[Prometheus-ANJ]

This is a painting I just started on in PS5.5. As usual I scanned a small pencil doodle that I colored. I've spent 2hrs on it so far.

As you may or may not notice I tried to do it 'Foster-style', ie, making a lot of black shadows and quite short (almost binary) gradiations to the brighter color. The design is supposed to be for the CGtalk lotr challange but I have absolute no idea what I'm doing.

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Crits welcome as it's still wip. Here's my own:

I have to do something to bring the important parts forward. The character is a little hard to read pose wise perhaps? Halo?

The treetrunks are to close to the characters huewise?
Perhaps I can use color to separate the trunks from the characters?

It needs color somewhere. I think I can afford it. I might also afford to add some brighter highlights somewhere on the character. I'm tempted to do it somewhere on the upper part, chest or shoulder, or perhaps on the arm that doesn't separate from the tree trunk to the left. I need to do something about that. The darks on the upper part of the trunk doesn't continue on the lower part.

Do something with the focus on the corner front head and fogged creature? Should I nuke the foremost head?
Eyes should be lit on the fogged one.

The left corner needs something.

Anatomy probably needs to be checked as I used no ref.

The bottom is cut off badly?

Brushstroke quality needs to be better (I used ps5.5)
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Yak!

[Sukhoi]

Jesus Prom, what's left to say?

Well, i love your style VERY much.

But I think the image is way too cramped! The character in the middle is out of space, as if his friends are restricting him.

More space below his feet, perhaps show some foilage or undergrowth?

More space infront og him. Where is he going, sort'a.....

His right arm collides with the tree trunk. Perhaps it could create some more "energy" if the two sliced eachother in a more interesting way?

You know what I mean?

What are they? Uruk-Hai? Or something entirely different? Decide man, we wan't to know!

Sukhoi

[eyalyab]

very nice, imaginative, and scary to think such creatures exist..
you are right. the image is too small and you tried to put lots of elements in it nevertheless. but i think the main problem is that we dont know where the monster fella is running to.. is he running to the tree? that's no good, he's gonna crash into it. is he running to the foggy guy's direction? then why is he looking and turning at us? is he running towards us? doesnt look like it. once you decide where the fella is heading i think you'll get it because obviously you are very talented at this.

i think that because there are three monsters. one at the back and one out front (the foggy one) it looks like they are all on a path, so the viewer (or just me) assumes they are running in an ordered line on the path. i think more chaos will be better.
maybe you should make the monster in the middle run more in the viewer's direction, so maybe twisting his body towards the viewer is a good idea, also his leg thats' stepping on the ground.

create some more space. enlarge the canvas. you can do it.

there are other small anatomy problems (imho), like the hand and foot that are further away from us are too big.. but that is minor.

[Prometheus-ANJ]

Thanks!

I'm gonna try to remove the tree and the foremost head make the blue BG eggshaped. I'll add some more bottom space too.

An alternative way could be to make it a lot wider so some of the body of the foremost guy shows, plus some of the area in front of the center guy.

I need to rework the trees some, and put them on proper planes so they dun interfere with the characters too much.

I'll see how the image looks tomorrow when some of the 'blindness' is gone.
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Yak!

[Inspector Lee]

Really unique color combinations. I love it!
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Smokey, this is not 'Nam this is bowling. There are rules.

[Zarathustra]

Very striking. Great concept. Love the use of greens and browns.

[Prometheus-ANJ]

Here's an update. It's still quite sketchy. The trees are hard to do since I can't give em too much detail. That might lure the eye out to the image border which is bad as I understand it.

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Some conclusions:

I must dare to make my shapes more figurative instead of just dabbing and hoping for the best. The green mushrooms up front are an attempt at this.

Sometimes I make futile attempts to make a detail work. I must learn to 'kill my darling' and see to the image as a whole instead.

I must not highlight everything to death, something I've become a bit better at lately I think.

I must be more bold with colors. Lately I've consulted the saturation and dodge/burn brush setting to get some bold ideas. I mix colors a lot, which often results in increasingly grey 'colors'.

I must learn composition and how to make the eye stay in the painting.
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Yak!

[Capt. Fred]

To be honest: I like the original composition more. Before it didn't look like the picture itslef was crowded so much as what the picture was of looked crowded and that was a good thing in my opinion.

however, I have a feeling i will be in the minority on this point. It's different but not necessarily better I think.

[Prometheus-ANJ]

Yeah, I kinda agree it's empty now. I'm tempted to make it 'panoramic' and add the big head back plus some of it's body to the left. From the start I wanted more than one creature in the composition to make it obvious that this creature is part of a race and not just a single freak.

With digital media you can experiment a lot so why not try...
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Yak!

[Prometheus-ANJ]

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Yak!

[Capt. Fred]

Yeah cool update. nicer dimensions wider like this. Looks funny though with the big guy on the left , medium size guy in the middle and even smaller on the right. looks as if there's some signifiance to it.. is there? If you dont; understnad me, ignore me.

[eyalyab]

i understand you ;] looks like they are running in a circle and the guy in the front is like nodding his head to us to join in the stampede ;]

to the drawing. it kicks ass!!

although, i think the middle guy is a little too exposed out in the open. maybe the background is too bright behind him (?) i dont know. if you think im wrong you are probably right (but dont think that just because i said that) does that make sense??

[IPushCarts4Living]

The picture reminds me of Frazetta's work. It looks wonderful.

[Zarathustra]

It looks even better. Great stuff. I'm inspired!

[bboy]

Some thoughts and suggestions..

I like the re-addition of the larger head back into the foreground. I think it works better having the body with it, instead of just the head. It's a positive addition to the flow of the composition, to me it leads my eye into the picture. My eye following each creature.. and following that curved shape of the tree down to the figure in the background. One thing I think that may be fighting a little bit, is just the level of detail of the creature in the middleground and foreground. That part of the picture seems to flatten a bit. I think maybe if you took some details, or simplified the creature in the foreground a bit, it would give you a stronger focal point in the creature in the middleground. (Of course that's based on the assumption that you want the guy in the middleground to be the focal point)

I know you will probably change this, but i will mention it anyway. Just that large black shape on the left of the painting. I think you will probably cover it up eventually? It's just there cause you enlarged your canvas? I can also see the area where you cut and pasted the head of the foreground onto the painting.. there a few clear lines showing where you have pasted upon closer inspection.

I sort of liked the detail and contrast you had on the ground of the middleground you had before. I don't know, maybe if you added back some of those details, it would give more impact to the focal area (again assuming you want the middleground as a focal point)

Anyways great piece, will you finish it? I thought the new experiment you posted at conceptart was looking pretty nice too.

[Prometheus-ANJ]

Thanks for the crits. I'm afraid I havent touched it since the last post.

It's nice when ppl confirm my suspicions about what's wrong. I'm not quite sure what to do with the large black weight on the left. The foremost head definately needs some 'bluryness'. I might try to do this by using a textured brush around the edges, and perhaps tone the eyeglow down a tad.

The ground needs some detail and I'm thinging of cluttering the sky 'egg' with some more trees to make the black forest-sky gradiation a bit less binary.

I have a few spots where I need to remove the most obvious traces of the digital tools too.

Will I finish it? I'm not quite sure. Sometimes there's such an overwhelming amount of things to fix that I overload and just toss the painting in a random folder and forget about it... :G
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Yak!

[bboy]

Hmm, I don't know, I kind of like that part of the sky egg on the right.. it sort of echoes the movement..and moves the eye down to that third guy in the background.

Hmm though there are traces of digital tools, I think your work has changed a lot, since your earlier days. It's much more painterly i would say, I still remember back when you did a lot of the airbrushy stuff on top of the ink drawings back at pendako (this is squall btw, if you remember)

I think I understand what you mean about having too many things to fix, though probably no painting is perfect.. Why not just try and change the major things that need to be changed? Or the things that are changeable? Some things I think, if you didn't get them right in the first place, or it would be impossible to fix them after a certain stage.. I don't know, I guess its easier to change with digital media, I just get the feeling that if one goes too far with a piece it becomes increasingly difficult to edit certain things. Like say the initial drawing? and i drew the leg out, but I messed up on it, it would be very difficult for me to fix it if I had gone too far during the painting stage, because I feel that its difficult to build ontop of a incorrect drawing

[Al Ian]

I'm not sure why I'm about to say what I'm gonna say. But I LOVE THIS PAINTING!!! The bold strokes, the expressionless mutant guy. It looks like one of those posters I would of loved to had on my wall in college!!!

Cant wait to see it finished!!
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http://jmarkey77.home.bresnan.net/

[Prometheus-ANJ]

Oh, hi bboy. I didn't know it was you.
Yeah, my technique has changed a lot when it comes to digital painting, and all the digital practice has helped me with natural media painting aswell.

You're certainly right about the importance of getting the fundamental stuff right. I'm rarely very careful when it comes to spending time on the composition, but I should be...


Will I finish it? Who knows?
Not me, I'm quite sporadic.
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Yak!

[r1sm]

prometheus, i love ur artworks very much, its such a style i want to learn
but iv never found a tutorial for sth like that, or just which r very hard to understand.

so if u find abit of time to answer me what could i do to draw (in ps) like u..how much time does such a work need, how big is the full resulotion in ps
and with which drawintool should i work -> airbrush or sth other? how much exposure size etc.

or maybe the other could help a noob, cuz every time i start a work and its usual that the pic looks shit at the beginning, i`ll stop drawin and look at your pics, which r so amazing
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Last words of Mr.Riker "Worf, fire at Will!"