Andrew's Paintover Thread

[Andrew Sonea]

Inca: After some thinking about your painting, I've decided to not do a paintover. I think you can take it a lot further on your own, and I think you will learn more by doing some of the problem solving on your own. I'll cover some of the issues I see in your painting, but I want you to try and work on it without me painting over it. If you get further and find you get stuck or need help feel free to post it in this thread again and I'll help out.

So you say that you want a dynamic picture...and yet the first thing I see is about as static a composition as possible. Below I have shown you a simplified version of your composition--perhaps there you can see better why it is not that exciting. The painting is very symmetrical, and has the focal point dead center (and the focal point consists of two figures in the same pose both taking up the same visual space, and standing in the same spot). The horizon line is not pushed very far in any direction. The values are very similar overall (although this may because it is so early in the painting). There is no sense of foreground, middleground and background. In reality you have only a middleground, and this makes for a flat and static image. Right now the only thing you have going for the image is some strong silhouettes, but an image cannot ride on that alone. Imagine how good a painting it would be if it resolved all the other components I mentioned, and then combined with those strong silhouettes!



You need to choose one aspect of the picture and REALLY try pushing it. Do you want them to seem imposing? Make the horizon line SUPER low and use an extreme 3 point perspective. Or maybe you can choose one shaman you want to emphasize--make them much bigger and closer than the other one (this would be a good chance to add in some overlapping, which is one thing that is severely lacking in your painting and flattening it out). Maybe you want the image to have a lot of depth, so you can add in more of a foreground with some dead guys and show more stuff going on in the background. Perhaps you will decide this angle for the scene isn't what you want at all, and will change the image completely. I don't know. It's up to you. But you need to change SOMETHING to make it interesting.

Below is a screenshot from Kung Fu Panda 2. It's a similar sort of scene to your, in that the focus is on a character holding a weapon towards the viewer. But look at how interesting a shot it is. The hammer is so close to the camera that it appears bigger than the rhino, and barely even fits on the screen. This give a real "in your face" and menacing feel. Notice also how the horizon line has been tilted so it is no longer horizontal--this is an old trick called a Dutch Tilt, and is used to make static images more interesting since all the verticals are now diagonal and have more direction, and feel more "off balance" and dynamic. It is a good trick but can be overused, so be conscious of when you do decide to use it. Anyways, this shot is a great example of the artist(s) decided on one thing to emphasize and going all out.



In conclusion, you really should not be worrying about small changes in the pose and stuff at this stage (to be honest it took me a while to even see what the difference WAS). Focus more on the illustration as a whole, and how you want it to read and what you want it to get across. Sure, you can play with the poses, but make some major changes to them and see how it looks. Don't fiddle small things.

[Inca]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you so much, this is exactly what I was hoping for. To be honest I didn't really want someone just drawing over it and telling me how it should look, and what you've given me is the perfect guidance as to where it needs to go, so thank you.

I think the problem I have is thinking of 'dynamic' as being the atmosphere, or pose, or colouring rather then the sum of these things and instead went for just the atmosphere. I think I have a clearer idea of the direction to take this and will update my own thread with what I've got, would be great to have any further input you may have on future updates.

Thanks again!

[Pavel Sokov]

Hey Andrew,

Did you check out my finished Louis based on your PO?

I have started another portrait, of comedian Marc Maron this time. Let me know if you are tired of doing POs for me, or if this is too early in the process for you.

[zelda_geek]

It's really nice of you to do this Andrew.

I just "finished" this piece for last week's E.O.W, but there are some stuff I'm not happy with. The topic was "Escaping the sandstorm" and I wanted to show the citizens of this town run and take cover from the sandstorm. I want to take it to the next level, and I'd really appreciate your input.

[Andrew Sonea]

Sorry for being a bit slow at responding...I've been working a lot lately and haven't had a chance to sit down and do any art or paintovers...

Zelda_Geek: I'll try to get to yours soon!

Pavel: A very nice start! I like this one a lot--the colours you are using the lighting is very nice. I essentially just refined a few things and exaggerated or downplayed others.

The first thing I notice is that the stroke and brushes look fairly uniform overall. In some places this look works very well, and in others not as much. As with everything everything else in painting, contrast is very important (and I'm not talking about just contrast of values). Since everything has the same textured brushy feel to it, it is hard to differentiate materials and edges properly. For example, on the right hand side of him where it is in direct light, his sleeve, hairy arm, and the smooth skin of his hand are all painted the same. I cleaned up some edges there to better define things and not leave is so ambiguous and textured. In addition to having similar texture everywhere, there is also a similar sized brush used everywhere. I tried using a bigger chunkier brush in a few places to add some variation to brush size--his shirt is composed of larger simpler strokes than something more important such as his face.

Value-wise and colour-wise I made a few changes as well. His skin was seeming a little too bright and pasty to me, so I darkened it and added a bit more warmth. In terms of lighting for this piece I think there is some interesting stuff going on in the photo that become more interesting when slightly exaggerated. The main light from the right creates some really cool shapes and also gives a chance shows off some more colour due to subsurface scattering. Take a look at his hand or parts of his shirt and you can see a more saturated and warmer colour just on the shadow side. This is due to lighting entering a slightly translucent material, bouncing all around, and exiting with some wavelengths filtered out. This is an interesting effect that I played up and included in his face and hair a bit as well.

On the shadow side of his shirt, I lightened the chest area since there was no reason for it to be that dark given its angle. I also removed those bits of orange from the shadow side since those that colour is from subsurface scattering and (in this lighting scenario) is only visible at the border of light and shadow. In the shadow side as well there is a subtle temperature shift happening. The planes facing upwards are getting some cool light from the sky, and the downward facing planes are getting a warmer shift from light bouncing off the ground. Make sure to keep it consistent.

His head seemed a bit large, so a very slight resize I think helped a fair bit. Also it was rotated a couple of degrees to better match the angle in the photo. One thing you need to pay more attention to with his face is the eye socket area. That area is almost always darker than surrounding areas of the face, and this holds true in this painting/photo. The eyes as well can be painted more carefully--for example the bit of light on the eye on the right is actually from his upper eyelid/eyelashes getting lit, while you have painted it to look more like the lower eyelid being lit.

Lastly I changed up the background. Before I thought it seemed a little flat and "boring" so I looked at some of the shapes of the plants in the photo and used those as a starting point for abstract shapes to add more visual interest and that halo effect you were doing by painting a light glow behind his head seem less forced. I darkened it on the left so that his shirt became lighter than the background and "popped out" more, but also could be lost into the background in some areas.



I think that about sums up the changes. Once again, I think it is an interesting painting, and with a bit of refining and more attention/analyzation of lighting will be a very strong piece

[Pavel Sokov]

Oh wow, I am so excited! Thank you so much.

Your explanations will really help me think analytically about my painting. I look forward to matching your PO. I am even kind of thinking of going much less detailed with this painting then my Louis, except for the face. I feel this will help me with getting that Lipking style I want to emulate (I wish I had my own, but it is not time yet I suppose).

I keep on asking you what you think of the finished Louis based on your PO, but you are not answering haha. It was posted on page 1 of this thread.

Also, if you are ever feeling like I am taking advantage of you, that is completely fine and also sort of true. So if you want to cut me off for a while, let me know. Paintovers are like drugs for me, and I am fixing to OD.

[Andrew Sonea]

Pavel: Sorry about not giving my thoughts in the finished Louis piece...I meant to tell you about it but I guess I forgot somewhere in the midst of typing out the critiques. I think the final version is looking quite nice, although personally I find the blue a little too saturated. I liked it when the blue was slightly more subtle. Other than that though it looks great, and you should be proud of yourself

As for worrying about giving me too many paintovers--don't let that be a concern. As long as there are not too many other paintings for me to paint over (which there aren't at the moment) then you can keep posting in this thread.

[StefanieOdendahl]

this piece is my first 'real' environment with natural stuff - like mountains, cliffs and a sea. to make it more interesting i added a secret research station to it. i heard a few times the perspective is off – but i just don't know how – maybe you can help me? (my horizon line is on top of the cliffs). usually i understand the perspective of manmade structures – but if it comes to natural shapes – or round ones – i'm really unsure how to handle them...

this is such a great idea to make overpaints for people who like to have them... i really love that! thank you for giving us your time!

[Andrew Sonea]

zelda_geek: I wanted this up sooner, but I had a bit of trouble doing a paintover for it, and life also got in the way time-wise.

Anyways, I like the Orientalist style you have going on here, and overall it is a neat image, but there are a number of things that I think can use addressing.

Your focal point is a random building with an awning and a couple little domes. Why? The point of the illustration is the sandstorm and the people running, so they should be where you look. Right now my eye goes straight to the building, but there is no reason for that. Also, the dome and part of the building is copy-pasted from this painting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ma...nfeind1887.jpg
While the average viewer wouldn't know this (since you did choose from a very obscure artist), it is still a bad idea to blatantly copy something like this in your finished work, especially for your focal point.

Speaking of directions that people look in a painting, you have chosen a 1-point perspective. This means there are a LOT of lines that all point to one place, so you better have something damn interesting there (which at the moment is a bit of empty space and a barely visible shack in your painting). I painted the sandstorm at that point with stronger contrast and made it more the focus of your painting. Just googling "sandstorm" helped me find some cool images of giant walls of sand moving in on cities:
http://www.snopes.com/photos/natural/sandstorm.asp

The street is too wide. There is no reason for it to be that open and empty. I moved the buildings a bit closer on the right (and made the perspective a bit more extreme), and added in a lot more people to fill that space up more (they are just placeholders now, so if it were to be finished their gestures would be running and more dynamic). I also made the people a bit bigger so the scale changes and the space seems smaller, and added a cast shadow from the buildings on the left over it further giving the impression that the street is a bit smaller (as well as add more visual interest). Take a look at more orientalist paintings and you will see how busy street scenes are and how full and alive they feel (you should probabyl add in more small details like fruit stands, lots of signs, potted plants, whatever).

The buildings on the left are very nice, but the ones on the right are so flat looking and boring from a design standpoint. They have no depth and give the impression of a fake movie set or something that is perfectly flat. My example isn't that much better, but I tried changing the heights of things and hinting at more buildings behind, also adding in a few columns, rugs and different shapes. You can push it a LOT further than I have though. On the left I made some of the rugs and stuff blowing to show how windy it is and to break some of the verticals which were making the image static.

A couple other small changes: watch the verticals as a lot were leaning to the right slightly; I lowered contrast on buildings on right to take away emphasis there, pushed warm/cool colour temperature slightly; I changed the sand in the corner to a guy running (the sand beforehand was too bright and didn't make sense since the sandstorm was off in the distance).





As I said beforehand, I had a bit of trouble painting over this. I think a different perspective or viewpoint would probably have been more interesting, but I painted sort of what you could have done if you keep this one. Essentially now you need to really emphasize the sandstorm there as everything points right to it.


EDIT: I just realized the cast shadow on the street from the buildings is out of perspective--it should be pointing towards the vanishing point.

[Inca]

Hi Andrew, just wanted to say thanks again for your input on my WIP. I've updated my thread with a new thumbnail but will work on it some more before I put anything in here in terms of paint-overs. Would definitely appreciate any comments you may have though if you'd like to swing by!

[Pavel Sokov]

I am back!

So this here is a piece of character concept art. I am planning to make a switch into the concept art video game industry by 2014, and need to develop a concept art portfolio as such.

Sadly, nobody likes this character. I don't know why. He is a Russian mobster named Petachok. Petachok is piglet from Vinnie the Pooh. He is named as such because a bomb blew off his nose and damaged his face, making him look like a pig.



EDIT:

Maybe he is better as Russian Bane?

[StefRob]

Hi! Great thread idea you have here and the results you get are great. Here is the one I'd be glad you paint over. It's something that took me waaaaay too long for the result and when I finished (and during the painting) I felt there was something very wrong without any idea to improve it.

[Koncept]

Wow! Let me start by saying it is so nice of you to start this thread. You are very good and i'm sure many will find help here. Being an illustrator (im guessing you are a freelance illustrator?) is a really "solo" career, leading many artist to focus soley on their own artwork... It's very rare to find someone offering help to others without others first asking for it. I know i'm guilty for often immersing myself in my own work and shutting down the artistic community.. today i decided to make a better effort at trying to improve while being part of the community and the first thing i see when i came to the forums was your thread. Just wanted to drop by and say thanks!

[Koncept]

Mmm while im here.

I dont want to hijack your thread by painting over other people's work as well, because I can tell you are more skilled with color than I am.. but i'll just offer a small crit to person above me. Everything in your painting is done with what the color of the object you are painting with, and only that... What i mean is, the grey wall is grey, so you painted it grey, grass is green so it's green. Should also keep in mind that since this is outdoors, sunlight makes everything warmer.

Unlike a spot light on a stage which causes dramatic shadows. Sunlight not only have direction, but also kind of "bathe" the entire scene. Things in the background should be bathed in sunlight. Because there are dust and what not between your eyes and the object, the sunlight will be kind of diffused into these particles in the air.

I'm just learning this stuff too as I'm experimenting with moon lighting in my current painting. Hope i make sense and didn't sound like a fool!

Also..

Pavel: that's an excellent painting. I'm curious in how you go from step 1 to step 2. Because the way I work, i drop all the colors and shadows in in the same step, then I use the colors on the canvas to render. This results in everything having the same tonal change across light and shadow... I want to get away from this by doing what people do... dropping the shadow first then changing to color. But i'm dumbfound at how to change a rendered greyscale painting, into a colored painting. Would you mind sharing a bit?

[StefRob]

Everything in your painting is done with what the color of the object you are painting with, and only that... What i mean is, the grey wall is grey, so you painted it grey, grass is green so it's green. Should also keep in mind that since this is outdoors, sunlight makes everything warmer.
Unlike a spot light on a stage which causes dramatic shadows. Sunlight not only have direction, but also kind of "bathe" the entire scene. Things in the background should be bathed in sunlight. Because there are dust and what not between your eyes and the object, the sunlight will be kind of diffused into these particles in the air.
I'm just learning this stuff too as I'm experimenting with moon lighting in my current painting. Hope i make sense and didn't sound like a fool!

Nothing foolish in that, in fact I'd be more than glad if you could show me how to do that. Do you simply change the white balance to a warmer one as I'd do in photography? How would you create the dust effect? If you have time and patience to help a newbie you can send me a PM to follow this conversation.
Actually when I posted this picture I was mainly thinking of a perpsective-wise enhancement but what you say makes very much sense. I'd be interested to see your work too.

[Pavel Sokov]

Where are you Andrew?

Here is my Marc Maron after applying some of what you showed me. Think it is done? I tried to stay really loose this time, to achieve what you spoke about earlier.

[zelda_geek]

Pavel Sokov: It looks really good!

Thanks a lot for the paintover Andrew! I finally got myself to work on it more. I hope it looks better now,(except that some of the people look totally weird, haha).

[Pavel Sokov]

I don't know if we are still or not, and what is going on with the forum exactly, but I went hard at redesigning the wolf and reworking the painting based on zephyri's PO.

I am trying to get the cliff to move away from the trees so they don't look tiny anymore.

[Andrew Sonea]

Sorry for being AWOL! Between the forums being down for three weeks, me being super busy with work/life, and me being in California for a workshop, I completely lost track of this thread. I'll try to get back to the things that have been posted in my absence throughout the upcoming week whenever I have a chance. Thanks for everyone's extreme patience! I'll make sure to read every post

[Pavel Sokov]

The story here shows that the wolf has been disrespectful to the animals of the forest, and has somehow wronged this arctic fox. My writing partner and I kinda left it ambiguous as to what he actually did to the fox.

I am struggling with almost every aspect of this painting. The composition especially. I am also struggling with the snow looking like icing on a cake, and the wolf looking really different from the correct design in the panel I posted earlier. This one has Anime style eyes, which I really really don't like, but I can't seem to get them to look the same as the proper wolf above.

Any sort of help would be a saver, I am really struggling with this one!

[self-epidemic]

Could I get some help please?