[ryan tucker]

Alright, this is my first digital work ever. It goes along with a set of acrylic paintings I did, which featured models and business men with their heads replaced with hammers. (My portfolio this year focuses specifically on hammers, or the transformation/destruction/abstraction of them.)



I haven't had any real training with computer art, but I've had a lot of traditional art classes. (As a senoir in high school, I've had something like 9 or 10 art classes in 4 years.) Anyway, criticism is of course welcomed, I've developed a tough skin through the years...

This work took about 3 hours with PSP and just my mouse. (I envy my friends wacom!!)It's probably not really finished, but I don't wanna mess with it anymore. Oh yeah, sorry about the lack of background, I did the foreground first (and stupidly white washed the whole layer before starting) and couldn't figure out the layers, so you get cheezy lighting effects.

Anyway, thanks for looking at least!

[Ian Jones]

hehe, He looks like he has just bent a nail! lol

Nice first try, although overall it could do with some more contrast, the main problem is that it is too blurry. I can fully understand the problem here having come from there myself. I can't quite tell if you are using a soft edged brush (like an airbrush) or a hard edged one (like a paintbrush) and then smudging and blurring it to get rid of visible strokes. Whatever the case you need to consider the fact that not all areas should be blurry like this. The overall silhouette of his shape should be a strong hard edge to distinguish it from the background. So too should the underline of his arm, as an indicator that it is seperate from the part of the torso it visibly overlaps. It is so critical to the clarity of the form itself.

I'm not saying that blurring areas is bad, in fact its good for a lot of work, but using it over the entire painting is not effective because it destroys the hard edge that you need in order to make his silhouette clear.

"remember the four edges rule"

PRO (a guy who visits this forum) said that. Do a search to find more about it.

It highlights a good point, that the form of the object you are painting has varied areas and can move from soft blurred transitions to hard edges of forms.

Just a tip I thought may help you, because I had this problem too when I first started with digital painting. Just transfer your traditional knowledge over. Eg...With the same pic would you paint a blurry outline for a silhouette with acrylic? probably not.

Nice first try much better than my first disasters!

Hope that helps.