Planning a new piece - suggestions welcome

[cfhd]

Hey guys,

So I've got an idea for a new piece. In most of the threads on here you see a lot of comments regarding the thought process that goes into a new painting, doing thumbs, the motivation of any characters in it.

The way I usually do it is to just have a picture in my head and then just jump right in and start painting it. This time tho I'm going to try and do some thumbs and really plan the picture out. I've never painted thumbnails out before but here is what I have so far.

Basically the idea is a knight vs a bowman or hunter of some sort in the woods. Maybe the knight is after the hunter for poaching the kings deer or the hunter is actually an assassin whos hunting down the knight and found him while he was on his way through the woods.

In some of my thumbs I have the hunter having the drop on the knight who knows someone is out there but not where he is. That said, I'm kind of partial to the one in the bottom left hand side where the knight seems to have had the drop on the hunter and is jumping off a rock to slash/stab the bowman.

Obviously the thumbs are ultra rough. Let me know which one you like or if you think I should keep working on the thumbs.

Any feedback is welcome

[cfhd]

Heres the bottom left thumb a little more fleshed out

[cfhd]

And here is the bottom middle one fleshed out a bit. I kind of like those two the best. Let me know what you think.

[Velocity Kendall]

definitely prefer the second one as it introduces depth. the first one is a platform game perspective, ie flat, from the side.
hpwever the second one, theyre just standing looking at eachother. combine the action of 1 and the angle of 2 perhaps.

[Griffonnage]

Like them too , but I think you lost somethign on the second one with your rework.
The thumbmail had a more procounced difference between the height of the two characters and you lost the nice perspective effect the road give it...

[Hexokinase]

The camera you have chosen for the two fleshed out ones isn't very engaged in the action. An action piece needs an action camera. With these two, the environment feels like the focus. Experiment with a dozen different camera views of the same scenario. Find some big, dynamic, interesting shapes. Make sure the action between the characters is the emphasis, and not the background environment.

[cfhd]

Ok heres the three latest thumbs. I'm leaning towards the one with the guy jumping off the rock. The one with the knight blocking arrows could be good to. The other one with the archer on the hill looking down isn't supposed to be quite as dramatic. The knight is supposed to not know where the archer is so will kind of be looking in another direction. Of the three I think this ones the weakest.

Anyways, let me know what you think.

[cfhd]

Alright, here is the last thumb. I really didn't put much effort into the remake of this one initially so maybe this ones a bit better. Still sort of leaning towards the guy jumping off the rock but this one sort of has potential now.

Let me know which one you would pick.

At this point I just feel like I need to start the real painting for one of these. Just not totally sure which one yet.

Thanks!

[cfhd]

Ok, so I started working on the one with the guy jumping off the rock.

I am just trying to get the posing right on the characters and as no surprise, I am having trouble with the bows perspective. The one with the bow outline I freehanded and the dark black bow one I used the ellipse tool and perspective transform. I'm not sure which one looks better or is even correct. Any feedback about the poses or the bow perspective would be helpful.

[pauloricardo]

Hello,

I think the choice will be a very dynamic image, but regarding to the archer (as well some kung-fu fighters), usually, a well trained guy should be used to put one of his knees on the floor to get a better position to be stabilized... check some study on this if you want to consider my post. I think it can improve your piece.

Best regards,

[cfhd]

Hello,

I think the choice will be a very dynamic image, but regarding to the archer (as well some kung-fu fighters), usually, a well trained guy should be used to put one of his knees on the floor to get a better position to be stabilized... check some study on this if you want to consider my post. I think it can improve your piece.

Best regards,

Thanks, great suggestion. When I was initially posing him I couldn't get it to work but after I few tries I think I got it right. Also, I fully redid the bow and moved his pose around a bit so the arrow is pointing better at the guy jumping. It seems to be coming together much better now.

Further suggestions welcome.

[pauloricardo]

Yep,

I think that is better now... your changes made a good improvement, right now, they look like they will hit each other.

good work

[cfhd]

Well its safe to say I'm not moving along very fast on this one. Just can't seem to find the time right now and the whole majorly procrastinating part doesn't help... Anyways, in the hopes of keeping this thread fresh, here is my work so far. Just a basic colour pass on the archer. Kind of looking like some sort of evil robin hood right now.

Let me know what you think.

[cfhd]

Had a little bit of time to work on this before I left for work today. Just adding more colours as I go. Trying to get some depth in there.

[Aceoko]

You seem to have lost some of the movement, anatomy & pose on the guy you have painted, as compared to the sketch. His arms and legs were better in the previous sketch.

[cfhd]

I did change the arms quite a bit. I thought the new one looked more realistic. I'll see if I can fix them when I get home.

[cfhd]

So I couldn't find this pose anywhere on the net for the archer. I ended up taking some pictures of myself in the same position so I could rearrange him. That really helped a lot.

Basically fully reworked his entire upper body arms and head. also moved the legs around bit to tighten it up and shrunk him back down a bit.

Looking a bit better now. Just wanted to post it in case anyone sees any mistakes or thinks it looks lame before I start adding more paint.

Thanks

[cfhd]

More adjustments before work. Seems to be starting to take shape.

[cfhd]

So, I'm still plugging away at this. Man did it ever take me a long time to rework the knights pose. I tried many different ones and this one ended up the best overall. The problem was that this new pose didn't fit the composition so I ended up shifting the entire background to the right and rotating it clockwise. I think it achieved the desired effect and the overall composition of the image has increased.

Let me know what you think.

[cfhd]

So, here is where I'm at with my picture. Did some major cropping adjustments since it seemed like there was way too much wasted space in the last version. I think its better showing the action now. Still have more to do to finish it.

This thread seems to have just turned into me posting updates and nobody replying but I dunno, I guess I'm ok with that. I feel like at this point I need to take this thread to completion so why not show the steps and thoughts I had along the way.

If you do feel like commenting then have at her. If not, no worries, hope you like it and don't mind me posting all these small updates.

[pauloricardo]

Hi man, I prefer the jumping man with the sword pointed downward... I was thinking about your changes, may be the new pose with an axe can be more scaring.

Ayway, good work and best regards

[cfhd]

Thanks, hows this look?

[cfhd]

Bah, after staring at this thing for the past week I think I'm starting not to really like it anymore. I think I maybe blew it with my colour choices. Any suggestions on how to fix them would be appreciated...

[I STRaY I]

Hey man, I'm not the most qualified to give advice. But I too, in the past and now have gotten to points in anything I've tried to start and finish where I would get sick of it. In my own self critique, I have found that I would be beating myself up about specifics. I see in your piece you have gone on with the archer forever, making only changes to him then finally went to the jumping guy, and all the while I would say you should just be moving around the image bringing things into play, and making global changes instead of getting stuck on certain things. Here you have gotten stuck on anatomy, gesture/pose, color, design and atmosphere. Also, like me, maybe you ought to just work with gesture and anatomy, and perspective and environment in images of their own rather then try and stick them all together. I know going for finished images sounds fun. But really you have to ask yourself. Is running into walls throughout a piece thwarting my confidence because I cannot finish, and more importantly, is the time I'm wasting beating myself up, time I could be using to better myself in an area. Or should I focus on one thing. For instance, the archer and his pose in it's own image, and finish that, be happy and learn from it and move onto something else. In my own opinion of your work, there are quite a few things not working, the materials are all the same, the design of characters is lacking, the anatomy is off, the perspective, while creative might be too much to bite off now. I very much like the thumbnail process you used, but I would recommend to do some individual studies of the elements you do decide to use prior to going all out. As for color choices, I can't comment on that as I simply haven't learned enough myself. So meh, my 2 bits, do what you will with them, regardless, just keep applying yourself.

[cfhd]

Hey man, I'm not the most qualified to give advice. But I too, in the past and now have gotten to points in anything I've tried to start and finish where I would get sick of it. In my own self critique, I have found that I would be beating myself up about specifics. I see in your piece you have gone on with the archer forever, making only changes to him then finally went to the jumping guy, and all the while I would say you should just be moving around the image bringing things into play, and making global changes instead of getting stuck on certain things. Here you have gotten stuck on anatomy, gesture/pose, color, design and atmosphere. Also, like me, maybe you ought to just work with gesture and anatomy, and perspective and environment in images of their own rather then try and stick them all together. I know going for finished images sounds fun. But really you have to ask yourself. Is running into walls throughout a piece thwarting my confidence because I cannot finish, and more importantly, is the time I'm wasting beating myself up, time I could be using to better myself in an area. Or should I focus on one thing. For instance, the archer and his pose in it's own image, and finish that, be happy and learn from it and move onto something else. In my own opinion of your work, there are quite a few things not working, the materials are all the same, the design of characters is lacking, the anatomy is off, the perspective, while creative might be too much to bite off now. I very much like the thumbnail process you used, but I would recommend to do some individual studies of the elements you do decide to use prior to going all out. As for color choices, I can't comment on that as I simply haven't learned enough myself. So meh, my 2 bits, do what you will with them, regardless, just keep applying yourself.

Thanks a lot dude. Some solid advice there. Guess its back to the basics for me.