small Update Dec 19, 2010 Crits please.

[griffinfly]

great studies, the latest ones are much more confident with the planes than the ones in first pages! love those black ladies, just can't have enough

[Beelow]

Hey, thanks everyone for the continued support. I apologize, again, for not keeping up with my sketchbook. With trying to raise kids and keep an income coming in the house, I am bogged down with being house dad and working on commissioned jobs. It's a bit of a rocky road for me, but I will try my best to be a bit more active in the forums. I do have a blog and a link to it; my latest work is there. Check me out there. Thanks again. When I get around to it, I will post some of that stuff here, maybe all, who knows. Depends on how Ifeel, I guess. Later friends.

[Raoul Duke]

your sketchbook is fucking bananas.

[sutapa]

hi Beelow,
It was nice visiting your sketchbook. I found you in some other's sketchbook, your profile pic made me peep into your sketchbook.....and I felt really satisfied looking at your drawings.You have a great color mixing sense...

[Jakers]

Hey dude, thought you had some cool stuff - I especially loved you imagining yourself in the flesh as a spartan. I liked the female portrait with funky expression too - this is all back a page or two. Recent stuff is looking cool - I would say, that like myself, the rendering of the enviros as Trevor suggested is between tightened and loose, so it doesn't look intentional one way or the other.

I read you do casino type graphical work - i've been in and out of that for a while myself. Why style of art is it on average, vector art in illustrator/flash, painted bitmaps, 3D pre-rendered? Feel free to PM me some more details!

[Beelow]

Hey everyone. Sorry for the long wait . Here is some more stuff. Based off crits I've recieved in the past I've been kinda working hard getting things right. I am still not satisfied with the way some of my work looks, but I can honestly say that I've grown a bit. I am not sure if people are heading over to my blog. So I'll just post what I have on my blog here as well. Thanks for the comment and crits everyone. I will respond to everyone a bit later. Even if it is from a couple years ago, LOL. I don't mind. Comments and crits are always are welcome. Some recent life-drawing stuff and some stuff from this year and last I worked on. Enjoy.

All done in PainterX btw.

[phizpietl]

damn dude, super cool stuff. rad color!

Phil Lietz
www.phillietz.blogspot.com
www.phillietz.com

[Cameli]

nicw fantasy and rendering colors!

[Beelow]

Sorry, these responses are stupid late on some...

jatherip-thanks. draw a lot.

lennon-thanks.

Ebony-chan-I am alright. thanks though.

Djinn-LOL, thanks, really appreciate it.

chippie- I have a personal taste for booty when it comes to women. I won't elaborate any further, LOL. Thanks though.

CeeJay- Yeah I need to. It's been rough for me, hopefully I can focus more now. Personal issues happened, life happened. Time to capitalize now. Thanks for dropping by.

BlackGuy- About a year and a half. LOL. I am back now. I will try to be a bit more consistent with my posts. Thanks, my nig.

Zebz-Got the new stuff up. You've already seen these though. I guess I am good. I need to be better though.

Studio Colrouphobia-Glad I helped out a bit for you. Thanks for dropping by.

griffinfly- Thanks, I tend to not notice things when I paint and draw. It's great to hear the feedback to hear that I have at least grown a bit. I am all about the sistaz. Thanks.

Raoul Duke- I guess so, thanks though. I am glad there a bananas in here.

sutapa- Still, I am trying to get with my colors. Main focus of my studies has been Composition, Movement and Design. The rest is just extra that I can push. I make sure that I have those things at least if the rest fails.

Jakers- I haven't done an environment in a while. I've been focusing on just Illustration for a minute and character concepts. I will keep that in mind with the next few environments that I develop. As I've mentioned above, Design, Composition, and Movement have been a big focus. All the rest of theories supplements the main body of what I am trying to improve on, perspective, anatomy, atmosphere, yada, yada you get the hint. As for other stuff I will pm you details in a couple of days. Thanks for dropping by though.

phizpietl-Thanks!

Cameli-and Thanks!

I think that is everyone. I know I missed a few. Some I don't need to respond to.

[Beelow]

I need some extra eyes for this one, I am working on. I like to hear some of your thoughts. Crits please.

[kingkostas]

yo mate really nice works you have here!!!.Lovely rendering and colors.Also nice play with the focused areas.
This page is lovely!!!
keep up the good work and thnx for the crit in my sb

[Jasper_]

Hey man you've got some really great stuff in here, I'm enjoying that latest update with a bunch of images a lot. On your newest piece, I feel like I'm a little disoriented by the direction of the clouds, and I'm not quite sure about that red flame substance, you may be able to improve the color and direction of it yet. Keep going man, were these fantasy pieces done for personal work or were they commissioned?

[Culo]

Hey, i just wanted to drop in to say thanks for the comment on my SB. It is actually an extremely helpful comment, i really appreciate it.

[Icecold]

Ohoho, a true pearl.
I really love your style it reminds me of good old comic books, sentimental memories
I'll be her emore often for sure, wish you all the best, ICE

[Beelow]

kingkostas- Your welcome dude. And thanks for the compliments. No homo though.

Jasper_-I did the clouds the way I did for the sake of composition. It was a sacrifice. I don't know if it is a good one though. I think I am just going to go with it. See if it works in the finished. I may end up changing it though. I can see where the confusion is at. Yeah the red flame thingy is just placement to see how well it works for the comp before I tighten it. I want the focus of the piece to be centered around that area, that is why I put it there. I am wondering though if the wizard guy with the magical arrow is distracting from that. I was wondering if anyone would see that. These are all personal for portfolio to get work that I want. I am still trying to improve on my work though. I want to get WOTC work. It's tough though, I gotta do work as excellent as Kekai, Chan, Izzy, Rapoza and many others. It's not an easy client to get. I am working at it though. Thanks for the crits, and compliments.

Culo- Your welcome, I am glad that I helped you out. Thanks for dropping by.

Icecold- Noooo. Don't tell me that LOL, jk. I am really trying to up my Illustrations. as I've mentioned before i am trying to get work from Wizards of the Coast. Any crit to get me on my way would be helpful. Thanks for coming by though, I really appreciate the compliments. It makes me feel good that I've improved since 08 at least.

[MattGamer]

hola! thanks for comment in my sb. i like the figure studies!

critiques on some of your paintings that i saw before. in the following images: here and here i see a problem with the hands gripping objects. the fingers look far too extended. if you just take anything in your room that is sword like (ie. broom, bottle, etc) and photograph in the same position as your character in the illustration, you will see what i mean. the fingers hardly extend all the way around like that. the orc's pinky finger is almost missing. if you understand what i'm trying to get at. lol i'm a bad critiquer.

and in this one the dude with the glowing bow and arrow's, his hand on the bow is very awkward. if you see here (check this link out too) you can see the wrist isn't bent like that when you extend the bow to full reach. it probably is a preliminary sketch though and you were going to fix it anyways. ;]

loving these colors in all of these. this one reminds me of a zerg queen who's attacking in medieval times. ahha! cheers!

[Beelow]

That's what I am talking about Matt! Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't catch those things. Now I gotta go back and fix some stuff. And thanks for the links. Don't discredit yourself as a critique-er, LOL. You found something that I didn't see myself. I will be more aware of it next time around. thanks again.

[Texahol]

some quick thoughts from me and my broken brain:

stop putting human arms on your dragons. This is a pet peeve of mine, but if you have a quadruped, give it appropriate anatomical design. I see so many people put human arm anatomy on all their quadruped creatures, and it just looks really silly to me. look at the anatomy of quadruped animals that use their arms and phalanges [squirrels, chinchillas,dogs, lizards, etc]

You are working in all these odd formats. If you are doing personal work specifically for applying to wotc, you should not only understand their IP, but take a good look at the formats they use. if you want to do magic cards, do illustrations that would be geared towards the cards and use the card format. If you want to do interior illos in the D&D magazine, look at the formats they use. They re-use the same image sizes over and over again for layout purposes.

On the last one, the composition is bad. There's no real flow. Everything is stacked on the one side of the image. I think you really could get away with just a glowing arrowhead, or some magic swirling around the arrowhead. Having the whole thing glowing is super distracting, and the placement is bad. You should really avoid diagonals going into corners of your images...yet you've done it twice

uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuum you should really ref your hands a bit. You've drawn the fingers all aligned perfectly. When you grab things, your knuckles will stack up differently on how you grab it, and you're making ALL the hands tuck in[palmar flexion], when they should be shifted pulling up[dorsiflexion] in many of the instances. It's real helpful to do the movements of the poses u are trying to do so you can feel what makes sense. I usually will come up with the idea of the pose and then do it myself so I can make sure it feels like it works.

mooooooo moo moooooo

[Ilahmec]

You've really made some improvements over time. Keep it up!

Thought I might add a few crits to the great ones that Texahol gave... The texture on the dragon's head is awesome... right where it needs to be, but a lot of the rest seems hastily done (dragon's hands, the figure in the foreground, and the one on the dragon's back). If you're going to put in that much work on a piece, see it through to the end. I agree that the clouds are distracting at the angle they're at. They look great, but unnatural. Lastly, I think your highlights need to pop more. The fireball in the hand of the guy on the dragon could just as easily be a ripped up flag. The bow doesn't go with the image at all. I get that it's magical (maybe even summoned?), but the color is exactly the same on the bow, string, ...even the little spark that you added. Don't be afraid to bump up the contrast!

Again, amazing development of your skills! I look forward to seeing more!

[krel]

Nice progress here since 2006!

Althou, overall I think your digital work lacks something. It looks so clean that it becoms boring.
At a first glance I go, "Oh nice", but theres nothing there to keep me looking, nothing that makes me want to "discover" the painting.

[Vulgar`]

Nice! I'll have some critique later on a few of these, but I just want to say you should rejoin the EOW ranks once more...

[Zebz]

BRYCE! I'm writing on your thread finally. lol Although now I see you've gotten some amazing feedback. I still have a couple things I'd suggest but first I'd like to point out some things I love.

- That sky is damned pretty. It might not work perfectly for this but you really have a nack for painting clouds, brother. lol I also love seeing your brush strokes though at times they don't seem to follow the form quite right. The rocks sometimes bother me a bit. Nothing some rock studies won't help.

- I love all the detail you put into the head of the dragon in particular. It's very nice even if it feels like you poured more love into that and a little less into some of the other areas.

- The color palette for the dragon definitley feels like a white creature from MTG. I might of worked that into the dude on top more too. I like all the soft blues and purples in the scales. Very nice.

Now for some crits.

- Tex pointed it out but the composition is a bit rough. The idea is to try and capture the eye and keep it inside the image. I tend to work my compositions up in triangles most of the time. (I need to work out other ways because I mostly fall back to this all the time. lol) It keeps the viewer moving back and forth within the image more from key point to key point. You can do it with contrast in color or lighting. Which will lead me to my next point.

-The values and colors in this image are all over the map. You have a lot of beautiful color going on. The problem is that you need to keep some parts more muted and monochromatic and then really play up those places you want the eye to travel. You could do this with a more dramatic lighting as well. Right now things seem to be lit pretty similarly. Really push the contrast in an image to create bold shapes that draw the viewers eyes around as well. A deep shadow on the ground can even do the trick or a highlight at the edge of the arow. The other thing with the values is that you're lacking that sense of depth. I can see you're trying ot go for it but there isn't really a foreground, middle ground and back ground. Try to layer the image and treat and render each layer a bit differently. This might help break it up more. People might not agree with me but it's what has worked for me in the past. I'm still learning of course. Heh.

-The only other thing that's not really covered here is that his neck was bothering me initially. The shape is so constant through out. It's a natural beast with muscles and stuf. It'd be cool to really sell that form and maybe vary it up in areas or bunch the skin and certain points. Just a thought.

Hope some of that helps, man. We all need it! Ha! Me probably more then anyone! So feel free to bust my chops too! lol I'm not the best painter but I've been learning some tricks lately that have helped me personally. The growth is coming slowly for all of us, eh? All around your stuff is looking good. I'd like to see more production drawings and sketches though. You have so much illustration work. I'd like to get a better sense of how you are at generating ideas. Crank some stuff out, man! And what are you up to this weekend? I'd love to get together sometime. Let me know what's up, man. - Z

[Beelow]

Devin, Ryan, Ilahmec Thanks a lot. I need to work it some more. I did work it a bit; I will try to cover as much of the crits given to me by all of you to better the image. Been busy with other crap to work it up more, I'll try to find more time to fix up more. Looks like I am going to have to revisit some older pieces to correct hands, damn.

Vulgar`- I'll try to get around to that. I have plenty to do at the moment.

krel- Thanks, as far as the crit, I am not sure what you mean. Elaborate. I am not really about the chaotic strokes right now. I am working on color composition, design. I am working on making things look like things. I want to work on implementing theory to heighten my design sense and being able to tell a better story visually. Thanks for dropping by though.

More work to show to keep people interested. Later Ladies and gents.

[Darkside]

hey beelow,

great illustrations man, your finishing is awesome. there is a huge huge improvement in your work, thumbs up
as for crits, in your last post there are several issues. you might want to look at the second image again and recheck the perspective. way off, especially on the arch, it looks like you guessed everything. consider the convergence of verticals toward the third vanishing point above the horizon.
the drapery looks like a solid object. place a cloth yourself in a similar fashion and look how the material behaves.
her body is rendered pretty sketchy in comparison, is it still a wip?

in the last image, check the proportions: the butt, fingers, raised arm are to long, the head might be a touch tiny (that´s of course a matter of taste and stylisation, but it looks a bit odd to me )

ok, I hope that doesn´t sound harsh, it´s definitely not meant so.
you are doing great and know where your goal is, so keep at it man

cheers

[xxPurple Nugxx]

i love this sketchbook

[Beelow]

Darkside- Thanks for the crits. I imposed as much crits for the last painting. Thanks again. Yeah first 2 are still wip. I think I am going to give up on them for now and move on to the next paintings.

xxPurple Nugxx-Thanks! =)

Finally got around to finishing my chow 200 entry. I didn't make the deadline though. Enjoy though.

[Istmin52]

Your work really inspires me to keep pursuing art. I've had my ups and downs with it for quite a while now but your work has really shown improvement from the first page in your sketchbook.

[Loathsome]

AAAH, so many amazing works in this thread!
First I browsed the first page without knowing it was the first page and thought; hm, yeah this guy is pretty good.
And then I went to the last and I think I peed a little.

Also you have a similar name to my friend (weelow)

[Beelow]

Istmin52- Thanks, I am glad that I inspire some people. Life happens. Just gotta go with the flow. It is what it is. Keep painting, most definitely.

Loathsome- Thanks, I try a little. You probably should go and check your bladder you might have a problem, LOL. But thanks, though. That makes me smile.


Couple of recent paints a photo copy an EOW concept that I worked on (not sure if I am going to finish it)and an old one that I am not going to return back to that wa for a COW. I get bored too easily, sorry everyone.

[Jakers]

Dude I was surprised to see such effort put into those illustrations and how far they have come as a whole! The last CHOW is super rad, it just feels like you did a lot of things right and I don't find anything worth griping about. The bird was kept simple in detail which I think makes it a 'quick read' secondary focus. If you went too crazy on it, I bet it would steal attention due to its color and brightness. However, I think the image would still work well even if it wasn't there because of how interesting your character is

It was nice seeing your images and the following critiques. Can't help but to agree with tex. The last portrait there is very nice, the close lens helps make it more interesting I think You have retained great edges around the eyes, sockets, lips etc. though the forehead should be more smooth? Could use a tiny bit more detail for hair direction, or eye lashes, but not necessary.