small Update Dec 19, 2010 Crits please.

[B-Man]

Whoa nice man! Good job with the colors. nice render too.
Thanks for your help in my SB. I really appreciate good advice. Cheers mate.

[Edward B]

Hey Beelow, fantastic selfportrait!
I can certainly see shades of leyendecker in there, loving it. I have no proper crits or anything (yet!) but keep on rocking it! Looking forward to future posts :>

[Cameli]

Awesome updates my friend!The colors are mindblowing as always!Updates more often, its gonna makes us all happy!xD

[Aveh]

yo I really like that self-portrait.
The brushstrokes feel buttery like oils can, thats a cool outcome.

[tbaldree]

I love contrasting your newest portrait to the one back in 06 - it's great to see how far you've come. Love your SB!

[Beelow]

B-Man- Thanks for dropping by my book man. Glad that my advice is useful, no problem at all. Feel free to give me a crit or 2 if you have any. XD

Edward B- Whenever you have those crits i'll take em. Thanks for stopping by!

Cameli- I am deciding if I want to do daily's. I get distracted with other stuff so I am not sure if I am ready to make that commitment. But, I will try to update a bit more often. I guess if when everyone wants more beelow work, I'll give em more. Thanks for the encouragement. I definitely need it. XD

Aveh- I am really trying to work with some other brushes experiment a little. Thought, I would do it on that painting in particular. I had ref, so values were already solved. I changed some values a bit to my likings for mood. It was a fun experiment though.

tbaldree- Yeah I feel like I've improved. Sometimes I will go back to the first page and just look at my older work to see what improvements I've made over the years. If nothing else inspires me, I do that to get me going again. It usually works out. Thanks though.

I am glad that the sp is getting appeal thanks guys! Small update for PreDominance War 5. Trying to hack at this one a bit at a time. Any suggestions and crits always welcome fire away. I have a few ideas to improve it, just would like to hear some thoughts before I put the icing on the cake.

[PHATandy]

Absolutely love that SP. Love you the way you paint in lots of hard edges, espceially between colours. Feels a little geometric, its pretty cool.

With your latest picture. Your perspective needs to be ALOT steeper on the buildings to the left and right. If you look at where the lines of buildngs are going, they are all crossing at different places. And youve got a very upward looking perspective, like the way the building come inwards is good. But that would mean your not gonna be able to see much of the floor at all, the floor should be really flat.
Maybe use what youve got to push for a real fish-eye type perspective. It could be cool. Maybe overlap the characters a bit more, with each other and the buildings?
Just some ideas

Its looking good though, I really like the designs youve got. Keep it up.

[B-Man]

I got some advice for this epic peice.
First of. I got confused by the composition. You have the big "rune character" shaped like a arrow pointing to the bottom right. also the pose of the main character is in a triangular looking stance pointing the same way. so it sugest the eye should land there but you only put a couple of silhouettes as a background there. Its ok I figured the focus should be around the center of the image the main chars face and the flying woman. As I sugested in my paintover you can cut the bottom part of the "rune man" making the pointing less obvious.

Second thing. I changed was the characters left leg. The angle of the gun suggest that his leg should be on the other side of it.
I thought the tall buildings was making the characters look really tiny and insignificant so I tried making it smaller to give the characters some room. also the purple hue of the color behind them smudged alot of the feel so I tried giving some deeper blue to make em pop. Bringing focus.

I hope you dont mind me doing a paintover to illustrate what I mean and maybe suggest some fixes. Just give the word and I'll take em down.

This first one is to show your current focus and how shapes point. second one is my suggested fix. I hope someone has further fix on the composition.


Hope this is helpful. I hope someone else can help more with the composition. I usually get stuck there sometimes too. Its a great peice and I know you gonna make it shine.

[Beelow]

Thanks PhatAndy. I will make necessary corrections. I didn't throw down perspective lines. I got lazy and didn't do them. I will get to it. As far as overlapping characters, I'll give it a try to see how that works.

B-man. Thanks for the looks! Don't worry about the paintover, I need to see changes that I need to make. Leave it up. I set the 2 characters up that way so I can show both of them as a design. I was trying to figure out a way that I can make it dynamic at the same time show of them both at the same time. Yeah I am kinda costrained to that, both characters are equally important. Yeah, I see what you mean as far as pointers. I do think that the pointers on the golem are pointing the other way. That is what I kinda intended to go bottom on up and out of composition. Tried to create a little path that leads interestingly up and out of canvas. Nice look on the buildings and the pointer at the bottom of character. I am going to lessen the values there so I will be less important obvious. I think I can get away with the point, I think., LOL. We'll see. Yeah, I gotta fix the angle of the barrels now, so it reads right, definitely good look on that one. Yeah this one is a bit complicated compo, so I posted it to get some other eyes on it.

Thanks B-man and Phatandy. Gotta take some notes and then on to finishing this one.

[B-Man]

I heard from someone that the eye naturally (for us in west) reads images from top left to bottom right. So when you have a composition with lines in that direction. naturally you end in bottom right. I guess its true, for me anyway. I'm glad I could help a little bit. Cheers.

[kaktuzlime]

Thanks for stopping by my SB Beelow =) Lot´s of gorgeous art in here. You´re sooo good at rendering! =D And that SP is real dope man.

I´m not good at composition so I can´t really offer you any advice on that with the DW piece. I think you´ve got a great deal of gret things going on there. The characters are different, yet coherent in the same world, and the design feels "MMOey" (ShoulderPADS!!). One thing though, which I think you could do to ake a stronger entry, is increase the size of the technomage. She´s very small right now, and as a 3D-modeller I feel there´s too much information missing. Looing real cool though, can´t wait to see you take the rendering further =) 5*

[Beelow]

kaktuzlime- Any info is helpful. I did some adjustments on the technomage, as you suggested. Thanks for that one. Thanks for the pattery man. I am honored to hear the compliments from you. Not sure if my entry is going to be as awesome as yours, though. Thanks for the help though. On to finishing my entry. Gotta pull an all nighter. Who needs sleep anyways.

Another painting for pin up calender that I didnt get to send off in time. Got caught up with other business. I hope you enjoy. small update nothing major.

[Genius_Malignus]

Really good stuff - I envy your rendering technique. You must be a patient man.
Wish I had something constructive to say, so just keep it up!

[LtPlissken]

I have just run through the
nine pages of your digital mayhem.
I did not read any of your thoughts, cause
the lack of time. I just wish I could have
enough time to read everyone's opinion,
and thoughts through their sketchbooks,
but that is just impossible, how foolish from my side.
There is a lot to learn from your paintings, I will
try to "steal" some of your technique, and God
help me on that mission. Inspiring you are, indeed.
Will visit more often, and I will try to go into some
more detailed replies in the future.
Thanks for sharing and thanks for the motivation.

p.s.
I like the booty gals on your paintings.

[skMOP]

I like the strokes on your pieces, on the SP at the top especially!

I actually found you through Crimson Daggers stream haha.

[Ricardo Robles]

Very cool works Beelow!-rendering is getting really good,
that last pinup is gorgeous, my only crit would be the tatooed flower, maybe too colorful.
cheers

[kiwigarbage]

Oo, I admire your ability to lay down colors and form. Very niceeh!

[kiwigarbage]

Hi Hi! Thanks for the comment in my SB

Some suggestions from my end...

You have a nice touch with thin drawing materials (like pencil), very choppy and rigid, almost sculptural, but I sense that when you are about to lay down tone that you hesitate to make broad strokes. I'd suggest drawing with a big fat something or other (*cough*) such as a charcoal stick or graphite stick. I think that series of drawings in marker should be something you pursue. Oh, and be careful not to lose fluidity when drawing cloth!

[Jasper_]

Sweet work you have going in here man, I really like that self portrait!! Your pre dom war entry is looking pretty legit, I'm still working on mine as well. Looking forward to seeing it finished!!

[Loathsome]

I like the self portrait and the recent figure one.
The sp is on the edge of being mushy though, I'm trying to figure out why.. I have the same problem sometimes and since I haven't figured that own for myself, I can't really contribute much. I guess it's a matter of edgecontrol and values being a bit too close together.

[Jai Kamat]

dude, your stuff is SICK and the sp is awesome! thanks for stopping by my SB btw!

[super skoda]

Hey dude! you are killing it over here! That self portrait and the pin-up are freaking awesome. The only thing I could recommend is taking some time to work on your quick sketches. It looks like when you have the time you can really make an image work. If you can learn how to capture your anatomy correctly in the first few minuets I bet it'll take hours off the whole process.

Seriously, I keep going back to to look at that SP there is some awesome color and shapes going on there. It's not clear to me what your right hand is doing but I kinda don't even care because everything else looks so great.

[Beelow]

My dominance war entry with the progress shots. Didn't do much planning. Wish I did. Got caught up with a couple comissions. Everyone should go and check out some of the amazing entries that were submitted. Man this is only the pre dom war! Too many sick entries. Waiting for the main competition. I need to step it up big time. Enjoy though. Tear it apart if you like. I am going to wear the cone of shame with my entry.

[Genius_Malignus]

Hey I saw your piece at gameartisans, and I think your result is pretty good; many elements work well. How many hours did you spend on it ?
Like you I am really unsatisfied with my own piece, and consider it a fail - but at least I think I have learned something from the process, as I am sure you have. Damn the main DW comp is gonna be rough!

I will be looking forward to your entry.

[poetry man]

cool stuff! keep posting.

[LtPlissken]

Wow! Greatly designed Dominance War entry.
Merry Christmas.

[Texahol]

the dw entry...i'm not sure which char is supposed to be the techno-mage.

compositionally it's a bit boring as well... the image is cut into a diagonal from bottom left to top right. the top half goes the the right side and off the page. the bottom have goes to the left and off the page. No real focal point or flow. ...and overall perspective isn't really making sense...you seem to be caught in a kitsch of making sideways clouds too...why are your clouds always sideways?
Even if you get pretty far without planning, I think it's quite fine to scrap something mid-way and redo it/make big changes. Don't be afraid to make big changes partway through. It's digital, you can always just save a copy and go back if your big changes don't work out [ though I find it usually works out fine]

[Jamie Romoser]

man so much improvment in your sketchbook
Maybe some more play with focal points and edgework in your DW peice?
keep it up man
have a good one
-Jamie

[FrozZT]

Hey man! Awesome sketchboook. I really enjoy your figures from ref! Did you join the challenge yet. I just joined but I can't make sense of how to find people with the new system. Keep it up!

-Niklas

[Beelow]

Genius_Malignus-I will. I get frustrated at times though, just because, I feel that I am not moving fast enough. Sometimes my sketches are stupid too. I hate that the most. I am pretty sure you will have something constructive to say. Thanks for stopping by though.

LtPlissken- No worries. I usually think design and compo first. I fail maybe all the time at it. LOL. But, yeah I pretty much study the same stuff as others. I do study old masters. Working Masters art, like Fowkes, Erik Gist, Dan Dos Santos, Donato, Whitaker, Lipking to name a few. I really dig Mandryk, Dusso, Dixon, Velinov as these guys are mainly the reason why I got into digital painting. Just to give you a bit of info on who I am looking at and just what I do. I study other paintings, ref them and photos, take shots of myself, I tend to guess as well, look in mirrors, kinda whatever comes to me. I like to test my knowledge without ref sometimes and see what I come up with. I use color theory as best to my knowledge and just a bunch of theory. latest one doesn't demonstrate that the best. But it is in the ballpark. I am still learning and making many mistakes. I think I prefer it that way, I am always looking for ways to improve my work. So you won't have to sift through pages of what I think, I'll just post a summary for you. Thanks for stopping by though Plissken. I didn't even know my work was good enough for studying. I am probably not the best of example to study from though. Guys that I mentioned are the ones you should look at. They have way more experience. Good luck with improving though. You are doing good. Just keep hacking away at it. You'll get there.

kiwigarbage- I use a drafting pencil to draw with mainly. I can't get really good thick to thin. I will have to invest more in charcoal and sketchpads to get more involved in life drawing. I haven't really posted my recent stuff in my sketchbook, the pencilworks I mean. I have so much to scan LOL. But, I do get what you mean. I still add the fuss to my linework. I will have to show some more recent pencil sketches. Thanks for your thoughts though on my pencil works. XD

Jasper_-Awww Jasper you are being way too nice about the Dom War Piece. I failed with so much in it, LOL. Thanks for the love though. Your entry turned out really nice though. Thanks for dropping by though. I hope to see you swing around here a bit more. I will be open to any thoughts you have.

Loathsome- Yeah, Maybe because I use painter. I am getting to comfortable with using one brush at the moment. I tend to change the opacity a bit too. I am not really confident with laying down values, but getting there now. I try not to lower opacity now. I am trying to stay at 100 percent opacity with my square chalk and wet acrylics. I use the opague oils and smeary pallet knife and I have digital airbrush for atmosphere. I am still exploring other tools as well. Trying to speed up my workflow now. Thanks for dropping by though.

Ixius- You are awesome yourself. Thanks for the kind words sir! I hope to see you drop by often as well. XD

super skoda-Thanks super skoda. Reading your post made me realize how important it is to get my beginnings down pack. I am doing that now. Thanks for the advice. Yeah I am all about shaving the time off. I've been concerned about composition, design and color, I kinda lost ground on doing good pencils sketches and spending time on making better constructed figures. Thanks for the look super skoda.

Genius_Malignus- I spent not to long on it. maybe some 20 hours off and on. It was decent start, but there were just a bunch of afterthoughts that really screwed up the piece entirely. I was trying to figure out a way to present both characters, but I ended up making a poorly put together piece. I was roughing the entry out. I just wanted to finish and turn something in even if it was not the best of things. Usually, I just give up on bad pieces and move on to the next image. I don't know why I didn't post the start of this image early on to get some feedback on it. Most couldn't really tell me why it was bad compo. Until Platts post, LOL. That late mutherfuker, LOL.

poetry man- Thanks, I will.

LtPlissken- Thanks, dude glad you like it. XD

Texahol- Thanks for the heavy crit. I am slapping myself now for not even noticing the split in half compo. Yeah I can see the perspective issues now after not looking at this one for a week. Punch me in the face if I do another poorly put-together piece. You will have the honor of doing that. Damn, I failed miserably on this one. I think I should have better planned this one. Thanks again Platts for the crits. I definitely need them.

OmertA- Yeah the DW piece just need no more love. I pretty much effed it up LOL. I will have to just suck it up and work on a new one and don't make the same mistakes. I see what you are saying though.

FrozZT- Waddup dude! Yeah I joined. I am doing sketches now. Yeah I still gotta figure it out the new system myself. I just started my entry. I will post sketches on it here and cgtalk soon. I took a few hours yesterday to work some color thumbs up. Thanks for the compliments dude.

Hey everyone just wanted to apologize for not posting replies earlier. Just been busy with working on some more stuff re-reading this loomis and just get back more into good habits of sketching and drawing. Since reading some of your posts, I am working even harder to try to work on noticable issues in my work. It's been a pretty good productive year, and thanks to you all, I finished some work up finally. The five stars on the thread is a great encouragement that all is not lost and that I should continue to work on painting. The replies help too. I still have to visit many sketchbooks and leave a bit of myself in all of your books. Keep up the great work everyone. You all inspire me. Hope you enjoyed the holidays, lets make 2011 a better year for painting. Have a happy New Year everyone. XD