help me to see mistakes

[johnny24]

i am work in this painting for several hours now and more hours i look to this painting less i can see! any help seeing important error is welcome.

[J.R.Hollis]

I looked at the reference picture in your sketchbook, you should probably post that in here too.

Hmm, If anything I'm thinking that the hat brim shadow doesn't follow the curve of the guys head. What's blocking the rest of the brim from the light besides his head? His face bends the shadow around it. And since the brim is flat, it wouldn't just change values abruptly like that unless something strait edged blocked the light.

I can't really see anything else, I'm quite sure others will point things out that I haven't seen. I can tell its going to be a sick portrait when its done.

[johnny24]

yeh you are rigth i will post the ref here...

the shadow in is hat isnt ok but my main idea is to bring some more contrast because the hat in the ref is to flat.

[johnny24]

[J.R.Hollis]

Yeah man I can see that, and I commend you for that. The reference is bright, and this lighting scheme makes the guys thug head tilt look more dynamic.

I think your doing good.

[Pavel Sokov]

I think the eyes you painted look too big and the eyebrows too dark

[Jorem]

I like it but in your painting I see that the nose holes (that´s the way to say it in English ?? ) are a bit rare


The rest for me is cool !!!


Greetings

[johnny24]

i agree i will change that rigth now thanks

[johnny24]

I think the eyes you painted look too big and the eyebrows too dark

i will measure the eyes... thanks

[moonskittles]

I like it but in your painting I see that the nose holes (that´s the way to say it in English ?? ) are a bit rare

An English speaker would understand what you meant by "nose holes", but there is a special word for this, which is "nostril".


In your ref, the guy has red eyes from the flash. Translated into the painting, they make him look stoned or hypnotized. Is this the effect you were looking for? If not, I would give him pupils. Also, the shine and color you have given his skin makes it look very waxy, sweaty, and sick.

[Kiera]

Now that's a guy with an interesting face, it's also nice portrait. He would be pretty perfect for caricature .

Be careful around the nose; the shadow on the bridge of the nose, the shadow from the underside of the eyehole and the shadow on the eye create a line that makes his face look weird.
It's pushing distorting the nose and pushes his right eye to the outside.

He could need some eyelashes, it's rare to see a guy with a lot of thick black hair and no eyelashes.
I also have trouble seeing the cap as a cap, I see it as a weird Donal Duck beak. Get yourself a cap and check the small details like the seams again.

[johnny24]

An English speaker would understand what you meant by "nose holes", but there is a special word for this, which is "nostril".


In your ref, the guy has red eyes from the flash. Translated into the painting, they make him look stoned or hypnotized. Is this the effect you were looking for? If not, I would give him pupils. Also, the shine and color you have given his skin makes it look very waxy, sweaty, and sick.

yes im trying to replicate that... and this guys from hip hop just like to get stoned everyday so is a good thing to replicate haha!

the ambient is purple-ish (is this well written?) so i chose some red-purples for shadows and some yellows complementary color to the ligth side! what do you think its missing?

[johnny24]

Now that's a guy with an interesting face, it's also nice portrait. He would be pretty perfect for caricature .

Be careful around the nose; the shadow on the bridge of the nose, the shadow from the underside of the eyehole and the shadow on the eye create a line that makes his face look weird.
It's pushing distorting the nose and pushes his right eye to the outside.

He could need some eyelashes, it's rare to see a guy with a lot of thick black hair and no eyelashes.
I also have trouble seeing the cap as a cap, I see it as a weird Donal Duck beak. Get yourself a cap and check the small details like the seams again.

yep, now you say that i can see that line! i will try to soften that shadows!

[Zilkenian]

I hope I can help you like you helped me ^^ (By the way, sorry for english mistakes. My main language is spanish and I'm doing my best to learn as much english as I can)

The eyebrows are too close together, like they are going to join over the nose. Makes the guy look evil, like he's going to attack me with the most silent attack he could do. If you can modify them (like, they are in a different layer , separated from the rest of the face) try to make them thinner, and shorter.

Like someone already said here, the cap shadow doesn't go with the guy's face, and with the light. He's receiving the light from the side, a bit down, but the shadow comes from a light down the guy's face (I hope I'm explaining correctly ^^u)

I don't see another mistake here...well, I hope I helped at least a little ^^u

[johnny24]

any help is welcome thanks

[Stoat]

There aren't many outright errors. In fact, am I right in thinking this is a paintover? Nothing wrong with that; I'm convinced we'll recognize paintover as legit technique real soon now, but it is subject to its own particular challenges.

For example, his ear - that thing that looks like a curvy spike is just an optical illusion in the photo. It's actually part of a larger process that curves on back and joins the top of the ear (don't let your ref push you around if you know better).

I like the red-eye effect, but when you like something that's in your photo, you need to grab it and push it hard. I also like things you've added. The highlight around his ear. The shadow on his cap (though I'm not sure the shape is right). You need to push those, too.

Bottom line, you need to look hard at your ref all during the process. If something doesn't make sense in the photo, MAKE it make sense in your painting. Find other ref to correct it. If you like something, dial it up to eleven. When you're done and you put your painting next to the ref, you need to think, "my painting is a thousand times awesomer."

[johnny24]

There aren't many outright errors. In fact, am I right in thinking this is a paintover? Nothing wrong with that; I'm convinced we'll recognize paintover as legit technique real soon now, but it is subject to its own particular challenges.

For example, his ear - that thing that looks like a curvy spike is just an optical illusion in the photo. It's actually part of a larger process that curves on back and joins the top of the ear (don't let your ref push you around if you know better).

I like the red-eye effect, but when you like something that's in your photo, you need to grab it and push it hard. I also like things you've added. The highlight around his ear. The shadow on his cap (though I'm not sure the shape is right). You need to push those, too.

Bottom line, you need to look hard at your ref all during the process. If something doesn't make sense in the photo, MAKE it make sense in your painting. Find other ref to correct it. If you like something, dial it up to eleven. When you're done and you put your painting next to the ref, you need to think, "my painting is a thousand times awesomer."

"

no man this isnt a paintover!! i have videos of me painting (for a timelapse video) this and i put a link here just for you to see im saying the true! but why you think that? is because the ear? i dont paint ears to often and anatomy is one of my weaknesses, i can paint a face but things i dont draw usualy are more dificult if i dont have a good ref! the ear in the photo dont have a good defenition so i struggle a bit around that part! but tomorrow i will find a good ref and make the ear look good!

thank you by you critic! i dont have anything against paintovers but i think its not that challenge painting over a photo! and dont learn anything or at least to much if i look and choose my own color build shapes etc

ps: sorry about my english!

[arenhaus]

In your ref, the guy has red eyes from the flash. Translated into the painting, they make him look stoned or hypnotized. Is this the effect you were looking for?

And that's a perfect illustration of why you have to understand what the camera does very, very deeply before you can even think of painting from photos. What camera registers is not what the human eye sees. Perspective works differently, color works differently, there are all kinds of artifacts (from red eye to light bloom and lens flare)... working from photos successfully is much more difficult than working from life, not less difficult.

Even if it may seem so at the first glance because a photo does not move.

[Stoat]

When he was a young man, Mark Twain worked in a pencil factory, so they say. To the end of his life, he could stick his hand in a big box of pencils and grab twelve pencils. No more, no less.

Making an exact copy of a photo, mistakes and all, is a little like that. It's a kind of a neat trick to show off at a party. I guess.

[Charadas]

I just noticed a quick little thing. The man's neck in the picture is too narrow and is concave on the left side (our left, not his) when it should be convex... or at least more straight. Great coloring otherwise, I like the purple

[johnny24]

When he was a young man, Mark Twain worked in a pencil factory, so they say. To the end of his life, he could stick his hand in a big box of pencils and grab twelve pencils. No more, no less.

Making an exact copy of a photo, mistakes and all, is a little like that. It's a kind of a neat trick to show off at a party. I guess.

man are you saying this is show off? im not trying impress anyone, whats the point to come here and try to impress if there is people who is better? even make an exat copy of a photo have his challenges... but has you see um not trying to replicate a photo! i change color and that...

[johnny24]

And that's a perfect illustration of why you have to understand what the camera does very, very deeply before you can even think of painting from photos. What camera registers is not what the human eye sees. Perspective works differently, color works differently, there are all kinds of artifacts (from red eye to light bloom and lens flare)... working from photos successfully is much more difficult than working from life, not less difficult.

Even if it may seem so at the first glance because a photo does not move.

i think theres is no need to be so radical, "you have to understand what the camera does very, very deeply before you can even think of painting from photos"
Brad Rigney have worked only from photos... he understand what camera is doing etc but first he learn to copy, paint, etc from photos...

[johnny24]

I just noticed a quick little thing. The man's neck in the picture is too narrow and is concave on the left side (our left, not his) when it should be convex... or at least more straight. Great coloring otherwise, I like the purple

thank you! i should take care of that today!

[Stoat]

Well, no. I didn't mean showing off. It's just...making a very close copy of a photo without doing more to interpret what you're seeing is a lot of work for not much return. You might as well do a paintover; it's much quicker.

As a learning experience, fine. I can see doing it as eye training.

[arenhaus]

man are you saying this is show off? im not trying impress anyone, whats the point to come here and try to impress if there is people who is better? even make an exat copy of a photo have his challenges... but has you see um not trying to replicate a photo! i change color and that...

You have misunderstood him. He was making a snarky convolute comment about pointlessness of copying photos. Not very nice of him, true.

To rephrase it constructively, you should practice a systematic drawing method and preferably draw from life, not waste time copying photos.

[johnny24]

yeh i understand your point

[johnny24]

You have misunderstood him. He was making a snarky convolute comment about pointlessness of copying photos. Not very nice of him, true.

To rephrase it constructively, you should practice a systematic drawing method and preferably draw from life, not waste time copying photos.

i know, and from the next week when i finish this work im gonna start drawing and stop painting for a while and just focus in the drawing anatomy etc...

[Stoat]

Well, no, I wasn't just being snarky (and it's 'her', for what it's worth). I do a lot of paintovers myself -- quick and dirty political 'shops that start life as photos. Here's one I did yesterday in about an hour:



I started with a photograph -- and a wholly separate thing -- a picture idea. I fiddled and warped and painted over and fussed with the photo until it conformed to my picture idea. For all it's a paintover, I feel comfortable claiming this as an original work, because there's more of me in there than there is the source photograph.

So what I'm saying to the original poster is, you've got to put more of YOU in that picture. Bottom line, nobody really cares how you make the image -- whether you paintover, or use gridlines or just copy carefully by eye. But when you get done, you have to have something that is more interesting than the ref you started with, or you've wasted a bunch of your own time. Which is why earlier I pointed to things in your picture I thought were starting to look interesting.

[LaCan]

Well... on the practical side, I think it's counterproductive to invent new lighting on the existing reference, unless you have full understanding of the form, the light behavior and the reflective properties of the surface. The reference is there to inform you about light situation. If you want different light situation - shoot a corresponding reference. What you did now is an unwieldy mix of frontal flash lighting, window light and extreme back light. In process, the natural translucence of skin was completely lost, which is a bad thing for a portrait. It'd be much better to get a good reference and stick to it.

One more thing. In painting, there is a neat principle called "stroke economy". A sort of an Occam's razor of painting. It states you should use as few brush strokes as possible to achieve desired result. There are multiple benefits in following this principle. You'll paint a lot faster. Your strokes will be exposed to the viewer, making the painting look fresh, not over-glazed. Most importantly, you'll stop tiring your images with excessive detailing and concentrate on correctly interpreting lighting and color.

Here's my quick go with the reference. Done with mouse, fully opaque round brush. Note, for example, how few strokes are used to paint the ear. Yet I doubt anyone would have any objections on it.

[johnny24]

Well... on the practical side, I think it's counterproductive to invent new lighting on the existing reference, unless you have full understanding of the form, the light behavior and the reflective properties of the surface. The reference is there to inform you about light situation. If you want different light situation - shoot a corresponding reference. What you did now is an unwieldy mix of frontal flash lighting, window light and extreme back light. In process, the natural translucence of skin was completely lost, which is a bad thing for a portrait. It'd be much better to get a good reference and stick to it.

One more thing. In painting, there is a neat principle called "stroke economy". A sort of an Occam's razor of painting. It states you should use as few brush strokes as possible to achieve desired result. There are multiple benefits in following this principle. You'll paint a lot faster. Your strokes will be exposed to the viewer, making the painting look fresh, not over-glazed. Most importantly, you'll stop tiring your images with excessive detailing and concentrate on correctly interpreting lighting and color.

Here's my quick go with the reference. Done with mouse, fully opaque round brush. Note, for example, how few strokes are used to paint the ear. Yet I doubt anyone would have any objections on it.

Thanks... yes a nice ref would be nice but i only have this one ... great example! and now i see why i paint so slowly! thanks!! i will try that! thanks for your advices!