forgot, ready!

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Yesh, let's have more stuff! Copied from facebook: "Today's WIP! Just starting out with the first layer, so it is missing all the fancy shadows and value areas."

This will be a lot of work! But I love it absolutely. I should have done this in the sketching stage, but I decided that it needs more life. So I am going to sketch in some birds tomorrow.

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Update, here's a copypaste from other source:

"Hey peeps, sharing this because watercolours are neat! I am taking a lot of time with this, so I am not even done with the first colour pass yet as can be seen. I will probably also refine (so late) the sketch of the upper section a bit to get the branches right. I will really need to focus on the value structure too, but luckily that is still possible to fix because one can always go down with the values with watercolours. The photo is a bit crappy, but the colours are almost right."



EDIT: This version is a lot closer to the real colours than the first WIP posted! I really need a real camera.

[Wheeljack18]

Hey guys,

Sorry for the absence lately. All I got to share is a sketchbook page for now. I've moved on from the aircraft hangar piece as you recommended but I don't have anything to share on a spectrum submission and to be honest with all that is going on in my life right now, I don't know how I will be able to get one done. We'll see. As for drafting and the Cintiq. It's pretty much the same as drawing with pencil and paper. You can even drop an elipse onto the screen if you want. I find circles and elipses to be a pain and that is why the wheels are so unfinished compared to say, the people. I did use the circular marquee in a couple of spots. Again, the drawing is just a study taken only so far but if you ever do get the opportunity, I can't recommend the cintiq enough. The only drawback is that it gets hard on your eyes.

Hey Eelis, have you ever looked into the works of Brian Froud or Alan Lee? They are both accomplished watercolorists and I think you would be inspired by them. Any progress on those value studies? What do you need to do for research? Just sit down and draw something Any progress on the watercolor?

Think that's it, looking forward to some more of your guy's work over the holidays.

Cheers!

[Anthonycarey]

Wow you guys are legit, I'm digging this whole thread

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Heeeya!

Ooh! Ellipses! Reminds me to buy that full of circles-thing along with 90 angled ruler before I leave to Finland again.

I have been thinking about getting a cintiq later in the future, but my problem is being too used to doing things without direct contact with the surface! That's my problem with drawing too, stupid digital tools.

Mike: Oh, I haven't! Thanks for sharing, I will check 'em out asap. I have been in our weekly figure lifedrawings and done one masterstudy, but sadly I have been procrastinating that kind of studies a bit as I have been so frustrated with my compositions. Been just working on them, as seen below. I have earmarked some time to do some real still life studies on the weekend, that's for sure!

Oh, that my comment about research, seems like I had just written something random. Sorry!

No progress sadly, but I am going to crunch it now. Actually just now, already picking up my brush! It will be done by christmas.

Cheers

Eelis

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Here'a recent WIP guys. I wanted to keep on playing with the water themes + structures to grasp the feeling behind em better. Also complex grandeur scenes. After this is done I will embark on a quite long study-from-life era + hopefully painting a few nice winter landscapes with acrylics in Finland. Also finishing the watercolour piece before 24th.

[Wheeljack18]

Hey Guys,

It's been a while.

I thought I'd start by posting this link to a demo by CAW on sketchbook pro. http://www.sketchbook.com/news/calum...l#.UM6hJHf-Ksn
This guy is an excellent draftsman and very inspiring to see him work. I tried SB Pro just because of him but I honestly could not get into it. I admit that the Elipse and ruler tools would be an awesome addition to Photoshop but I did not find the interface very intuitive. That or I'm too stuck in the ways of photoshop.... Anyways, check it out.
Onto that Eelis crit....

Ok, so in our offsite conversations you guys talked about perspective issues and multiple vanishing points. So far I've counted 5 VP's in this image and this is what is throwing things off for you. At most this image should have 3 VP's and all of them should be on the same horizon line. The thing with architectural images is that if you get one line off, the whole image falls apart. You can't fudge it by making it a damaged/ ancient structure. Perspective is perspective and straight lines, arches, curves, cylinders and spheres all are subject to the rules. It appears that you were trying to set up an overlapping structure with the section on the left receding behind the section on the right. This doesn't work for me because the 2 structures don't overlap prior to the horizon. The 2nd VP angle is not sharp enough to suggest a separate structure and the large gap between the 2 suggest that the water flows through them like a channel / canyon. Even with the atmospheric painting to hide the overlap, the composition has an L shaped piece of negative space straight between the 2 structures. In addition to that, the archway in the foreground insinuates that the two structures are connected so why would one structure have different vanishing points? Lastly, the decorative triangle/flying buttress shapes attached to the left side structure are not in perspective with VP 1 and 4. The foreground elements for the most part look great. The lighthouse on the right is mostly accurate except that the right hand window is higher than the left hand window. Both windows look to be intended to have the same size and be in perspective with one another so the one on the right needs to come down to fix that. If you want them to look random then you should change the scale and position for one to make the difference more apparent.

Painting wise, I think this piece looks really good. The foreground when zoomed out looks excellent. I know I sound like a broken record Eelis but you need to work on the drawing fundamentals because it's holding you back. I'd like to see a page out of your sketchbook where you just draw shapes in perspective. Spend some real honest time mastering it and practicing it with just a ruler and a pencil. NO PAINT. NO DIGITAL! It's the best way to really get your mind around this skill set.

That's it for me.

Cheers!