Daedelus Workshop Study Group

[David Keen]

The D&D submission looks like a great exercise! I agree that we should all give that a go and try to get some pretty solid pieces that will at least look good in a portfolio application to Wizards. - Priority Updated! is there a submission deadline anywhere on that post? I didn't spot it but I may just be blind..

@Wheels: Your Sethlan piece is looking great Mike. The filtration system you've got on the upper part of his face looks pretty convincing to me, the only thing I worry about is whether he will be emotive enough for a race in a game like Mass Effect. Your thoughts on this? The full figure image is also looking good my only notes at this point are that the ripped pants might be a bit tricky in space and that while his split arms look cool the forearms look a little scrawny... How do they look slightly bulked up? I love all the gear you've put on him, definitely continue down that road and build on that idea, using the split arms to hold a rifle also looks very cool!

Re: my previous post, they are just studies at this point. I'll post some more meaningful stuff soon.

P.S. you've got me excited to draw orcs!

[Wheeljack18]

That's what I was hoping you guys would say. Time to switch gears. I'm going to do a Gnoll cook! I didn't see a deadline posted either but I'll keep looking. I'm sure we could ask. eelis, you do what ever you want for the D and D thing. I'm going to tackle them all

I do want to polish off the Sethlan too, there just is not enough time in a day!
Regarding his face, I dunno, my art director wanted it so I guess his lack of expression is ok for the project.... Besides, Snake Eyes doesn't have a face and can't talk and he is Mega cool. This guy can talk and his face can move,he just doesn't have any open orifices on his face.

The ripped pants are purely for show. I imagine him as a dirty, gruff, grease monkey, roughneck type of character. Usually knee deep in hydraulic fluid and pistons n stuff. I was going for a coveralls, feel to his outfit. About his arms... I'm not too worried about it, I bulked up his shoulders to offset the weight of the extra arms. Think about it and how anatomy works, I don't think he would be able to lift huge arms without some form of augmentation.

Give me some more thoughts on how I could trick out his outfit. More tools?, a Voltmeter type thingy, Bags for Demolitions?

Lets see those posts and Orcs! Although, just to be a pain, why not tackle a less popular monster race like a quickling or an owlbear. If you like The undead, try tackling a Wight or a Ghast. Everyone is going to draw an orc or a troll. I've always wanted to draw a displacer beast!

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Alright.

I just painted with oils for the first time today. Dirty business, ain't something I'm going to do everyday. Will have to continue tomorrow though, since I couldn't really get anything done before I freezed to death.

The biggest prob is certainly mixing the colours atm.

[Wheeljack18]

You'll find that painting with oils is not as casual as you might think. I find set up and clean up a pain in the butt. Plus, combine that with drying times and the expense of quality paint etc. It can be a lot of fun but I prefer gouache. It's easy to clean and set up, the paint can dry out on your palette and just add water and bam, you are good to go. It dries fast, you don't have to stretch or prime canvas etc etc. This is just my personal preference based on my experience. I'm looking forward to seeing your studies here.

What is your grief with mixing colors? have you tried using any thinners for glazing applications yet? Some act as a drying agent and can speed things up quite a bit.

[Wheeljack18]

Hey boys, here's another one for you on the topic of scheister business practices in the vfx industry. http://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/2012...usiness-model/

I think this is a very interesting read, especially the discussion in the comments section. This is the type of BS you need to be prepared for when you get out of school and into the business. I can't tell you how many times I've been talked up by jack ass ' entrepreneurs" trying to sell me on their latest and greatest work now, pay you later scheme. or better yet, if it sells, you'll get an unspecified percentage. My advice, stay away from these deals and the two bit business men you operate them. It's a sticky wicket for certain.

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Indeed wheel, I am starting to wonder if I should've gone with gouache or just kept on with acrylics instead.

Turpentine & it's potential combustion if not handled right scares the hell out of me!

I gotta ponder it.

About mixing, it's just that I haven't done enough work with traditional paints to be able to efficently mix the right colours yet. But that'll come with time.

Thanks for the link wheel. It is goos to learn about the potential scamming methods in advance.

That notion about worker's union was an interesting one. I wonder if organazing under the same banner could help to cue some of the exploits and etc.

[Wheeljack18]

Try a product called turpenoid. Its supposed to be 100% environmentally friendly. i used to use it as a thinner and a cleaner. It smells better and I never had any problems. There are all kinds of oils out there and many many products so don't give up just yet. Frank Frazetta used the wrong kind of turpentine and it just about killed him and ended his career. It messed his thyroid!

You just have a lot to learn. I am biased about gouache but it is a proven medium for commercial work for a long time. I suggest you keep trying things and once you get to EC, you will be exposed to quite a lot. There are oil sticks! Who knew? It's all a process of trial and error and eventually you will find a medium that speaks to you.

About mixing, keep it simple and intuitive. That's how I do it. Use quality pigment to get the best results and keep your palette simple. Try doing monochromatic studies at first just to get the hang of the medium before you waste all that expensive paint. mental note. Yellow Ochre is Expensive!

I'm glad you read the article and found it useful. I don't think a union is the right way to go personally but I do think Artists need way more respect, especially in the entertainment field. I finished Mass Effect 2 and in the credits they list 4 concept artists. 4! there were probably 4-500 people involved in making the game yet they depend on4 main guys to develop the look and feel of the game. Games are an entirely visual experience and these guys are the foundation of that experience. They also have a hand in the marketing material etc. To me that's an important job. Now Mass Effect may not be the best example but the point is that artists play a huge role in the success of a product. Yet, many of the people who hire artists treat us like shit and pay us pennies on the dollar. That and once you mention rights and usages, a lot of these guys back off and go for a student who doesn't know any better. It sucks because they put you in a position where they won't pay you until you prove you are worth it but you can't get much work until you prove that you are worth it. So in many ways it is already a union with a seniority system pre built in. A lot of this applies to freelancers mind you. A studio job is the way to go if you want a steady gig with good pay etc. But studio isn't super rosey either. You miss out on all those royalties and swag.

I'm starting to rant. I'd better shut er down.

Let's see some more work fellas!

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Bah! I did it again! Forgot that I shouldn't write long posts inside the browser because it is so easy to accidentally get rid of it and that's what happened again. Maybe this time I'll remember.

I'll be short and blunt, it's getting late!

Thanks for the input wheel. My concerns with the turpentine regard it's flammability, I just get nervous around that stuff even though I am taking all the required safety measure to store it from rags to bottles.

Gotta look into the turpenoid, seems like it is good stuff for cleaning brushes. Have to find a thinner too!

Indeed, should do some grayscale studies to get a hang of it. Have to wait for a bit for the temperatures to rise though! Don't have any nice gloves right now that I could afford to get soaked in paint.

Naw, you ain't ranting at all! This is very interesting stuff because market & marketing and so on is more than half of the job. It is especially nice to hear inside opinions from professionals working on the field! And to think some students graduate and enter that world with little if any prior knowledge of what they are up against..

I really owe to you and a few other artists hanging around the web, thanks!

Anyway, let's talk about painting for a second! For the past few weeks I've tried painting regularly, and some of that stuff have made into this thread too in the form of WIPs, but as observed I haven't actually finished anything. All of them (expect that tower and mountains one you paintovered, that's definitely still on the table!) have been fundamentally flawed to point where I should've just gone back to the base sketch again.

But now I've finally cleared the block somewhat and proceeded on with a guidance of this fancy graph!



So, I managed to do a quick 30 min-speedpainting



And sketch a handful of handy thumbnails for a forest/mountain stream piece I've been planning for a long time:



I am also dribbling on with the character silhouettes, I am dragging on with it a bit, but it is keeping me so interested that I'll definitely push it through!

And bah, I haven't yet came around to give some views on the pieces you have posted have I? I'll get onto it tomorrow!

Less star trek TNG and more working.

Oh, one last thing. Wheel, I've tried to track down the best newspaper (aka no yellow media) newspaper for BC/vancouver region, but no avail yet. Do you know which is the most serious one? Thanks!

[David Keen]

Hey lads here is a bit of an update on the dragon sketch from the other day. Please rip it apart as I'd like this to be portfolio worthy and at the moment it's not quite getting there.. I always get a little lost doing these abstract backgrounds for character pieces and would appreciate any ideas for a solution to that problem. I am also aware that there are some pretty weird inconsistencies in the cast shadows and I'll need to sort that out as well.

Sorry for the brief reply guys, I'm just about to rush out.

@Wheels: Those darn art directors are such tricky bastards! I trust you that he'd be able to emote, the brow does express and awful lot. I think you should go all out on the outfit, give him a pile of extra gear and attach it everywhere. Maybe he could carry some of the raw materials and spare parts from different machines as well?

For some reason I'd thought that orcs were the only choice for that category but after re-reading I see its open. I'll try and pick something a little more unique, a wight might be pretty fun! Let's see your D&D roots come through!


@Eelis: When I oil paint I've been using an odourless solvent for brush cleaning and liquol as the thinning medium. Liquol will thin down your paints, help with colour mixing and also speeds up the drying process. Oils are definitely messy and trickier than painting digitally but with a few more sessions you'll start to develop you're own ways of working and figure out what suits you.

The landscape speedpaint is looking nice, I love the atmospheric fog obscuring the details of the building. Some nice thumbnails as well. Looking forward to seeing more character work as you get through it.

[Wheeljack18]

Hey boys,

Lots of crit time and discussion to be posted today.

First off Eelis:

What kind of Newspaper are you looking for? Do you need it for a specific purpose?

Turpenoid is a thinner too, not just a cleaner. Like I said, I use it for everything and it hasn't let me down yet. Also, it is reusable. I clean my brushes in it, let the sediment settle and the remaining product will separate on top while the dirty oil gunge will settle on the bottom. Turpentine it for Dinosaurs!

What do you mean by your painting being fundamentally flawed? Can you be more specific?

Thumbnails look good, there is not much to crit on them at this early stage.

One thing is it seems like you are bouncing around with all these ideas and projects. I recommend you pick one and finish it and them move on to the next. Otherwise you just end up with a lot of unfinished pieces and you will eventually run out of steam. Just my 2 cents though.

The speed painting looks good. The color balance looks a little flat though. You could try adjusting it to make the image pop more.
The building looks like it is leaning over to the right. The vertical perspective looks ok in general but what I think the problem is that some of the structures have thick bases and thin pillars and the bases taper to the right up the structure. This gives the impression of a diagonal and leads your eye that way. My first impression was that the towers were leaning, especially for the one in the far background. Additionally, the swooping motion of the flying buttress type structures also lead the eye in that manner. Something to think about.

One quick trick that you should try to help with assessing the value relationships in your images in photoshop is to create a layer above your image, fill it with 100% black and then set the layer to overlay. This will give you a nice grey scale view of your piece and makes a nice resource for judging value.

The composition is heavily weighted on the right side. Flip the canvas horizontally and you will see what I mean. Perhaps you could put another smaller structure on the left or put more into the environment to help balance the composition. When I flip the canvas horizontally, nothing stands out as a problem. I think that if you balance the composition a bit more you are good to go.

Lastly, the trees in the foreground. Right now they are 2 triangular blobs of green that are not doing much besides framing the bottom portion of the image. Break up the shapes and ref real hill sides. Make their design point to or compliment the castle in the corner. I did a paint over demonstrating the design shapes of the trees in red, I then drew some green arrows to indicate where there are some negative spaces which could indicate and point the viewers eye. And finally, I drew a blue line to demonstrate how the viewers eye should flow through the piece. Looking back, the paint over image might not be the clearest demonstration of what I am talking about but if you have any questions let me know. One thing to look at is check out your Loomis. In the book Creative Illustration, there is an excellent lecture on Design and composition in the first chapter. Check it out.


Anyways, these are my opinions and observations on your piece. I hope they are useful and I apologize for the point form answers but its been a long week.

Eb, your crit is up next, I'll do that in a follow up post, either tomorrow or the next day.


In the meantime, I could use some feedback on the Keri Russell Pinup Study I just wrapped up. Take a look and tell me what you think.

Cheers!

[David Keen]

I've just got some thumbs for one of the upcoming paintings to post today. After reading this post from Donato on Muddy Colours I felt assured in pursuing the very early thumbnail stage as more of an exercise in shape exploration and play. It was great fun to just go crazy with values and only vaguely consider the final painting at this stage in the process. I'll most likely post another couple of pages like this before picking a direction to pursue.

@Wheels: You've done very well on this your Keri Russell piece, the rendering of the figure is really top notch and it's a level up in your realism skills. I only have a couple of minor crits for the image. One is that the shadows on her dress are tonally quite close. The very dark areas of shadow and the regular shadows are a little too similar in value which makes the form a little confusing. The main area this occurs is in the folds draping from the knot under her chest. The highlight on the metal plate of the back cushion of the chair could also be dropped back a little bit as it looks slightly out of place in that big cast shadow. The only other thing I've noticed is that her left calf looks a little small compared to the reference and the curve could be made slightly more pronounced. Those are all pretty minor points though mate and I most likely wouldn't have seen them without checking against the reference. You've done extremely well with this piece, it's a credit to your ability to stick with an image and polish it to a very high standard.

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Hey boys,

Lots of crit time and discussion to be posted today.

First off Eelis:

What kind of Newspaper are you looking for? Do you need it for a specific purpose?

Mm, I am not sure how Canada's newspaper system works. Are there any that cover the whole country, or is it better to look into some that insight into the province? Either way, something "serious", politically neutral, if you just know one. Would like to know one just to get hang of Canada's current political/domestical/etc situation.

Turpenoid is a thinner too, not just a cleaner. Like I said, I use it for everything and it hasn't let me down yet. Also, it is reusable. I clean my brushes in it, let the sediment settle and the remaining product will separate on top while the dirty oil gunge will settle on the bottom. Turpentine it for Dinosaurs!

Yeah, turpenoid seems to be great, and it's non-flammable! I'll fetch some.

What do you mean by your painting being fundamentally flawed? Can you be more specific?

Thumbnails look good, there is not much to crit on them at this early stage.

I mean, most of those WIPs I've posted here for example. I've progressed with my standards and learnt to see new mistakes in my works. Especially in composition & colours. Even though I know those mistakes are there I am not yet capable of fixing them on the fly, so rather than trying to fix the existing work for too long I jump to another design (I've written a neat list of subjects to pick from!) and focus on fixing that mistake.

Do you think this kind of a way could help fixing the errors?

I could've just sticked with certain subject though and just backtracked.

I've got some colour stuff added to mid-left, I'll try to post it here a bit later.

One thing is it seems like you are bouncing around with all these ideas and projects. I recommend you pick one and finish it and them move on to the next. Otherwise you just end up with a lot of unfinished pieces and you will eventually run out of steam. Just my 2 cents though.

Ops, I kinda covered this in the last post. I am finding that I get more frustrated if I have to go back to start with a subject because of problems not fixable in the later stages. I think this kind of attitude isn't very good though, I'll look it through.

The speed painting looks good. The color balance looks a little flat though. You could try adjusting it to make the image pop more.
The building looks like it is leaning over to the right. The vertical perspective looks ok in general but what I think the problem is that some of the structures have thick bases and thin pillars and the bases taper to the right up the structure. This gives the impression of a diagonal and leads your eye that way. My first impression was that the towers were leaning, especially for the one in the far background. Additionally, the swooping motion of the flying buttress type structures also lead the eye in that manner. Something to think about.

One quick trick that you should try to help with assessing the value relationships in your images in photoshop is to create a layer above your image, fill it with 100% black and then set the layer to overlay. This will give you a nice grey scale view of your piece and makes a nice resource for judging value.

The composition is heavily weighted on the right side. Flip the canvas horizontally and you will see what I mean. Perhaps you could put another smaller structure on the left or put more into the environment to help balance the composition. When I flip the canvas horizontally, nothing stands out as a problem. I think that if you balance the composition a bit more you are good to go.

Lastly, the trees in the foreground. Right now they are 2 triangular blobs of green that are not doing much besides framing the bottom portion of the image. Break up the shapes and ref real hill sides. Make their design point to or compliment the castle in the corner. I did a paint over demonstrating the design shapes of the trees in red, I then drew some green arrows to indicate where there are some negative spaces which could indicate and point the viewers eye. And finally, I drew a blue line to demonstrate how the viewers eye should flow through the piece. Looking back, the paint over image might not be the clearest demonstration of what I am talking about but if you have any questions let me know. One thing to look at is check out your Loomis. In the book Creative Illustration, there is an excellent lecture on Design and composition in the first chapter. Check it out.


Anyways, these are my opinions and observations on your piece. I hope they are useful and I apologize for the point form answers but its been a long week.

Thanks, that was really insightful!

I also got some crits for the building from elsewhere, there seems to be a prob with perspective, because the frontside ain't following the two-point perspective rule. Gotta look into that.

Oops! You are right, pretty much weighted to the right side. I'll see to it.

Indeed, I still seem to have huge problems with flatness. I think most of that prob comes indeed from the problems with colour. I really, really have to look into creating depth more. Gotta dwell into that composition book again.

AND get a book about landscapes. I'll also look into that Loomis' book when the paycheck arrives.

The paintover was informative and backed up your points well, no problem. Thanks for taking time to do the crit, I find the bulletpoint-style easiest style of critique to fathom

About the trees, that's another subject I am looking into right now. How to paint loads of trees. Right now I seem to have this "mass" problem..here's another:

http://mrorigano.deviantart.com/art/...F24499300&qo=1

I'll have to look into more professional work to figure it out.

Will try to figure out a way to break the negative space up, and make it more interesting. Right now it really is just a cornering, valuemass.


Man, that study is real good wheel! Your style for these is pretty neat, in my eyes some form of light cell-shading.

The only thing that popped to my mind about potential problems is that the head looks a bit too big, but I could just be seeing things.

@Eb, I found these points by jeff really useful when I was learning how to paint effective thumbnails:

"Use 3-4 distinct values to define the large shapes (not counting the sky) - right now most have only 2 values - light and dark
Be decisive about the shapes
Set the horizon firmly...wherever it is
Define the perspective and composition clearly - it should be apparent where the eye travels in the thumbnail

Those are some of the basic things the thumbnail should do. It should be clear what is a person vs. a rock for example. 6, 9 and 10 are the most successful, in part because they follow the above best.

So, hit them one more time and make them clear...not detailed but very clear on the composition."


About the thumbs: The maint point is on a character, right? In that case, I found the rightmost top and rightmost medium to be most effective. They have the best value-range at the moment. Let's see some more!

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Alright, here's the current version of the stream.

It is missing a dog from the bottom right corner, it'll have a light bulb or something to draw attention. I'll also emphasis another point of interest around the middle middle-right.

Will also have to emphasize a bit more the distinction between light and dark areas.

[Wheeljack18]

Eelis:

Newspapers: There is a national new paper called the "Globe and Mail". There is also a national newspaper group which publishes the local "Sun". i.e. the Vancouver Sun, Calgary Sun etc. It's generally a more blue collar read with a big sports section and a daily Pinup "Sunshine Girl" for each market. I think Vancouver has a couple of newspapers and I've read " The Province" which is similar to our Calgary Herald which in my opinion is a decent newspaper. No newspaper is politically neutral even though they may claim they are so you are SOL there. Besides that there are a lot of various publications etc. There are 3 major broadcasters for television news and that's the CBC ( Government) CTV and Global. Google those and they have all the nightly broadcasts on their regional websites for you to take a look. There are also various French stations but they operate primarily in Quebec and New Brunswick. Living in BC you are more likely to come across a Punjabi or Cantonese TV station before a French one. Really the best thing is to talk to a lot of locals. Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'll try to help you out.

Regarding your process. The best word of advice I can give you is " if it is worth painting, it is worth planning". Slow down and work out one piece at a time. Learn something from each one and focus on a technique or goal until you have it down pat and then move on to the next goal. Slow and steady. Really, you must read Loomis. You used to be able to download his books online for free and with a little bit of digging around, I'm sure that you'll find them.

Your piece was not " Crazy" flat. just a little flat which can easily be adjusted in Photoshop. It does all come down to taste. Look at the work of John Constable. He was an amazing English landscape painter and his work wasn't always the most vibrant. He's best known for painting clouds. Just keep painting and studying, You will figure out what works best for you.
For Painting tree masses, just go ref your man Bob Ross. He was an expert at suggesting organic forms and mass.
Was that your deviantart account image? it looks fine for a study. Have you tried putting some serious hours into a painting/ study? I'm talking 20 -60 hours? It might be something to consider, especially if you feel like you are hitting a wall with these studies.

Score: Open source books on Drawing http://www.drawingbooks.org/

The new piece looks good. I want to see you push it further from being a study to being a finished painting.


Eb:

Ok Man, here goes with my crit.

First the Dragon piece. If you want this to be a portfolio image, you need to start over, go back to scratch and re think the design and composition. Right now you are exploring and searching for the image in this piece while you go which is the wrong way to go about it. You should work out all the kinks in your design before you go into the painting. Doing it your way can be done but you waste a lot of time and it tends to look stiff and overworked. Go back to the basics and ask the 5 W's for this illustration? What is the story here? What are you trying to say? Work out the composition, anatomy and color scheme prior to going into a final painting. Read through Loomis's creative illustration, he outlines best practice better than I ever could. Take a look at this you tube video of Mike Nash's process http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZJ_kU...6&feature=plcp painting Smaug the magnificent. Now this isn't best practice and technically it is an elaborate sketch. What I want you to pay attention to is how he works out the value and forms( for the most part) monochromatically first. Then he applies color as an overlay. This is similar to using the Under painting technique common in Oils. Once you work out the values of the image then you can add color starting with the local color for the objects and then the light sources and effects. This is a classical approach to painting and many pros still use it such as Alex Ross and it was why Frank Frazetta was able to bang out so many works so quickly. It allows you to apply color confidently yet methodically. Painting wet on wet ( direct application) is not for everybody and takes a while to master. Remember that you are still a student and you can't expect to just sit down and knock out a portfolio piece. It's placing unfair expectations on yourself and setting yourself up for a disappointing outcome. Start approaching your work like you would for any client. This means Thumbs, roughs comps, tight comps, color comps and then finals. Only after you've done that process a lot, will you then be able to pick up speed and confidence in order to bang out high quality images fast. We've got to learn to walk before we run. I find it's very misleading to see the work of other artists because they rarely let you in on their process and share their research and references. I think it gives us a false impression and puts expectations on ourselves that we should be able to bang out high quality work, from our head, at will. In reality, we really do have to put a lot of time and effort into what we do. There is also an artist Ego thing going around where there is this pressure to be able to draw everything from your imagination and do it fast and perfect on the first try. On a side note, I think this ego and false representation is part of the problem regarding why our work is so undervalued. If everyone out there is claiming that they can bang out high end work quickly and with little effort because they are so good. It brings down value of the work as a whole. It makes art buyers think that it is easy and cheap. We need to change that impression. That and even the guy who makes you sandwich is called an "artist'. Sorry, I went a little off topic there.

Regarding your thumbnails, I looked at the examples in the Donato article and you'll notice that his are much more detailed. There is not much that I can do to crit these as there is not enough information in them for me to interpret from an illustration perspective. I suggest that you do another round but using line instead of value because that is what I would do. If this process works for your creative mind then keep it up. In the end, it's all about the final product and nobody cares how you got there.

I know this isn't the most positive crit Eb but you said rip into me! Don't hate me.


Thanks for the Crit Fellas. It's always good to get an extra couple of sets of eyes to look at your work and I appreciate it. I'm undecided if I should go back into it or just leave it. I hate noodling on something for ages but if it is worth doing, it is worth doing right... At least you didn't have a problem with the hair. That sucked and took up most of my time! It's funny but the more I try to get "Painterly" with my work, the more realistic it looks. I should just accept it but I'm always trying to loosen up and focus on economy of mark making. Next time....

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Thanks wheel! That coverage of Canada's news agencies was very welcome. So the "sun" paper ain't anything like England's Sun?

Yeah, I'll be giving a peek at Loomis' stuff now. Thanks for those pages. Currently going through Jack Hamm's Landscapes & Seascapes.

That DA study was indeed mine. Regarding the hours put into this, I already use around 3-4 hours per day. I hardly have time for more now because of a job and few others things to wrap up.

I kinda had a wall indeed a bit earlier, but I think I made over it, easier to lay things down now, perceive and such. Just common frustration, but nothing unpossible overcome.

I am trying not to burn myself out though. Sometimes smarter is better than harder. Have to especially avoid working too long with wrong ways. Should do more observation studies to avoid that.

The Stream painting is indeed in mid-WIP stage. So much to do! Let's see how it goes.

EDIT: I've recognized that I have started to write in here with kinda weird style with no complete paragraphs and such. I apologize for this type of behavior, I guess it originates from trying to answer many little things in a bullet-point style.

[Wheeljack18]

I just thought that your grammatical errors were due to English being a second language to you. Communicate how works best for you but sometimes it is hard to interpret your meaning when you use point form dialogue. I know nothing abut England's sun but ours are all the same and I don't pick it up first if I have a choice.

Instead of doing one study for 3-4 hours. Why not do one study a week and devote all the available time to just that piece and see what you come up with.

Also I wanted to share a teaser trailer that is out for a short film that my production company worked on last year called Tasha. http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/536...ort-film-tasha
The Trailer is finished but they haven't released it yet. For this one we ended up doing all the makeup effects for the Infected/ zombies and a cool tentacle practical effect that shoots out of an infected neck and get's squashed spurting out gobs of Black KY Jelly. Lots of fun.

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Yeah, I'll try to focus on some real paragraphs from now on. Fun fact: the english proficiency test I had to take in order to apply was real, real tight call!

Good point. Could do some very nicely detailed life drawing for instance. First I gotta finish the stream illustration though.

I'll check out the link a bit later, but sounds darn cool.

[Eelis Kyttänen]

And here's the next stage.

Things to do: fix the right bottom, clean up everywhere, stress the focal points. The dog is rather close to the bottom border yeah, but I couldn't imagine it being anywhere else. It needs some fixing though & shadows.

And darn this thing is gray!

[Wheeljack18]

Hey eelis. This piece looks good so far. Are you working from some reference? If you are, post it up so we can take a look. To fight the grayness, you can quickly make an overlay layer and fill it with a warm or cool color. Set the opacity to around 10% and play with it. At the very least it can give you a quick sense of what different colors might work and where. Compositionally, the piece leads your eye in a nice zig zag up and down. On my monitor, it is looking pretty pixelated so it is hard to make a detailed observation.

Keep posting fellas. Sorry for my lack of posts but I've just been swamped and I've got a trade show coming up in a few weeks so you won't be seeing much of my personal works for a little while.

Cheers!

[David Keen]

Hey guys I should have some new stuff to post later today but wanted to finally respond to all your excellent feedback.

@Eelis: Thank you very much for your thoughts on the thumbs. I agree that the value range was looking very flat, stuck in pure blacks and whites and wasn't really describing the image very well. I'll get another round up asap.

I'm really glad that you're spending more time on your current stream image. Although it is great to work quickly and try to cover a lot of ground I often feel like the tough lessons truly sink in when you spend more time on an image and rework it until the mistakes are gone. By identifying the mistakes and moving on to another piece it is much harder to confront the issue and tackle it head on.

Speaking of the stream, it's looking good. Working in grey scale is an excellent way to improve and work on contrast, have you found it easier to create a more balanced image this way? I find colour very confusing so just focusing on the values can simplify the process a lot. The depth in this image looks greatly improved, I like the atmospheric occlusion around the centre of the image, very convincing stuff. At the moment the focal point is a little confusing though. I find my eye being drawn towards the very tip of the tallest tree because that area has high contrast and the triangular shape is foreign and interesting in this naturalistic image. Where are you wanting the viewer to be focusing on and in what order do you want them to consume the image? It can be very helpful as you build an image to think about those points and structure the piece accordingly. Zooming all the way out, closing your eyes and then seeing the first few spots your eyes land when look at the image again can be a surprising exercise.

I've whipped up a very quick paintover to show the image without the tip of the tallest tree and some higher contrast in the foreground. It's very inelegantly done but thinking about putting some more contrast in the area closest to the viewers eye may benefit the piece. I'd also suggest putting James Gurney's book Imaginative Realism on your list of books to pick up. He has some excellent tips for composition that have really changed the way I look at images. His blog gurneyjourney.blogspot.com is also fantastic and covers many of the chapters in his books, I thought this article could be particularly interesting for you. I love the detailing and the painterly feel you're developing, keep it up and stick with it!

@Wheels: You harsh bastard! Haha, you're totally right. I started playing with the image just for fun, liked the progress and kept going but I did feel constrained by the pose and composition of the piece. I'm going to spend some time going back through some thumbs and sketches for a fresh dragon piece and bring what I've learnt into that. I've started reading creative illustration and have found the composition tips especially intriguing, I'll attempt to apply them to upcoming work.

You've raised some good points about the artist ego issue that is around in abundance. I hadn't thought before that the promotion of the process is easy devalues the work as a whole. You're totally right though, this stuff is hard and it should be acknowledged that very few people can sit down and create a masterpiece from nothing in one sitting. I'm not sure if some of that attitude stems from a fine art community that seems to thrive more on the mysteries of their conceptual minds and outlandish processes. Maybe some illustrators and genre artists feel they need to imitate this pompous mystique to feel as successful as gallery artists.

It's funny that working in a painterly style is so difficult. I find that often it seems impossible to render a piece to a polished level without erasing the fun spontaneous marks that were put down earlier. It's a fun balance to try and work on.

The teaser you linked looks cool, practical effects are so much fun for the viewer. Looks like you guys did a great job.

[David Keen]

I've just got some thumbs for the new dragon image. Let me know about your favourites, so far I'm favouring 1, 3, 8 & 13.

[Wheeljack18]

Hey guys,

Yeah Eb, I'm glad you didn't take the crit too personally. It's not easy being honest but really it is the best policy in the long run. I think the problem with any artist is the EGO. It goes way back and I think back in the 30's the devaluation of art began. That was a time when art for art's sake started which is all really bull shit. You had artists who install toilets in galleries, Guys like Andy warhol and his prints, Jackson Pollack and his paint dribbles. I don't NOT classify them as artists but their work generally was fast, or mass produced and highly conceptual. No longer are you buying the product but instead the artists idea. This is the essence of the devaluation problem. From there the notion that art is easy to make starts and the buying public doesn't know or care about the difference between a rockwell and a pollack. They do what they are told and almost always go for the most colorful piece.


For your Dragon I see you are starting to incorporate his ideas on informal subdivision. It's super helpful no?
My favorites are 1 and 13 although in both, I think you could use some more thought in the right side of the panel. Try altering the dimensions of the picture frame and inserting another story element. For example in 1 you could put a really small knight in the bottom right to give a sense of scale and an added story element. For 13, perhaps go with a widescreen format and insert a landscape element or a castle to add to the story. In both the dragon's posture conveys character which I think is important.

Looking forward to the next iteration.

I just finished up some art tests and we'll see if I can't get to some more stuff for daedelus this week.

Keep up the good work fellas!

[Wheeljack18]

Also, I came across this add for work on CG HUB. Take a look http:///jobs/view/1356/

It's another, do a sample and we'll hire you if we like you gig but it might be a good exercise for you guys to try. I might do one too if I can make the time.

[David Keen]

I've taken a few of the Awakening of Evarun thumbnails to a more fleshed out sketch. I didn't use any reference at this stage as I was more concerned with the placement of the different elements and composition than the anatomical accuracy, so there will be some errors. I'm currently favouring the first two sketches, they are more dramatic and visually interesting to me but I would be interested to hear your thoughts guys.

@Wheels: Don't ever worry about me taking a crit personally, I know you're only telling it the way you see it and 9 times out of 10 I agree with the feedback you're giving me. You make some more interesting points about the devaluation of art in the modern era that make a lot of sense. It's a shame that so few people show an appreciation for the skill and craftsmanship that went into art that I love but as you said if a colourful mass produced print matches the couch cushions then most people's objectives have been met.

I've have indeed found the early pages of Creative Illustration very enlightening. I need to make time to work my way through the whole book but that is of course difficult, especially as I like to keep my brief reading time before bed as a little break for my brain. You're right about incorporating another story element into the dragon pieces, it will give the images more focus and a clearer direction. I'll work on that over the next few days.

The CG HUB link is broken but things are so flat out with everything else that I probably wouldn't have time anyway. Thanks very much for the thought though. I'm looking forward to seeing you're work for D&D if you get the spare time.

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Sorry for taking so long!

@Wheel: I used about a dozen pictures to reference small bits there and here. For example, this picture: http://www.mccullagh.org/photo/1ds-5/mountain-streem

The original inspiration came from this one: http://wildweasel339.deviantart.com/#/d4s80u6

Otherwise it is from imagination.

I tried out the overlay method you proposed and it gave quite an insight. As a result I added few dibs of more saturated colour into the key locations. I think it turned out quite alright that way even though as a whole the image is gray. Thanks for your input.

@Eb: Yeah, I have given alot of tought into the issue of overcoming problems in an image, and I tend to agree with you. From now on I'll try not to discard an image even if it has some fatal problems. I could always just go back to the base thumbnails and start all over. Would surely teach a lesson or two about dedication.

Bright colours are really confusing to me too right now. Thedecision to make this one so gray (and undramatic) wasn't actually a conscious decision, but rather an attribute than deprived from the basic idea to create a dull, soothing environment. (even though colours should be rather strong in such a cloudy weather, something to remember for the next time)

About the focal points. I had actually decided places for three focal points on the basic thirds scale, but as always my own workflow kinda backfired on me. Should have started detailing from those point, instead I just jumped around like a hectic rabbit, adding details there n here. In the final stages I however tried to fix this, and imho it turned somewhat alright. I also revisited the trees and actually referenced them. Tips should look alot more natural now!

I actually have both of Gurney's theory books, Imaginative Realism and Color & Light. Thanks loads for your input too! Was really helpful all around.

And with those words, I consider this finished. Please comment on anything you find amiss though, because I am sure there are loads of problems still.

I agree with Wheel about the first batch of dragons. From your second batch, all of em are a bit closed. Imho the first one has the most potential, for it has the best sense of drama. A bit of widening, better placement of characters and some neat background oughta do. I would like to do a paintover, but I am so shoddy at characters that it would be a mess. :/

@Wheel: That trailer was neat! What kind of art tests were you doing? Hopefully you'll have some time to make some personal stuff too.

And yeps, modern art, ain't it? What's it's purpose anyway? Go figure. I am betting on social status.

[David Keen]

Hey lads, I didn't have a great deal of time today sadly so only got to do a quick sketch for the new dragon piece. I'm not too sure about the current placement of environment shapes but am mostly happy with where the dragon and knight are at the moment. We'll see tomorrow night when I get to spend a little more time figuring it out.

@Eelis: Thanks for your feedback on the dragon thumbnails, I agree with you about the first one pretty interesting hence the little bit of work to flesh it out. I'll keep playing with it and see how things go. Please feel free to do a paintover whenever, I clearly am not the most skilled with that stuff either but it's always fun to get an idea of what others would do with an image.

I really like where you ended up with your final for the stream. By adding that colour and doing some more detailing the the foreground my eye is drawn there a lot more than it was previously. Good to hear you have Gurney's books, they're pretty amazing hey? Keep up the good work man, you're improving very steadily!

[David Keen]

Another quick update on the dragon guys. I'm still not quite set on the landscape want a more dynamic pose for the knight but I am happier with showing a little more of the dragon. I'll keep chipping away at it and see what is revealed.

*edit* I just noticed that this image is displaying a lot darker once uploaded to CA than it does when viewed in the folder. Have you guys encountered this at all before? Most of the subtle forms in the dark areas have been completely lost.

[Wheeljack18]

Hey boys. Sorry for the lack of feedback. I'm just super busy and can't go into great detail but I don't want you to think I'm leaving you hanging.

Eelis: The piece looks great. It has a lot of atmosphere and mood. Call it done and move on to the next one. Give it a few weeks or months and then return to it to give it a critical look. You'll be surprised by what you see.

Eb: Sorry I can't give you a detailed crit here but to be short.
Faerun Piece: I like that you've got some detailed thumbnails but to me they all look like comic book panels instead of illustrations. How can you push them to be more dramatic? Right now they are all pretty much head on and take up the midground. Go and look at some N.C. Wyeth and think about pulling the camera back and moving around your horizon line.

Dragon: What I originally was thinking for this piece was for you to keep the widescreen format and place the knight in the bottom right corner. As if the dragon was looking over his shoulder or just rising up from a crevasse. For the next round forget value and focus on line and composition. Think critically about the gesture and characterizations for each player. Another thought, why not play with the horizon line in this one too and see if you can push the drama.

That's it for me.

Cheers!

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Thanks! Yeah wheel, those moments are the best. You know, when you dig up that old painting/writing/etc after a few months and judge it by your grown experience..the sense of progress! I am sketching up thumbnails like crazy right now, let's see if I have some stuff here by tomorrow.

Eb: I'll give a few comments on the dragon later today.

[Eelis Kyttänen]

Heh, I am real bad with promises, ain't I?

Anyway, eb, I agree with wheel about the dragon so I don't have that much to add. However, I see you wanted to give some emphasize on the size of the dragon? If you are up to it you could twist the perspective so that the view is upwards, this could also require making the canvas vertical. If done right it could have real dramatic effect. However, I don't think it fits if you were aiming for more serene aproach.

I wasn't able to draw much with my tablet last weekend, instead pouring time into some good ol' charcoal drawing. I managed to poke up one quickie 20 min speedpaint though! It was from reference.



I could give more notion to the smoothing of lines next time even though this was a real quick one. Also, the colours are still too "photo like", I'll try to exaggerate them more next time.

Do you know any great sources which could explain how to effectively notice the slight colour changes in views? Be it a real view or a landscape.