[cayne]

Hi,

I posted this in the wrong forum so I thought I would move it over here.

I'm looking for help from some accomplished or professional painters/colorists. I'm trying to learn to paint as photo realistically as possible and things aren't going as well as I had hoped.

I understand that you want to stay away from hard edges and absolute blacks, but is there anything else I should be trying to do? Also, how much detail do people put into the line work before they begin to paint. As you can see below I just put in the basic shapes with little to no detail and I paint in as I go. Is this the best way to go about it?

Finally, what is the best way to learn about lighting and color? Is this something you can pick up from a book or do you need to have actual instruction? Or is it just a matter of beating it out on the wacom until you get it right?

Any help that you have to give would be appreciated. Thanks. Can't get the UBB code to let me post the picture. Sorry. You can view the picture on this page-
http://www.netcolony.com/arts/cayne

John Ward

[This message has been edited by cayne (edited January 23, 2001).]

[dannorthcott]

make sure his hair is all planted into his head, it looks like some of them are kinda floating.

Good proportions and perspective

[EviLToYLeT]

Whew. Taht's a mouth loud. Anyway, I may not be an accomplished professional painter/colorist but I'll try to help you to the best of my ability. Hard edges aren't something you really want to stay away from in painting realistically I belive, most things have their edges well defined. Anyway, when I'm looking at this picture of yours, im noticing that you have a few perspective problems. For instance, the couple do not appear to be looking at each other. I'm not sure how you started your drawing, but like many things, yous hould start out simple. First just use cones, cubes, spheres etc. and define everythign first. Then as you have time slowly add in the detail. By doing the first few steps, it ensures and allows you to see and recognize any early problems. The details shouldn't be... well very detailed. Do not define every strand of hair and so forth. Just basically get the shape of each thing down and briefly specify folds in the clothing and that sort.

As for lighting and color, just study real life for a while. and observe the shapes and the shadows casted by the sun at which angles. A book may be a good supplement if your having a hard time. Also, for your sketch, it would be a ver ygood idea to just use some shades of grey and specify the general lighting direction to see if everything looks ok first.(like some story boards and prisma color marker drawingsseen around here) It sucks to spend a long time on a picture coloring it and then finding out the shading is wrong. Also, do not just study the book, put it to practice as well. And then just compare and contrast. Hope this helps you. And, if you REALLY do feel that you are not getting anywhere, attend a few drawing classes. Hope this helped.