[horstenpeter]

OK here's a few more pictures from the list of 500 that I did. I posted in the Gallery as compared to WIP this time because I likely won't work on these anymore and try to incorporate what you'll teach me by showing me my faults into the next 490 images that I still need to do.
Specific advice I'd be looking for is how to make the metal surfaces in the first two more realistic and generally anything that tells me what could be better in the last one.
I used reference on all the three, but only to check for material or surface characteristics, all the compositions are out of my mind.

I also tried to incorporate what Matt, Mr.T & Tepox told me in the other thread. Tell me, is this better ?

[horstenpeter]

Here goes another one.


Phew. 11 down, 489 to go.

[Mr. T]

Metallic surfaces- you did the stylized representation of metal surfaces there. nothing strange, people just get used to that comicbook way of displaying metal. get a reference pic and see what are reflections like there. painting from mind and painting from life give incredibly big differences. Also, the truck windows look like monoliths; they are rendered the same way as metal, but they're black. Why's that?
The second pic's shapes look flat. Take the faces for an example. You didn't follow the lightsource here, i think. Try adding some more colors to the pic, the green t-shirt isn't 100% green. Take a photo and the eyedropper tool to see what colours are there. You'd be amazed.

Hope these ramblings are helpful, i'm really sleepy

[-Tepox-]

I'd suggest you to stay away from "speed paintings" for a moment. Instead of them try to paint something from the reference and give some time for it. I think it's the only way to learn use paintbrush efficiently and blend colors nicely (and using photoshop in general). Anyway, I like the 1st pic. and Yes, like Mr.T said: eyedropper tool is very useful to obseve colors! Just check out some photos and Mr.Mullin's pics and be amazed (and confused like I was/am)

[ November 07, 2001: Message edited by: -Tepox- ]

[Isric]

in order to do speed paintings you have to understand what you're painting. Otherwise it's just an excuse to be lazy. Try working on some of these a bit more, learn what the world looks like, then start on the speed paintings.

[horstenpeter]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Mr.T: Of course they are helpful thanks a lot. I was trying to include some other colors in that shirt, if you look very closely, there's some blue from the sky on the back of it. But I guess I didn't go far enough with that.

Tepox: Do my colours really blend that bad ? I wasn't aware of that, though of course I did not spend too much time on making my colours blend smoothly.

Isric: I guess that could be true. However the idea I had behind doing these was to learn as much as I can from doing these (That's why I used reference for all of them) and then move on without wasting too much time on detailing them. But maybe that won't work. I'm not sure. I just felt like I'm actually improving with these. But maybe I could learn more if I spent more time on these.

[horstenpeter]

jeffery, that sounds like a good point. I wonder why I didn't realize that earlier....of course you learn more if you read a book again instead of reciting that which you remember and glancing inside the book occasionally when you feel something's missing.

I guess I just felt a need to do something out of my own mind after all the anatomy and proportion studies I did (not that the results of that would show up in the above paintings.... )

Thanks for enlightening me guys

[jeffery]

the thing with speed paintings is to try and accurately render the planes & masses of object using as simple brush-strokes & as little time as possible. it lets you concentrate on the basics of rendering without worrying about noodling & nitty gritty stuff.

for speed paintings, its probably best to start by painting scenes directly from reference. whether thats something near your computer in real life, or a photograph, i don't think it matters much.

with these images, you're continuing to paint what you think a truck, or a person looks like, rather than the reality. you need to learn to see an object without misconceptions before you can accurately render it. i'd say a healthy dose of life drawing, or drawing from specific reference work would help you more than another 490 speed paintings from your imagination.