Raffix - trying to steadily improve

[vikramranu]

nice works

[Raffix]

ok this was my first real attempt at digital. value study of a head from imagination i guess.

obviously its pretty shit as its feels like learning to draw/paint all over agin

[Auspiciouspanda]

Some lovely studies going on here, and regardless of what anyone says they are the BACKBONE to any good artist. Understanding shape, value, color etc etc is the most important part of any artists skill set. Transferring that knowledge form analog to digital is a whole different monster and just takes time. I found some of Jason Chan's massive black video downloads incredibly useful for making that adjustment but beyond that it just takes time and experience with the medium just like any other.

Keep up the good work!

[raminafshari]

just practice , you are in the correct way , try more life drawing . you are doing very good job.

[Black Spot]

I can't think in black, white and grey; it goes against my psyche. Maybe you're the same as you have a good grasp of colour. You can always convert it to greyscale to check if the values work, which is what I do. The only greyscale stiff I do is with pencil, which is odd. Each to their own. Now I have seen a thread about cast shadows and if I find it I'll post the link. From memory a lot of it was perspective and consideration of bounced light.

[.empyrean.]

I'm impressed by your effort and skill. Your self-portrait in watercolor or all your watercolor paintings in general are very professional looking.
Push it further, sir!

[Raffix]

Auspicious Panda : thanks a lot man ill check those out
Black Spot: that sounds perfect. if you stumble across it again i would love to see it


well i hvae really failed at updating this as regurlarly as i said. bad photo of a pencil study of a jonathon yeo painting.

[alexson]

Nice studies, man! Your pencil work is really getting good! Keep it up!

[-D_art-]

Nice to see other artists my age struggling to get better. nice work there, especially like that last drawing.

my best of luck to you keep drawing and posting!

[Raffix]

another value study from life. i like this one

[dierat]

The sense of value looks good and the highlights look well-placed. Try to pay special attention to your ellipses though; in cylindrical objects, the ellipses define the perspective and the symmetry of the object. Flipping the image (if working digitally) or holding your image up to a mirror (if working traditionally) can usually alert you to symmetry issues early on so they can be identified and corrected.

[Raffix]

dierat - thanks a lot, thats the first really good crit ive had in awhile. thats a goood tip with the mirror ill make sure to use it



life sketch im not too keen on


value study of my own face i did in a mirror

[Naidy]

Raff, my boi!
I'd quite like to see the red haired girl finished, It'd be nice to seem some more coloured works soon, but I know how important value studies are so I won't hassle you. xD

Anyways, you're getting better all the time so just keep it up.

[Raffix]

Naidy - thanks, i'll head over to your sb in a sec

evening update because the alternative is doing homework. light's not great but here is a pen drawing reffed from characterdeign.com.


because thats the only thing i have to show i thought id show my work area, where you can see some of my old work and a still life wip thats going fucking hideously because cast shadows still confuse me so much

[fernandoart]

Hey dude, nice shading on the girl picture...
As for your WIP, the shadow IS looking weird, but it all depends where your light source is located, from what we can see of the drawing so far, the light source should be located in front of your subject and pointing from below.. am I right?

Keep going, you're doing great!

[a_mckeown]

Work further back from the still life. Maybe place it in the corner of your desk that way you'll have more room to look at the set-up and see the overall composition better. The two walls could create some interesting shadows too.

If you can afford it (and assuming you dont have one), buy yourself a easel. damn it makes things so much easier. I was working on a desk for about 1.5 years before i purchased one.

Overall nice work. good to see someone wokring traditional.

[Monsieur]

Hey, nice sb.

Just a few tips if you're interested:

1) While giving yourself a time limit can boost your progress it can also really become a problem. One thing that took me far too long to figure out (why I never got any good) was that painting takes time and patience is everything. So don't expect to rule the world in five monts.
2) A quick note on values: It's really helpful to try to find a core shadow – that is, trying to think of the image as having a light shapes and shadow shapes, positive and negative space. It makes it much easier to read. Instead of using five different values –start with two and then find variations within them. Check out some Bargue drawings, you'll see what I mean.

Good luck.

[Raffix]

wow thanks a lot for the replies guys.

Monsieur - thanks for that man. i don't entirely understand what you're saying about finding a core shadow though?
a_mckeown - thanks for the tips, i'll keep them in mind for the next one. i can't really afford an easel atm but it'll be the next thing to get (:
fernandoart -thanks for coming by again man. i took a photo of the composition from my viewpoint. this photo makes the painting look even worse in comparison. the cast shadow value is wayyy too dark. eurgh

[dierat]

i don't entirely understand what you're saying about finding a core shadow though?

The above image illustrates the core shadow. For your cast shadow problem, why not lay a low-opacity layer of paint the color of the wall over the shadow to lighten it and blend it into the bg better? (Are you using acrylics with transparent medium?) Also, I think it would be helpful if you tried building up the whole painting together rather than focusing on the cast shadow and trying to get that perfect first. It will be harder to get the cast shadow to be the right value when you can't use the rest of the values in the image for comparison.

[Monsieur]

I took the liberty of overpainting one of your own drawings in order to explain this. I have no idea how the original photo looks so I just took a shot. The Idea is to separate the image into light and dark and the rule of thumb is that NOTHING in the light area can be darker than ANYTHING in the dark area. This is not just a way to simplify painting, it is the way our eyes work, and it really helps us reading the image.

Your original image is actually very good. It shows some real knowledge of facial anatomy, and the linework is very confident. But the values are all over the place. They hardly do the drawing any good. In your original, look at the speck of shade on his forhead top left. No doubt you saw a shift in value there, but no way it is going to be that dark compared to the right side of the face.

In my overpainting I have clearly defined a dark area – and immedialtely the drawing makes a lot more sense. The face pops. It has, mind you, nothing to do with HOW dark the value is, only that its darker. You can make the light area 50% gray and the dark area 60% gray. The painting will still pop, provided that you follow the rule of thumb above.

Check this video out, and really listen to what the guy says. It's very helpful:
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=172541

Also look at this for further inspiration:
http://www.freshdesigner.com/how-to-...utorial-video/

Hope that helps!

[Raffix]

dierat and Monsieur - thanks so much guys its awesome to be getting really detailed crits finally.

Monsieur - thanks a lot for the overpaint. it is actually a study of a painting by Jonathon Yeo, who uses quite a rough sculptural style. Below is the only image i could find of it.
i did the whole thing with a B pencil so the values are all a bit off and as always i was way too impatient. Thanks a lot for the links as well. I'll come by your sketchbook although im clearly not in a position to tell you how to di it (:

[Monsieur]

You're welcome. You really don't have to come by my sb. It hasn't been updated in over a year and it sux ass.

[Monsieur]

Just to prove my point i applied a threshold effect to the painting in photoshop, and though the values are close and the colors may be confusing, you can clearly see that even in this case that the values on the left hand side are not as dark as the ones on the right.

I'll bug off now.

Cheers.

[a_mckeown]

Monsieur & dierat - you're both legends. Although your posts are aimed at Raffix, they are sure to help others too.

[heix33]

Dude, you do freakin awesome stuff with watercolor, i'd suggest you to stick with it and practice every day like a maniac with watercolor, i bet you can do kickass pics for portfolio with it, but i dont know if your art school will want gouache also, just talking from my own experience.
Also, I hope you will find these helpful, Sargent works (in case you haven't seen them) and Erik Tiemens blog.

http://virtualgouacheland.blogspot.c/

http://www.johnsingersargent.org/

Sargent has some stunning watercolor works there.
Btw, nice CA signature, caughts attention.

[Black Spot]

Do you paint at the same time? The light through the curtains can change the cast shadow a lot - I was having that problem a few weeks ago.

Sorry I haven't found that thread yet - I'll keep looking.

[Raffix]

heix33 - thanks a lot for the encouraging words and the links man!
Black Spot - i actually did hat one in the evening so it wasnt in natural light

its a bit lame to update with one thing especially as its small, but here is todays life sketch

[Raffix]

i did a quick watercolour of my still life because i thought it might help me get a grip on colours but i then remember3ed that the light is completely different. oh well i quite like even though it was a bit of a weird approach and on normal sketchbook paper


then some pen drawings of paint tubes. not very exciting:

[Naidy]

Aha! I see you're pushing your contrasts more. Interesting mark making too on the tubes.
Reminds me I need to do some more experimenting in that field. :/
Again I have nothing constructive to say so I look forward to your next updates!

[hücumkedi]

nice!