[Farin]

Hello, this is my first post here and i ask you to help me with my digital paintings ...
Well ...
This one i did a few weeks ago ... I don't know how to finish it ...
[/URL]]http://www.farinart.de/bilder/paintings/posingknight.JPG[/IMG][/url]

and this one, it is a little bit bigger sized, so I just linked it ...
second one
I just took the colours and the shape ... but now I don't know how to go further?

maybe u can help me ... thx

[ September 10, 2002: Message edited by: Farin ]
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[ September 10, 2002: Message edited by: Farin ]

[Ian Jones]

Hi, welcome to Sijun.

Looking good so far, nice pic.

I'll have a crack at your Knight picture there...

The first thing I notice is the general unfinished stroke marks. You need to avoid this sort of 'noodling' as we like to call it. Each mark should be a part of the form of the painting, each mark should improve the form and not stand out as a 'brush mark' alone. See what I mean? The solution is to consider the use of your tools and the way in which you work through your rendering. Breaking the process down, consider the large shapes and tones of your object to be rendered. Use a large brush for these tasks, and then progressively work in more refinements and detail to end up using smaller brushes. Otherwise you will get 'noodling' brushstrokes and a scratchy look, which you can see in the clothing of your knight. Try to eliminate any unneccessary marks.

Edges. Edges are very important to the description of a form. Think of edges as outlines, intersections, or boundarys of one form to another. When the silhouette of your knight meets the background sky, assuming the clothes he is wearing aren't fuzzy or furry, then he should have a hard crisp outline in those areas. Make the brush marks at these points nice a crisp at the edge, like the cape and his other areas that meet the background of the sky. Edges are important because they are a very strong and clear indicator to any viewer that there is an interaction or overlap of space or form. Don't just think of edges as the silhouette only though. Consider the edge where his torso meets his cape. This edge should be crisp, otherwise a viewer may think he is wearing velvet or maybe the two pieces of material blend together? see my point? Also look at the left arm and hand, think about the way this interacts with the shield, think about the way his belt is a different form to the clothing and torso underneath it and make the clear definition with your brushstrokes.

Also edges can be soft or practically non-existant. Think about the way the arm blends into the shoulder, this is a soft edge... it is a meeting of forms, yet it is a soft transition so your brushstrokes should be soft and the rendering complementary to the objects form. In your case there is clothing over this region, I was just trying to make a general point.

I think you need to increase the contrast a bit too. Unless you were going for the 'overcast' day sort of atmosphere or a 'diffuse' kind of lighting. Your rendering needs just a bit more contrast to give it a bit more depth and solidity to its shapes.

The grass needs some work, the sky is quite alright consider it fairly well complete. You did a good job with the wispy clouds.

One other thing is the compostition, I think he needs a bit more space above him. Its a psychological thing, because the key area of interest in the painting is the sword and thats where he is looking too, so naturally this point becomes important for a viewer. We don't want to see the blank space to his left, rather we want a bit more room infront of him (to our left) so he has some space to look into, and so our center of interest is brought back towards the centre of the image. Also another thing you may want to consider is making the frame taller and thinner, so kind of increase the upright and proud standing warrior sort of effect. Apparently vertical lines are suggestive of 'dignity' and 'righteousness' etc... it does kind of make sense in my opinion.

Well that was a bit of a bash!

Hope you didn't fall asleep. hehe.

[ September 11, 2002: Message edited by: Ian Jones ]

[Max]

Very nice reply Ian

People like you make the sijun forums to a wonderful place in the Net.


Farin: Welcome, and follow Ian's great advice.

[Farin]

Wow ...

thank you very much .. that really helps me.. tonight Im going to try it again ...


Im very obliged and thankful

[Farin]

well here is another pic ... it is older than the other both ... the backround isnt that good ... I wanted to finish it, after spending 3 hours on it ...
...
I played Warhammer till 2001, dont be surprised... my favourite army is the one with the orcs and goblins ....


.... sorry for my bad english ...

[ September 12, 2002: Message edited by: Farin ]

[ September 12, 2002: Message edited by: Farin ]

[ September 13, 2002: Message edited by: Farin ]

[Ian Jones]

Hey there again... glad I could help.

Nice Gblin, you did a good job with cleaning things up a little more, edges etc...

The firstthing that stood out to me aboutthis pic was the saturated colours. This is quite a common thing when you first start out painting, and its a very easy mistake to make especially due to the digital tools and colour which can be intense and saturated. The point I'm trying to make is that your colours are too saturated and this makes the grass look way to green, and the sky is way to blue. The goblins skn is also ver green, so you could consider reducing its intensity aswell. This should make the pic look more natural, take a look at a master painting, or some of the other work here at Sijun. You should have a hard time trying to find a really saturated colour in any of the 'naturalistic' paintings.

hehe cool, I noticed the mushrooms, orcs of course always have mushrooms around them.

One more little thing about saturation... you could perhaps use saturation as a great way to seperate man-made objects from natural objects. So the point I'm trying to make is that clothing (being mand made) could have strong dies in it so could be quite strongly saturated. Utilising some contrast now we could make the orcs skin and any other natural objects have less saturation. This is a great and easy way to key a viewer into understanding what an object is and what it could be made of. There are of course many other things you can do to achieve this, but adding to the list with some clever colour usage is never a bad thing. The more things you do to improve a painting the better.

Onto something a little different now... Aerial perspective: this is a term used to describe the effects of the volume of air, any minute dust particles or other particles that are present in the air. When we view objects that are in the distance, like mountains on the horizon... they appear faded and hidden by some atmosphere. Take a look at a photograph and you'll see that distant object wont appear quite as bright and saturated, they also have less contrast than objects in the immediate foreground. We use this sort of 'rule' to help us establish the position of objects in space and obviously this is yet another great way to communicate to a viewer that there is distance and depth, hence 'perspective'.

So to apply that to your picture, you would make the grassy hill behind the first hill look less saturated and the objects a little less defined and vague. moving further into your picture the mountains are next, so you would be having to look through more air and dust particles, so they would look slightly more faded and vague than the middleground grassy hill. Eventually you have almost a gradient system of clearer objects in the foreground and shrouded / faded objects in the far distance. This of course is a great way to show depth. Take a look at a painting, a good landscape one somewhere and hopefully it will show you waht I'm talking about.

ok, that's all I can think of atm.

Nice painting, great little goblin... I look forward to seeing you improve.

Hope that helps.

[GG]

Great pics Farin! I like the mood they invoke. Ian gave some great advice. It seems like a lot to think about, but little by little it will all come naturally as you paint. *goes back to noodling*

[Farin]

hey I've to say "Thank you very much" again your consultation really helps me...

I think I should work with this "wheel of Color" ... complementary colors etc ... I just read a book about it.. hope it will help... other wise I ask you again for some help