[Indian_Prophet]

Well I am trying a few different effects with lighting here. I know some of the paintings are a little blurry, but I am asking about the lighting and coloring and maybe some background concepts. I was able to do the last three paintings within 5 hours, the other two are in the Yoda looking thing thread. I am determined to get his right and would really appreciate some technical advice rather than "its blurry" because the blurry part is a given.


Thanks you.
Peace

[lookitsfrank]

ok. here's my two cents:
coloring: I've noticed in your last two postings that the colors are very desaturated. (very grayish.) that's why the images of swamps and bogs are popping into people's heads. I would up the saturation in these.

lighting: I think that this image needs more contrast. I think there's too much midtone and not enough shadows and highlights. I think they're too close to the midtone.

I'm not sure if this will help, but try loading up one of the jpegs and upping the saturation. after that make a new layer and add some white highlights with the layer mode as color dodge and some shadows in black with the layer mode as color burn. I know this doesn't fit the style, but it will show you that the piece becomes tighter with more contrast in the least amount of time. I hope this helps!
frank

[lookitsfrank]

I played with it a bit in the eyes and nose. maybe this will give you the idea if my words didn't help.

I know that the color dodge/burn gives it a cheesy mentality, but hey, it was quick.

[ December 23, 2001: Message edited by: lookitsfrank ]

[Indian_Prophet]

alright thanks, I am working on that right now. Might be a cheesy way, but its nifty eh.

back to the painting
thanks again

[Indian_Prophet]

Ok Two things to take into consideration.
1 its not finished
2 I do realize that there is the possibility that I could have over-killed on the burn and dodge tool



[ December 23, 2001: Message edited by: Indian_Prophet ]

[ December 24, 2001: Message edited by: Indian_Prophet ]

[Sukhoi]

Yeah, overkill...but hey, it's fun !

I think you're working whitout a proper lightsource. This can be due to not having a backgound of a setting. If you had envisioned this guy in some setting it would be much easier to light him properly og more dramatically.
Ofcourse this is mainly when you produce your final renderings, but it can also be usefull when designing your creature. Light and shadow is very inspiring and can change your view on your character quite a bit.

Sukhoi

[nomad]

The eyeballs & wrinkles are great, he has a lot of character. The dodge and burn is OK but is a little too strong
I think that the features like the chin and cheekbones are hard to decipher here. Start drawing with the skull, then the details I think. Hope this helps :-)