Portfolio - The Rookie - Any feedback would be very much appreciated

[The Rookie]

Hi all and thanks for a great forum.

I am a traditional painter who recently went digital.
Started in Photoshop in september, and has worked hard since.
Would be nice to hear your thoughts, strengths (if any) and weaknesses.
My focus is characters and environments and combos of the two.

EDIT: Portfolio mages can be found further down this thread, doubleposted stuff by accident.

My website is: joakimericsson.se

Thanks in advance and all the best,

The Rookie

[The Rookie]

Here we go:



























The Rookie

[Hitsu//San]

Well your digital technique is a little raw at the moment but in less than a year you should be able to master it if you keep studying. The problems i'm seeing are with design and compositions, this lats one especially, you should consider it much more.

I'm sorry i can't be more specific cause i'm working right now but if you want to ask me something specific i will reply later

[The Rookie]

Thank you so much for your feedback Hitsu//San, much appreciated. I will definitely keep up the pace

- About the technique, could you point out some examples where the "rawness" is the weakest, so I know what to avoid?
- Is the technique too loose in general in your opinion? I come from traditional painting, where looseness usually is considered good. It is hard to recalibrate the brain for extreme detail.
- Do you have any tips on how to tighten up ("un-raw") my work? More linework, detail, cleaner shapes, better textures?
- Composition is an eternal challenge, but when you mention design problems, do you mean: boring, bad drawing/perspective, sloppy or something else?
- Could you please point out which two images you consider to be the weakest and strongest out of these 13?

Sorry for my many questions, but I really want to learn this, and so far I haven't had much feedback from proffessionals.
Most of these early images have taken around 6 hours to make. I still haven't done a long time project.
Do you have any suggestions for new projects, to wash away my weaknesses? Speed painting, long time projects, both?

Thanks again, and hope you have time to answer

All the best,

The Rookie

[Hitsu//San]

Let me see if i can answer at all the questions during my tea break:


-About the rawness and looseness: In digital its' a problem cause the general level is damn high and you have to learn how to achieve photo-realism fast if you want to be considered (and i don't mean photo-like images, it have to be realistic though, correct lights, correct detail placement, correct colors ecc). As i can see you are starting to know how to use light and how many effects the light can do on various surfaces so this is a point where you have to work on. That's causing the looseness feel on your images (mostly). The rawness feel is caused from your random details placement. Anytime you there's a variation from dark to light and from soft to hard edge there's a detail, details can attract or distract your viewers eye, scattering the attention all around your image giving a non focused feel. Take a look at your 11 image, the attention is take by the ground debris instead of your subject because you made too much variation in there and that debris is become a huge source of details. You need to learn to control this stuff

-About Design: when i talk about design i mean your subject designs. it's too long to explain this point, next time sorry ^^

-And no i won't tell you what images i consider strong or weak you should know that already at this point and the best thing is to learn by yourself when an image is strong or weak because you will be forced to detect all the problems and weakness in your paintings by doing that, and if you can see that stuff you will be able to improve them easily!


Gotta go working now, i will answer if you have some other questions.

[The Rookie]

Thank you again.

Will definitely try to improve what you talk about.
When you have time and feel like it, I would really appreciate your thoughts on the subject design issues.

All the best,

The Rookie

[Hazzard]

Good stuff - I'd say work on your values, midtones seem to be missing in a lot of these. A decent way to solve this might be starting on a 50% grey back ground, rather than white or black.... then explore the ranges from their, letting the grey tell the midtones if that makes sense.

The alien one - the pose is a little off, like he is falling over.. a simple skew to the left would fix that, with a little clean up.

The dropship and soldiers - the ship appears to be slamming into the ground, that's a perspective issue. You can set up persective quickly by making sure you always know where your horizon line is. You may want to give the impression that the ship is taking off, but the amount of dust and myst you have in the image is occluding that so it reads as if the perspective is off.

Keep it up!

[The Rookie]

Thanks a lot Hazzard!

I am open to any advice, and don't be afraid of harsh critiques, life is too short for BS, especially when you want to get better... FAST.

Here is this night's effort:



EDIT: Next nights effort, more kinda old school.



All the best, and again thank you.

[Hitsu//San]

Quick Reply: Can't you see that your main subjects have less detail density than the background and the foreground?

[The Rookie]

Hello,

You mean the knight in the picture of the wall?
And the figures pulling the ropes, in the other?
Or in all of them?

[JordyLakiere]

I can sense some Daarken in your characters; good stuff all round. You're getting very close to "not looking like a students work" if you catch my drift - but beware with overusing black and dark tones. Most of your stuff is very low key and art directors will pick that up as a sign that you might not be skilled enough to light your work properly (for concept art, for example, low key with lots of black is a no-go)

Props and keep going!

[Hitsu//San]

Have a look, the amount of detail density is much more on the right than the left. This is happening cause you overdo with textures and scratches and stuff, and i'm sure you will never do such a thing in oil or acrylic painting. Do yourself a favor, avoid textures, and custom brushes, you don't need them, they are distracting you from what's important: your subjects! You have to focus the details on your subjects cause our eyes are attracted by details and you want us to look at your subject, not to be distracted by your background.


Anyway Jordy is totally right, too much dark in your paintings, try to stay between 70 and 30 brightness and use the rest only for really dark and bright spots

[The Rookie]

Thanks JordyLakiere

Both you and Hazzard mentioned the values. Good advice, thank you.
Even though I hate when critiqued people say "But I like it like that", I have to admit that I like it dark and gritty.
But, if you say that ADs might see that as a weakness, I will definitely keep it in mind from now on.
Guess I'll have to post some light key pics to prove that it is a concious choice, and not by accident.
Thank you everyone for your input so far.

All the best,

The Rookie

[The Rookie]

Thanks again Hitsu/San, that was more clear.

Will keep it in mind, I guess I am badly seduced by textures at this point.

The best,

[Hazzard]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...=mH_g_e-fIzo#!

Go to 3 minutes 15 seconds. Feng goes through step by step where the student is going wrong with their piece, but how the idea is there and how to improve it. This student is encountering a similar problem, super high contrast images that don't express the detail due to the lack of midtones.

I don't know if you have seen his tutorial videos but I HIGHLY recommend you watch them all as they are priceless.

http://www.fengzhudesign.com/tutorials.htm

[The Rookie]

Great video, thanks for the tip.

I have seen many of Feng's videos, but never that one.

[Hazzard]

Are you using the dodge and burn tool when you paint?

[snatti]

Hello, i just wanted to dropp by and say try to get some material definition, and make it really reflect / shine / feel like what the material is, such as dwarf ring mail, dosnt quite feel like metal, and the water and moist in some of the images, will help them become more beliveable, hope it helps a bit

[The Rookie]

Are you using the dodge and burn tool when you paint?

It happens sometimes, but very rarely, why?

[The Rookie]

Thank you snatti,

Yes I agree, that can definitely be done better.

All the best

[The Rookie]

Not sure this one is done... Part of a suite for an RPG thing, just like the dragon skeleton, and the wall guard.

[Hitsu//San]

Can't figure out the depth cause you do every shadow at the same value but it's starting to looking better.

[Hazzard]

Easily your best piece yet, keep it up!

[The Rookie]

Two new ones:

[Izi]

Very nice work on the top one. I do not like the centering of the bottom one, nor the lighting, which is unconvincing. It's good but not as convincing as the first one which is very pro and doesn't look like a sketch.

[The Rookie]

Thanks Izi,

It's interesting how you and others perceive your own work.
I almost prefer the bottom one, weird.
Can you be more specific about what you don't like or think is unconvincing about the lighting in that one?

All the best,

The Rookie

[The Rookie]

New...

[The Rookie]

WIP, not far from done though...

[kgaovids]

hey the rookie, your stuff is really good and i just can't fathom how i could even reach such a state. I'm only in high school trying to apply to college but could you give me a few tips?

[ironchicken]

Hey Rookie.
Good progress. Obviously taking on all the really great advice and working hard. Keep going!