[Gecko]

I ran out of ideas to paint, so capitan flush had to help me out to come up with a subject. And no, I didn't want to paint "the third gender", and Chameleons aren't exactly in the top ten most painted subjects around so I gave it a shot.

The form is rather cartoony, since I didn't have any reference around while I painted. I did take a look at a couple of photos beforehand, to get the general idea. In the coloring phase I tried to get something more realistic going on.

She's really scared of falling, better hold tight on the twig!

And then there's another Africa-related pic, of a tribal chick. Its sole purpose was to get the proportions down, I spent hours checking and fixing things with the aid of "Complete guide to drawing from life". Help?

Also, I'm looking to borrow a digi cam so I maybe could post a couple oil paintings I've done recently and th..Enough babbling.





Comments would be highly appreciated!

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Gecko
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[silber]

damn this Chameleon is stylisch
I like it alot
nothing to crit there

I think the propotions of the girl are ok
but she seems totally out of balance
and she is a bit stiff(-->english?)
I think her foot makes her look like that; only a ballerina could make her foot doing this painfull thingy


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silber
http://silber.atariflys.de

[This message has been edited by silber (edited January 28, 2001).]

[Frost]

Hey Gecko, I'd just repeat what Silber said, that's also my oppinion. =)

As for the chameleon, I'd have to say that the dark shadow on it is too dark, haven't I mentioned that in a previous picture of yours? Is this perhaps a trend to look into fixing -- or am I just plain wrong? =) Looking at the lighting on the creature, notice how bright the light is on it,... does the rest of the scenery reflect such a strong light source? Perhaps there should be more harshly lit details in the background to homogenize it a little, and the blue sky out back could be made near-white to really push it out. Other than that, I'd just say the colors seem too saturated to me, but, that could just be an oppinion of mine... I think it takes away from the photorealism,... mabe think more about how the surfaces reflect the hues and values of the areas it reflects...

( eh, who am I to comment... )

Nice work!

[S4Sb]

man, now that chameleon is GREAT! Looks half cartoony, half real! GREAT! The colours are supreme. Can you tell me how you know what to colours to take?

I always get stuck in colouring. Penceling isn't that hard, since most of us are doing that since very early childhood. But colouring definetly is hard to do... who for example told you that you use an orange on that tree? Why no yellow or white lightning like I would do... no... I would probably take a very light brown...

[edit] Chameleon is wallpaper now [/edit]
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Formerly known as El Caseron.
ICQ:26482363

[This message has been edited by S4Sb (edited January 28, 2001).]

[Gecko]

Hmmh, I tried some stuff out on the chameleon. None of it worked :Q
I see the saturation problem, but fixing it is a whole other thing. If anyone feels like they know what would help, please do paint over and post here.

The chick wasn't supposed to be standing still, but walking forward in a sneaky fashion. But if it can't be seen from the pic, I guess it failed.

I wouldn't wanna give up on these, but I feel kinda lost with both pics.

s4sb: picking the colors has become much easier since I started painting with oils and acrylics: mixing and picking colors is very different from digi world, where you can have infinite amounts of any color with no variation on it at all. Painting traditionally allows for many subtle changes in color that make the pic look more rich: something to strive for in the digi world as well. I guess the branch on the pic is orange because I intentionally built the pic mainly on greens and reds/oranges.

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Gecko
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[burn0ut]

Ay i dont think you failed on the lady, right when i saw it, i knew she was moving, i thought she was accually doing some traditional dance or something. but you can really tell shes being sneaky once you point it out..
Mabye If the head was placed diffrent it would look alittle more sneaky, Like raise her face looking straight ahead, and the head alittle lower???

I dunno if that makes sence cuz i sux.

[eetu]

I also thought she was danching, there doesn't seem to be enough weight on her foot for her to move slowly.. dunno..
otherwise nice-yyyy

eetu.

[mattready]

"hey frankie....its time to get your spatula."

why's the louie?

"because were having a bbq. i've invited the ferret, the frogs, and my cousin one-eyed tony"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!!!!! i love those guys!

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http://www.mattready.com

[S4Sb]

Thanks... so you would suggest I should start traditional work? or is there another way of learning? A book? A tutorial?

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Formerly known as El Caseron.
ICQ:26482363

[sear]

nothing more to add about the critics. everything has been already said.

i really like these pictures. i do appreciate your style. keep posting

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sear

[Gecko]

Ok, she's dancing, I can live with that :)
burnout: you made complete sense.
eetu: thanks for the observation.

s4sb: Well, I'm not sure what floats your boat, but personally I tend to appreciate anything I put on real canvas a lot more than what I can come up with digitally. It just feels more like I did it, not some bunch of layers and "tools" combined :]. Yeah, and it's definitely much more fun. Give it a try!
And no, no tutorial makes up for the real thing :)

Frost's point about the saturation was a very valid one, which I can so clearly see after doing this experiment, limiting myself to less saturated colors with smaller range of values, concentrating on the middle ones.



mattready: doesn't ring any bells :]

sear: thanks, I will keep posting and offering some crits every now and then.

I think the second chameleon is a big improvement over the 1st one, and it took 1/5 of the time. Lol, so much time put on something destined to suck :]


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Gecko
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[ceenda]

Wow! :O

That second one looks kinda real. Nice one!

You been at spooge's matte cubes???

[Joachim]

very nice pictures gecko ! love chameleon pictures.
I think the proportions of the girl looks a bit wrong. I did a quick swosh over it, but don't know if it looks better ?!? click here
anyway, nice work as always -good to see you starting to draw more anatomy..

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www.JoachimArt.com

[eetu]

everything you do looks so damn solid :)

eetu.

[silber]

just wanted to add that for me it was pretty clear that she is supposed to sneak
hey joachim great overpaint think that's what gecko tryed to achieve



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silber
http://silber.atariflys.de

[Enayla]

The chameleons I am completely in love with Especially the first one, that one's got a very unique expression in its pretty little face...

The girl is very neat, too, but as I think someone mentioned, she's looking a little stiff. What I'm thinking the most of though is that I'd love to see a more flat nose on her... I think it'd suit her face better - try to reduce the shadow underneath the nose, that might help

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��You can't leave footprints in the sands of time if you're sitting on your butt��
(And who wants to leave buttprints in the sands of time?)

[Gecko]

ceenda:
Lol, I don't have a set of my own yet! Gonna make one real soon though :):)

joachim:
Thanks a lot for going through the trouble, I find it very helpful to have someone do the exact same pose for comparison. And I've been doing much more anatomy stuff than posted here (and much more than I would've if you didn't emphasize it on your posts) :)

enayla:
Lol thanks. she looks like that because she's scared of heights and hates climbing around those fragile twigs, thus the tight tail grip :].

A flat nose on the girl is what I thought of as well, and joachim pointed a lot of good things about the torso.

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Gecko
[email protected]
GeckoArt.Net

[Sergenth]

Delighful pictures, Gecko! It's been a few years since I drew a chamleon

[TheMilkMan]

Looks good gecko

[faustgfx]

ylis�p� kameleonttiotus! whee!



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sky high with a heartache of stone you never see me 'cos i'm always alone/ministry
the law of lead now reigns!@#!/earth crisis

[email protected]
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http://faustgfx.0wns.org

[twisted]

I love the first chameleon! It's got a very fish-eye lens feel to it. Kinda like 6 point perspective. AWESOME!

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"Jim, I think he's dead. You get his tricorder, I'll get his wallet."

[klaivu]

Damn you gecko. Don't you ever stop ?

on the chameleon : wonderful !

on the girl : seems to me that the legs are too short. the left foot is too long. i think the waist area is a bit small too.
that pose is really tricky though.

[toast!]

great ones gecko

last one is spoogistic

toast

[nil900]

Hi Gecko at first I want to thank you for your paintover of my picture. I worked on it yesterday but wasn't able to post.

I just read only the first part of the post (I am at work and do not have much time).
I really like the pics. The first one is great. I agree with the others: the saturation is to high (we seem to have the same problem in the opposite direction- my pics allways aren't saturated enough). But I really like the way you chose the colours and the rough background.
I would leave the picture (the first one) like it is if you are not looking for realism (just a little change on the saturation).

[BooMSticK]

Nice one Gecko. (actually there's two but I really like the first one so much more

The problem with oversaturating ones pictures is something everybody encounters sooner or later. Especially when relying on brighness/contrast, curves or levels which some artists use to give even more dynamic to the final picture. A fast way to solve this is obviously to go into image->adjust->hue/saturation and process the whole picture here. Though most times that is not what you want. Some areas in the picture might look better with a little bit of overthetop colors. Another more controlled way of controlling the saturation is by adding a new layer set to 'saturation' blend mode. Then colorpick in the area where the problem is and in the colorblender tone the saturation down to a more tolerable level. Start painting with the new color in the saturation layer and whoila. Your saturation in the picture is being lowered(or hightend) to the new colors saturation.

Remember that also the layer modes hue,lumiosity and others works this same way offering an awesome armory of control.

phew, abit lenghty, And hopefully It makes just a bit of sense.

The third picture is very very nice. The form of the ...gecko? (eheh) is very nice defined. Here you could maybe add saturation using the same method in the light areas. Anoter thing that I preach alot is to put warmer colors in where light meets shadow.. Very subtle, ofcause, but you'll see how much it adds to form. Lastly.. I noticed in the first picture that you often paint light->shadow to describe form. Most often this is very unrealistic and should be painted lightshadow->light->darkshadow. If this doesn't make sense I'll try and descibe it with a couple of basic images.

Keep it up. I very much enjoy your pictures especially the ones in the gasmask- and mech-thread were very nice.
,Boom

[Gecko]

boom:
The first paragraph about Photoshop was useful and will come on handy, but I think it would defeat the purpose to fix the value problems by playing around with the saturation/curve settings. I'd like to be able to do this on my own, regardless of the media i'm working on in.

Now the paragraph about the light shadow/light/dark shadow, and using warmer colors where the shadow and light meet sounded really useful, and I'd be Very interested in seeing some example pics, as I'm not quite sure what you meant with all of it :]

It's also funny how you liked the mech and gasmask pics the most, since those very 2 subjects I felt very odd painting, since I never have tried either one before... if you have the time, please post some of those example pics!

I'm still working on another chameleon :)

Also, thanks for the comments, nil: I hope you try some very bold colors on another layer, the newer pic you posted still looked really grey.

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Gecko
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GeckoArt.Net

[synj]

the two chameleon pics are fucking awesome! Keep it up. Don't change a thing.



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synj industries, inc.

[Brue]

i love how you blured the background on the second one. I love the look of them both. Oh and the girl reminds me of 'Survivor'. beats me why, oh well
good pics

[S4Sb]

you received my mail, gecko?

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Formerly known as El Caseron.
ICQ:26482363

[This message has been edited by S4Sb (edited January 30, 2001).]

[Gecko]

No I didn't get any mail :[

thanks again for the comments..... im still kinda anxious to get more help, boomstick..
:]

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Gecko
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