An Alien Environment

[Gabriel-Dias]

Greetings! This is my first time posting on this forums, and i may not know exactly how it works yet, but i take it this is the place to go if i want imput on a single piece of artwork.

So, for a brief introduction, i'm a beginner artist, and recently made the shift to digital media. Also, i aim to be a profession illustrator one day, and i know i have to work very hard if i want to be any good. This is my best attempt at digital painting as of today, and while i like the result, i know that it's by no means a great piece.

As i said, i want to become a professional in the future, so lay it on me. I would REALLY appreciate any serious critique, i wanna know what can be improved, so i can guide my studies and become a better artist. Thanks in advance!

[Mr. Corlan]

1. - Use less black. Instead of shading with black and white, figure out what the light is doing - the color of the light, and the inherent color of the object, and paint with the appropriate color mixture.

2. - Learn about how light works. You can't see light, only surfaces that it reflects off of. So to see a beam of light like you are showing, there must be a billion tiny particles in the air—fog, smoke, dust, etc. And in this case, it would have to be so foggy that none of the other things in your picture would be visible.

Here is a very quick paintover of what your image might look like. But honestly it still has a lot of problems with perspective, lighting, and design in pretty much every aspect.



But don't get discouraged, it just takes practice. The George Washington portrait you did is actually a lot better than this piece. I would suggest doing studies of basic forms under different lighting conditions, stuff like this: http://i.imgur.com/yUjo4.jpg And of course anatomy is a big priority.

[Gabriel-Dias]

Thanks a lot! Yes, i guess it wasn't making much sense, but i think i understand why now. I'll get to it. Thanks for your time and advice! If it isn't much trouble, could you point me to any good books or tutorials on the matter of lighting and painting?

[Mr. Corlan]

Here's a few, in rough order of importance and quick-and-easyness:

Arne's Art Tutorial - http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm - a very good, short, and to-the-point tutorial on a whole bunch of things.

Proko - http://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV - Stan Prokopenko has a bunch of video tutorials. I've only watched his video on basic shading, but it was very good, and I suspect the rest are as well. (basic shading video --> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3Wmr...ure=plpp_video )

Yoitisi Island - http://conceptart.org/forums/forumdi...Yoitisi-Island - Some great tutorials by Yoitisi on essential 3-dimensional drawing.

Gurney Books - http://jamesgurney.com/site/books - Color and Light, and Imaginative Realism - Great books!

Ctrl-Paint - http://www.ctrlpaint.com/ - a whole bunch of video tutorials by Matt Kohr. A lot of them are free, some he sells for a -very- reasonable price.

Enliighten - http://enliighten.com/ - tutorials by Daarken. I've only watched bits of one or two, but they seem pretty good.

The tutorials forum on CA - http://conceptart.org/forums/forumdi...IPS-amp-TRICKS - I'm sure there's tons of other stuff there, dig in.


And my last piece of advice is: Do the exercises! Don't just surf around looking at stuff and watching videos. Do the exercises. Draw. Even if they don't have exercises, follow along and copy everything they do. That is the quick path to improvement. It's not easy.

[Gabriel-Dias]

I think i love you man
Now seriously, thank you very much, those links look very useful.
And of course, i'll do all the exercises. I don't expect it to be easy, and i don't want it to be.
God bless you!

[Mr. Corlan]

Ha ha! Well, I didn't do the exercises, so it took me 13 years to get where I am.