[Anthony]

OK, this is still pretty early, but I hit a hitch in it. I usually paint in Painter6, but sadly I accidentally dried the paint and saved-which means I couldn't paint in Painter anymore, so I switched to PS5.5. The problem seems to be in the values - on such a bright day it doesn't seem like it'd be sensible to put in very dark values-the buildings and sand are both very reflective, and illuminate each other, so we don't get black shadows. But as it is it looks very pastel-ish. I'm not worried about the detail yet-need to get the base down first. Any thoughts, you uber-artists?

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[psi burn]

im not familiar with painter...by reading what you just said it sounds like the most retarded program ive ever heard of. what kind of software would give you a limited color palette, that dries up, disabling you from ever painting again

[Anthony]

Heheh, it's not quite like that! When you use the water color tool in Painter it uses a special kind on canvas that lets the paint interact with itself and flow around more. Because of this, the water colors do not interact with and other tools-if you draw with pencil, it'll just lie right on top. But it you dry the canvas it converts the water color layers into simple pixels, and so if you try to paint on top of the old water color it acts differently, and you don't get the same colors.

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[AliasMoze]

Anthony, the image looks a little low-contrast as of now.

I'm interested in what you're saying about Painter; I just started playing with it. You mean the "wetness" goes away when you save? BTW, thanks for the recommendation. I really like the new interface and many of the tools. I did the "guy with gun" background with painter. The program seems to encourage more exploration and is helping me get over the mental hurdles I experience in Photoshop; Painter feels more "real" to me.

[This message has been edited by AliasMoze (edited August 06, 2000).]

[Anthony]

No no, not when you save-you see what happened was I tried to resize the image to be larger(currently 1280x960), but that dried the canvas. I hit "undo" but it didn't re-wet the canvas, which screwed me up. I had the same experience as you with Painter-feels more like you're doing something. Especially the water colors.

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[Anthony]

Hey, what if I paint it until I'm happy with the detail in these pastel colors and then boost up the bright/contrast until the sunny areas are almost overexposed, then just fix any final problem areas. Think that would work? Spooge? Fred? Anybody?

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[Francis]

Just increase the value range - that helps it a lot. At least to my eye...



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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[Francis]

I forgot to add that I really dig this image. Great, dramatic perspective, cool design, nice color palette.

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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[Anthony]

That's perfect(well, as perfect as it'll get without someone like Spoogey getting his claws in it ). Thanks a bundle. After running it through auto contrast I'm not sure it looks like a digital painting anymore. ^_^

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[spooge demon]

How bout another Gilbert and Sullivan Quote?


This is the ultimate application of cube technology.

The sand is different from the building, a little bit.

The sky is also a strong light source. Your darkest darks will be in areas that cannot "see" either reflected light from the ground or light from the sky. Your windows on the right side of the building should be a dark warm color, not a cool grey. Find your VP. it is way off in many areas.

I did not do much to this, you keep going.

I remember the one requesting a post of a photo ground, I'll do that. It is hard remembering where some of these questions came from. Sorry if I can't remember the original thread.

[Anthony]

Crikey, I never thought I'd have a picture gallery that'd up and stare me in the face an give me quarterdeck orders that're life and death to obey! OK, so I paraphrased. You may not have done much, but what you did...did it. I'm gonna have to stare at it for while to see what's going on, but thanks for Spooging! Oh, and GODDAMN!

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[Fred Flick Stone]

Anthony. Hello, I hope you don't get sore with me, I would have explained a few things, but instead of trying to find the right words, I painted on top of what you started with. I hope Spooge soesn't smack my hand for this either, I feel like I am in his ball court, it's a gnarly court to be in. Wow...:
Anyhow, I think you have the right idea, I might have changed, or altered the type of dirt, mud your market is built with. The colors you have right now need a bit more color injected into them. From there, I would backstep and mute them out as you need them. Shadows in high saturated locales like this tend to have a lot of atmosphere reflecting into them, and on the walls, a lot of ground color bouncing back into them. This is where the cube exercises will come in handy. If you looked at the cubes outside, you would notice this kind of thing happening in them. You have started with a descent contrast in values from your darks to lights, but there can still be more separation. The walls can go a bit darker, and where to wall seam together, you would get so very nice dark areas. Also, you might see it, but I did some color banding around the image. The shadow in the center is taking on a more yellow tint in it, the bounce light from the wall just underneath us, darker, or more purple toward the left of the painting, bluer toward the top and redder toward the right. I am trying to use color in a rainbow type affect to get the eye to travel around the painting. THis color shift is used alot in the pre orientalist paintings, as well as in a lot of impressionism.
Also, try to avoid so many edge tangencies. The bright lights falling off the painting are creating a lot of interest point in the painting, and this painting is screaming for something of interest in the center courtyard. You can keep spots like these in the painting, just make sure you use good logic in determining the value of color you choose in these locations. I deepened the tones in these areas, to close the holes, so to speak. One such hole is the large red spot at the bottom of the canvas. Red is an attracter in the first place, and should be used sparingly in a painting. Putting red at the edge of a painting is dangerous, unless handled correctly. I tried to deepen the value so it took on a more natural color harmonious to the environment.
Another thing to think about when inventing a painting like this, is to start with a common rule of thumb for you to lay in shapes. Think something like, all planes facing toward the sky in the shadows are going to be the bluist hues in the shadows. All the walls facing toward the right are going to be more orange, all walls facing to the left, more purple, etc. This will help you describe planes, that are absolutely necessary in describing form. Just the right color and shape in the right spot will take care of any need for details.

Again, I hope you aren't offended with the rework. This is sort of like me giving a tracing in art class, only we aren't in the same classroom. If I have offended your work, I sincerely apologize...

I hope this has helped you a bit, and post the end result when finished, I am curious how you plan to resolve the possible problematic areas in the painting.

Good luck...

This image looks so damned washed out compared to on my monitor...gonna try to reupload...


[This message has been edited by Fred Flick Stone (edited August 06, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Fred Flick Stone (edited August 06, 2000).]

[Anthony]

Offended?! You must be joking, right? Between you and Spooge I'm learning more than than I have the rest of the time on this forum. I'll have to hunt down that cube thread-I joined just after that I think. Now I just have to keep myself from stealing you guy's color pallettes. It's great to hear this sort of stuff, since I have no real art training(beyond the opportunity to practise).

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[Fred Flick Stone]

Um, didn't realize spooge did one, I feel a bit stupid now. Look at his, ignore mine. I done up gone bad-bad now. Slap my wacom hand and give me more schooling...Spooge is king...: Sorry, got fanboy for a moment. Going to smack my head against a wall for a while. Bye...

[AliasMoze]

Holy zombie jesus! That's a nice one, Spooge. Cubes at work, I guess. Another reminder to me to go practice them.

Fred, yours is great too. It's interesting where the similarities are in yours and Spooge's. It looks like he jacked up the brightness of the sun. It's ok about the fanboy stuff. I'd clean Spooge's house if I could watch him work.

Anthony, looks like you scored.

[This message has been edited by AliasMoze (edited August 06, 2000).]

[burn0ut]

i cant think of the words but spooge i really like how u redid it (tho the original from anthony doesnt load for me ) the green u put on the tarp makes it look so real. looks like youve studied it before, well youve prolly studied how ever color looks in a shadow heh anyways great job both of you, and fred great job with that also :P
Good job to everyone!$#@@!@!!!!

[Anthony]

OK, I fixed it a bit, fixed a few perspective things, an, naturally, took Spooge's and Fred's leads on several things(and you too Francis!). I'm going to have to study all that about warm/cold colors, etc-Spooge, you always pick exactly the right value, which is astounding. I shall keep trying! Here's the perspective overlay I was using:


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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[waylon]

Lookin' good. The contrast looks very convincing for the time of day + locale you're portraying, though you could probably stand to make the shadows a little bluer toward the left (about 30-50% of the light that's hitting the shadowed ground and buildings is coming from the bright blue sky.)

The statue that you've added is acting, compositionally, like a giant magnet. While it's a very realistic place to have a statue, it draws the viewer's eye for a few reasons:

1) It's dead center (horizontally, at least)
2) It's a human figure
3) It causes a break in an otherwise straight line (the shadow through the middle of the square)

Now, it wouldn't make sense to move the statue to another part of the square, so that's not really an option. What you COULD do, however, is create some other objects of interest to draw the viewer's eye around in a more controlled manner. There are about a billion ways to do this, but one thing you might want to try is something like Spooge did - throw in a bunch of tiny people. They'll grab the viewer's attention for the plain fact that they're PEOPLE, and they'll be an area of higher detail than in other parts of the picture. Just don't go overboard - you'll end up hating this picture if you spend 34239486 hours drawing each little dude. Stay gestural! (Or, ignore my suggestion, and find some other way to balance it. Or, ignore my comments completely, and pull out the big red "FINISHED" stamp.

[This message has been edited by waylon (edited August 07, 2000).]

[Anthony]

Thanks a lot Waylon-I'm planning on adding lots of people actually-it's gonna be a sort of bazaar. I wanted to get the shapes and values good first though. So it'll definately be busy!

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[waylon]

Another thing I just thought of... It's sometimes very insightful to make a quick black and white drawing of the basic components of your image in relation to how they'll draw the viewer's eye around. Specific "eye catchers" (like the statue) should be a big black dot, and other lines of interest can be... well... lines. Creative, eh? I did a quick rendition, to show you what I mean:


(There's one for my portfolio!)

Anyway, you can see how the big black central dot grabs your attention first, then you sort of follow around the circle, never really going anywhere. The additional lines help a little, but not much.

Try adding some extra blobs and lines here and there in the B/W composition sketch, and see how it affects the flow of the piece.

Two other things I sometimes use in these little compositional piccys are cone-shapes and converging lines (pretty similar, when you think about it.) Both of them draw the viewer's eye into a very specific point - look at your perspective overlay for an example of this. Your eye will probably gravitate toward the convergence point of the lines. Powerful stuff, I tells ya!

[This message has been edited by waylon (edited August 07, 2000).]

[Anthony]

Woohoo, good stuff. Your b&w image looks like a funky eye! I'll see what I can do to fix it up. The main purpose of the image is the show a certain place, but if i can make a good painting at the same time, all the better!

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem

[waylon]

RRRRRRR!

[Dean Welsh]

you missed a line. I guess it's there and I can imagine it.

But don't worry. I've got you back anyway.

[Dean Welsh]

you missed a line. I guess it's there and I can imagine it.

But don't worry. I've got you back anyway.

[Francis]

Damn. I feel like the substitute teacher who's actually just a vacuum cleaner salesman. I should stop giving advice.

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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[Frost]

Anthony: Nice pic. I guess I read this thread a little late to offer my bits, since everyone has pointed those out. =) However, you should pay attention to the height of your shadows... the statue you put in for instance has a shadow as tall as the buildings, if you need to, build a quick side-view sketch and trace parralel lines from the sun to the ground intersecting the objects and ground. Cheers!

Francis: Nah! Your advice is always welcome. You're a very good artist, lots here respect you, including myself.

[Anthony]

No no, keep it up Francis-all advice is helpful! I'll get some time to work it more this evening. Hope I can work it up to a decent level.

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-Anthony
Carpe Carpem