Fishspawn's Journey

[fedezz]

Hey fish, it's good to have you back! My crit for these sketches: try to avoid closing shapes in the "()" fashion, like this:
Attachment 70415
(img courtesy of Rebecca Kimmel.)

Cheers and have a happy new year man!

PS: did you visit the "It's a Small World" (or something like that) ride at Disney? Damn it freaked me out

[Lee W]

did a good job on the girl on this page
http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1167545987

good to hear you had fun at disneyland and your feeling out of the slump

[Fishspawn]

TomCardin - thanks for the c+c

fedezz - thanks, i keep trying to do that but then i get the "draw with structure!" speeches, gotta figure out what I'm doing wrong... yeah "it's a small world" is kinda freaky O_O;

oldnoobie - thanks for stopping by

Well, i dont really like either of these things, although i spent lots of time and effort on both. About an hour in the sketch of the dude, was trying to tell some kind of story and get the pose/rendering accurate on the figure... on the portrait i didn't use any kind of ref and i was trying to get it to look like myself... i failed miserably. 3 hours total i think.... Oh well

Happy new year everybody, i look forward to drawing with you all through 2007!

[guitarjames]

hey,
With the sp try not to not use ref ,also on digis i find it easier to use big brush and paint in the values rather than draw the lines because the tablets are slippery and hard to get nice lines on.The guy is looking good but the out streched arm makes him look flyswated. Try and give it some more flow and then render it and it will be cool.

keep it up .james

[Fishspawn]

thanks james

internet super slow tonight so lame post w/life drawings of my enormous feet. bye

edit: well i didnt want to draw anything so i went into photoshop and started drawing in random stuff - faces, poses, etc, and when i couldn't tell what i was looking at anymore i would switch to the opposite color. I did this for quite some time until eventually i felt like making something out of it so i started to put junk down, fine tuning it little by little until i had something, and then i worked on that for a while, really loose and changing a lot of stuff without really any plan. I like how it turned out. I think total it was about 2 hours, i wasnt really paying attention though.

[arvalis]

I like the forest feel, my absolute favorite colors for a background are greens, so kudos. I also like the hanging vine things a lot. What i want to see from you is more colored faces, i really like that psuedo self portrait you did. Mitchell seems to have faith in your ability to draw faces, though this is not so with me. Work on some character portraits for our characters maybe, i want to know how itll turn out.

[Fishspawn]

arvalis - thanks for the kudos, i'll see what i can do. Generally i get bored with color on characters and detail on enviros.... both areas i just need to focus on until i'm comfortable and both things i'm putting off for no good reason

2 weeks since last lifedrawing session!? This lady had the longest torso i've ever seen.

[guitarjames]

hey ,
think you could push the depth more on the enviro and the gesture life drawings are looking as if they have no bones again.If you find you get bored doing details just do a little everyday and keep moving around the page so you dont get bored of doing the same bit.Keep thinking what the whole image looks like and focus what your trying to acheive.

keep it up .james

[Fishspawn]

guitarjames - thanks for the input

morning doodles from today and yesterday.

[Blue Severin]

Alright man, I'm going to give you the crit we've been giving James forever. Spend some time on these, quick is fine, but spend some time and get stuff right, it'll help you get better faster. Do some fully developed illustrations, pencil or digital, doesn't matter. I like these life drawings: http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1167811876
http://conceptart.org/forums/attachm...1&d=1167811886

[fedezz]

I'm diggin the faces on the last post.
I'm with Severin here. Never forget that you do this because you love it and 'cause it's fun as hell. Otherwise you'll end up as skillful as hell, but with nothing to say with those skills.
Keep it up.

[guitarjames]

hey,
Like i said before try and do one good face instead of lots of liitle ones slow down and take your time.Try and take up the whole page with one thing maybe that will make you take longer ,or take one of the faces you like and redo it taking longer maybe give it a body.Try picking up some difrent medium havent seen much paint in here.

keep it up .james.

[Fishspawn]

Sorry for the lack of updating, i was having one last relaxing hurrah before school/college apps take over my life. Okami is one of the best games i've ever played.

Blue Severin - thanks, see below

fedezz - yeah, gotta remember to have funpld:

guitarjames - thanks

Ok, so i'm tired of thinking stuff is finished and hearing from lots of people to finish stuff more often, so I'm going to mix things up a little. I'm going to work on one piece digitally and I want you guys to tell me when i'm done! I will keep working on it until i get the OK from at least four ssg members. You guys give me whatever crits you want - composition, values, textures, perspective, stupid idea, whatever, i'll take it and apply it to this painting. Give me ideas for where to go next at any given point in the process.

Give me "duh" crits and give me crits that i won't understand for years, I want to tackle my laziness full force and start producing some high-caliber artwork. I think it will be a great project, but i need you guys to participate - I'm mostly talking to my SSGers that are always telling me this, but anyone can participate. If this works well i'll keep doing them like this until i know how to sit down and finish something.

That said, heres some background on the piece so far. I'm going for a dark temple, early morning sky peeking through the cracked roof. I want the temple to fade into shadows wherever possible. Visibly there's a long road leading to a sacrificial altar in the middle of a pool of water, where the head of the leviathan lays on a rocky shelf (his body is massive and continues down into the water beyond our field of vision. A mysterious figure stands at the altar, performing his ritual, while another figure watches from afar (close to the viewer's position). In general i want the temple to look old and breaking, while the majestical leviathan lays as a fallen diety.

1.5 Hours so far - figuring all that stuff out and i started detailing the leviathan. Actual size is 3000 x 2000 px Crit this baby up, I look forward to finishing it. Oh, and I promise to have fun

[sweetoblivion314]

wow man you've realyl improved alot awsome. Sorry i havent been critting your stuff but i have returned

Firs thing i notice about the painting is theres alot of places where the idea of depth and things being on a singular plane are non existant because of the point you are at. When you finish the water it will fix alot of that though. Also i would do some relatively high contrast on that road to the altar. Its will really point out the whole plane, depth and distance idea for the composition and give a place for the journey of the observer to start and travel down towards the dead laviation. good work so far keep at it

[paberu]

Hey fish, sorry for not poping in for a while.

I did a paint over for you which might help you. Few things that I think are important, lower the horizon - horizon half way can be really boring at times, offset the composition - you need to help the eye wonder around the painting, add some texture - I found texture brushes are awsome! That's about it, hope it pushes you some ides.

p.s (that thing on left in my paint over is off perspective >__<, I'm an ookii baka).

[Lee W]

hmmm i think the column structures should be placed symmetrically in the composition, it should also help create the illusion of depth. Right now, it looks to be placed randomly (though it may be because the painting is still basically a rough) which shouldn't be if the interior is that of a temple. And I agree, lower the horizon.

[fedezz]

Hey fish, it's good to see you starting a project of this complexity. Perhaps you could've started with something more simple, like a full blown fully finished character design, but hey, this is even better
Let me see, rayk and kev covered the basics. My advice is that you should define right from the very beginning the value separations of the different planes in space, before you start adding volume. Keep it simple and easy to read. Toulouse Lautrec has some very graphic examples of this. In the image below you can see clearly what I mean about using values to separate the elements in the foreground, background and middleground.
http://www.lautrec.info/i/Moulin-Rouge-bg.gif
Hope it helps.

[jdeegz]

it has been so long! i dont know why i stopped paying attention to this thread and ca in general ;x

your digital paintings are coming out so well dude! i love your progress
i am so happy you are taking advantage of having an art center around for some figure drawing, i wish i could find some at home.
your figures seem like their butts are a little too low, but they are looking great. i may be wrong, but either the legs are too short or the torso is too long or somthing, does anyone else see this?

[guitarjames]

hey,
Good To see your guna take your time:p CRITS: Dont know much about enviros but , i think the creature's tail is a bit boring,make it curled up or something.Umm, dont forget the straight line tool and if you need custom brushes you can download mats off here.All i can see has been covered soo..
keep it up .james.

[arvalis]

I think the adding an early morning or sunset atmosphere to the light shining in the temple would look good. Perhaps you should also go ahead and make the leviathan's tail/body curling around the rock as it disappears into the rock. Adding more foliage like moss yo the temple would look good, if it is really old then plants should be present.

[Blue Severin]

work the whole painting, not just the creature. If you block in the whole thing slowly, not overdeveloping certain points compared to other things, it'll be easier to spot your mistakes and it will all work together. Decide where your horizon is, and note that things above it you'll be seeing the bottom of. I'd get a structurally sound thumbnail with all the perpsective right before detailing anything that you've got going right now. Or crop out the rest and work on the creature, cuz that would be cool too.

[Fishspawn]

Wow! Thanks everyone for the overwhelming response! Instead of replying to everyone individually about their crits i'll just post the checklist i made to help me follow what you all said. First, however...

jdeegz - if you can't find an art center check for community college classes, they are usually a better deal financially anyway. well, on that last batch i did specifially mention that her torso was abnormally long, although i may have exagerated that, we'll see what tomorrow's figure drawing produces...

Thank you so much to sweetoblivion314, rayk, oldnoobie, fedezz, guitarjames, arvalis, and Blue Severin! Here's the checklist i made from your crits, let me know if i missed anything and give me a new round of them. I basically summarized stuff and put it in an order that i though would be best to think about/follow. It's obviously still a WIP but I still need lots of help!

-Don’t overdevelop one area, fix composition, perspective and horizon.
-Lower horizon, shift composition for more interest, add texture
-Add rhythm and reason to temple structure – balance out pillars

-Fix contrast issues with focal points and values in atmosphere
-Use value separations to indicate planes

-Fix morning lighting, add lichens
-Fix leviathan’s tail, use textured brushes and straight lines


So, here's the second version after another 1.5 hours. R O U N D - 2 . . . FIGHT!

[arvalis]

I like the old pic where there were pillars that lined the walkway out to the summoning point. The wrapping of the tail is good in part, though try to avoid straight lines or straight-ish lines where long tails are concerned. Idealy there should never be any any straight lines or repating curves for dragon tails and alike. I really like the plant moss stuff you added, i also like the chick in the foreground. My concern now is that the area is too open, it no longer looks dilapidated. Bring the cieling in more, make it so the only light seen is from one sky light. Also try to make the summoning point far out from the rest of the land mass, it makes it look more epic. You wouldnt have to bring the cieling in more if you put some cool tower or city in the background above the cliff. As for the design of the leviathan, try moving the large side fin thing down the creatures body, or adding more fins down the length of its body. Try these things out, i await your next submission.

[Fishspawn]

arvalis - Thanks for the in-depth crits again, didn't have much time to work on it so i'll still be using your advice tomorrow when i work more.

Figures and another version of the painting with some stuff messed with. The figures were 5 1's, 5 2's, a 5, some 10's, and some 20's. The last one was a 20 but i stopped after like 10 minutes because i was happy with it (it was a partially blind contour drawing, w/o erasing). 30 more mins on the painting.

[jdeegz]

this digital work, i've got this image in my head of some sweetass shadows being lain upon the steps from the spike sin the ground, i hope you can incorporate it a bit

[guitarjames]

hey,
Like th elife drawings , thers only a couple of places that look like they got no bones this time, try to push yourself to get none.Good progress with the enviro , i think the big black wall in the backround ruins it a bit , try cutting some out and adding a item of choice.Also the guy right next to the dragon , looks to small compared the girl unless shes a statue.

keep it up .james.

[Wake101]

your life sketches are looking really really good. Very nice understanding of the human form. The digis look a little rough to me though. It'd be cool to see a few highly polished digis. Great work.

[Fishspawn]

jdeegz - thanks, i kind of have that idea too, but i've tried to do it a few times to little sucess

guitarjames - thanks, i see what you mean

wake101 - thank ye, working on it

Ok, i've been gone, too much stuff going on right now. I decided a few months back not to take a college course this semester because it was too much workload, and ever since that decision i've been busier than i was before -_-; something doesn't add up there. I'm hoping it will clear up in a couple of weeks but don't expect regular updates for now.

Here are some recent sketchbook pages. ~looking forward to making more time for art ASAP.

[fedezz]

Studies are looking good fish, my only crit for those is that the sitting girl's feet look stumpy. And give up on that enviro. As it is now, the mixed lod can give you some troubles to visualize the whole picture. Try to take everything to a blob state, and do some digi b&w thumbs if you need.
Keep it up

[guitarjames]

hey,
MOst off your faces all look the same try and get some variety in there ,also make art the priority

keep it up .james