[jasonN]

Hi, I've spent about 3-4 hours on this so far and I need to know if there are any huge mistakes I should be aware of. Also, please advise me on the colours, in particular, the saturation level.

Also, is it considered cheating if you finish painting a pic and then you adjust the brightness/contrast levels after? Or do you think you should independently paint in these factors?

Thanks to anyone who replies.

[Frost]

Hey JasonN.

It's looking very good so far. I think your current saturation level is good (maybe a little too unsaturated at the edges), but be careful to keep high saturation levels at places of interest - their color purity will attract the eye and stand out a little, so keep it for the face/head or something as such.

I noticed that as you're cleaning and refining the sketch, you're also pushing everything at the same depth, making it seem a little more 2d, losing that slight atmospheric perspective you had initially (ie, the torso and body seems to be flatter, instead of round.) Adding a small bit of the background color where the surface becomes parrallel to our view will give a better look of depth (as in giving a hint of Fresnel effect).

You can also try to introduce very very faint (~3%) tints of green or cyan in the background to detach it a little from the subject.

Adjusting the pic's hues, values, etc via photoshop is sometimes a good thing to do, but if at all possible, try not to rely on that and attempt painting the result you want head-on. This will make you control your work and be a lot more precise in your color selection, besides the fact that color calibration can introduce color banding in your image.

Good luck with the pic.

[ January 20, 2002: Message edited by: Frost ]

[jasonN]

Hi Frost, I'm glad you replied since I really admire some of the work you have posted online. The crit you gave me was great, however, I have a question.
When you say I should add some background colour to give a better look of depth, do you mean that I should blur some of my edges with the background colour so it doesn't seem so 'cut out'?
Sorry if I totally misinterpreted your crit, I just had to clear that up.

[Frost]

Well, it's really a matter of reflectance, and a slightly forced atmostpheric perspective. The reflectance portion suits your robot a lot because he's metallic. Basically, a surface that is perfectly perpendicular to you will reflect right back at you. If you look at a reflective surface that is 45 degrees from you, you will see 90 degrees (twice the angle) from you. In both the reflective and atmospheric perspective case of your robot and the smokey room, the smoke volume is less between the viewer and the robot, and there is more smoke volume the more air volume you see through... which means you will have less smoke between the viewer and the subject than you will have around and beyond the subject (depending on the environment of course, but suits this present case). So back to the reflecting, if a small surface on your robot is reflecting towards the outside, make it so that the enviroment has more of an effect on it, while less between the viewer and the subject because there is less volume there. It's also a fact that most types of reflective surfaces (water, glass, etc) reflect most when the surface is parralel to your line of vision, while reflecting the least when the surface is perpendicular to your line of vision, which also comes into play with those surfaces pointing away from the viewer, as opposed to the ones that are not. This is called the 'Fresnel' (some French mathematician's name I beleive) effect.

I hope this was somewhat clearer. Of course, it's not entirely accurate, but could serve the purpose well here. And, above all, this advice is free, and, it's probably worth what you paid for it.

cheers,
Frost.

[jasonN]

Hi Frost, thank you very much! I read your advice a couple of times and now I fully understand. I never really considered the space between the object and the viewer (duh!), I always assumed the simple case of clear vision (thus the sharp, clear rendering). But yes, your advice has really reshaped the way I will approach this image, taking into consideration the atmospheric properties of the space between the viewer and object.

Again I can't thank you enough for the really important and relevant crit.

[Guy Spenzz]

reminds me of iron man....Heavy boots of lead fills his victims full of dread Running as fast as they can Iron Man lives again!