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Phyrexial · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2003 5:07 pm

I've never made any attempt at a non-cartoon looking picture before (those aren't impressive by any standards either) but I wanted to take a stab at it anyway. For my first piece I wanted to paint a friend of mine. Someone recomended that I simply trace over a reference picture and go from there. So I did. Sounded simple enough but it looks incredibly "bad" for a lack of a worse word. Mind you, I don't have a clue as to what most of these artistic terms you guys throw around mean, I'm just a guy who bought a Graphire 2 and went nuts for about 2 months. If anyone could give me some criticism/critiques/help/etc it would be greatly appreciated.

Here goes for my first pic post.
This one is reduced in size for web viewing-

If anyone wants to fiddle with it at all, here's the 2 PSDs that I used-
http://web.njit.edu/~jmc7/Brandy.psd
http://web.njit.edu/~jmc7/Brandy2.psd
And here is a ref pic-

By the way, my friend's birthday is this monday so I really want to have something that even remotely resembles her by then so any quick pointers would be greatly appreciated. Rolling Eyes

P.S: Oh yeah, for the more observant of you the teeth are from the original ref photo. I tried to paint them in, but they always looked very... disturbing to say the least.

mutok · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2003 8:02 pm

the links for the source picture would not work for me.

Phyrexial · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2003 9:01 pm

Okay, the links have been fixed. My mistake.

Drew · Posted: Sat Jul 12, 2003 9:39 pm

Well, giving her ears would help. But, really, what you need the most is just practice. Try using other colors to paint, instead of the dodge and burn. Look carefully to see what subtle shades you can pick out. Practice a lot, and in the future don't trace. It's fine if you're under a deadline, but it doesn't help you learn when you do it, you know?

eyalyab · Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2003 4:08 am

file 1 is corrupt.
drawing from that photo reference, you missed the fact that her face was pivoted to the right and you drew it like it was looking straight. i saw in your psd, the perspective guidelines in the different layer.
anyway, the problem was the eyes. you drew them nice, but not how they would look from this perspective. also the nose. the mouth was a bit too to the left. for the hair, dont use that smudge tool. instead, use just low opacity brushes to smoothen the interface between the hair and the forehead. besides that, your drawing was too flat. you need more contrast. even if there is no contrast in the ref photo, add some of your own. purple nad blue adds depth. i tried to show you some of the point i tried to make in this. forgive my rushing and lack of tablet at the moment. i had to do this with a mouse :/

Phyrexial · Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2003 2:58 pm

Cool cool, thanks guys! I'll try to have an update done in a couple hours. I need this done for tommorrow so I need to get this thing through as many revisions as possible.

@Drew: I actually didn't use the dodge/burn tools with the only exception being a bit of the dodge on the cheeks which I was unsatisfied with and eventually colored over. Shows you how much I know about color use. >_< I've been practicing on and off with no real results, but I'll keep at it. Oh yeah, and I noticed the lack of ears, I was in a rush and wanted to get the face right first. Didn't manage that yet.

@eyalyab: Yeah, perspective on anything with any semblance of roundness gives me quite a bit of difficulty. The concept of using blues and purples in the skin for this picture didn't occure to me. I see now in your pic how they would be used, but I would have never thought to use them, thanks. I'll see what I can do, your pic helps.

Phyrexial · Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2003 7:30 pm

I cleaned up the last pic and added the rest of the neck. I also threw in a gradient to help me visualize the lightsource. I know you guys kinda frown on using certain filters, but I applied Accented Edges to it and some of my friends said it looked better.

No filters used:

Accented Edges used:

Someone also told me that I should remove the shadow under the eyes. I tried it out and it looks more appealing at first but it then looks kinda flat.

I'm breaking so much etiquette due to time constraints... I'll try to refrain in the future.

mOO · Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2003 9:55 pm

I don't think you will really learn much from just fixing up his picture but anyway.. the comment about the area under the eyes is kinda right you dont need to get rid of it but definately make it lighter. Right now she looks really really tired because of it. You also don't need to highlight every strand of hair if you look at the picture you dont really see any highlights. Well hope she likes it. Very Happy

Drew · Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 3:18 pm

No filters is better. As soon as I saw the one with filters I thought my eyes were going out of focus.

Phyrexial · Posted: Mon Jul 14, 2003 9:00 pm

Tinusch · Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2003 8:58 am

I think the problem is you're still seeing the colors in terms of cartoon shading. You're using white for light areas and brown for shaded areas, with a few colored highlights streaked in to mix it up. But look at the reference, analyze what colors are ACTUALLY there, not what you think should be there. There's very little white in it. Her forehead is primarily yellow, red, and blue. The shadows around her eyes and nose are a cool bluish tone, rather than a warm dark brown as you've painted them. It takes a lot of practice to train yourself to see the colors as they are, and also to break yourself from the habit of simplifying your colors as "white = light, black/brown = shadow."

Tinusch · Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2003 9:26 am

Okay, here's a quick simplification to explain what I mean.

I exaggerated the colors quite a bit, and of course I don't expect anyone to try to paint this way, but it just goes to show the range of colors you'll find in human skin, as opposed to white and brown. There's hardly any white in this, but it still conveys the structure of the face, and the dim, moody lighting present in the room.

If you were to bring them all together (again I wouldn't expect you to paint this way, just proving a point), you'll see that it starts to look fairly realistic...

Here I lowered the contrast to make up for how much I exaggerated the colors in the original. If I hadn't exaggerated them so much, you can see that it actually matches the original fairly well.

Phyrexial · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2003 11:08 am

Holy hell! That's incredible. I think everyone else was trying to tell me this in one way or another also, but wow. I never really understood this concept. Man, my understanding of colors obviously has years to go. Thanks man! I am definetly saving this thread, so much to learn and not smart enough to absorb it all yet. Crying or Very sad

By the way, do you guys just kinda see these other colors in the face? I mean, I look at the picture, and I don't see what you guys see. I get what you are saying about me adding colors that I think should be there, that I kinda get now. But how do you people recognize these other colors? Is it just experience?

mOO · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2003 4:47 am

Colors are there its just all really subtle. The colors are relative to each other. If you compare the right and left sides of her forehead you can see like in tinusch's exxagerated version how the left side has a bit more yellow and the right more red. If you just sampled colors they would probably just look like different tans.

Tinusch · Posted: Sun Jul 20, 2003 6:00 pm

Yeah, don't use the eyedropper. Try to isolate a certain area and analyze what color it is. Like in between her eyes, at first sight it might just read as a light skin tone. But if you isolate it and analyze it as a pure color sample, you can see it's a light purple/pink. And the eyes might look white, because you know they should be, but they're actually a pretty good shade of light blue.