[Falk^^]

Hi !
I'm new on this board, oh and I'm french, so sorry for my unperfect english.

I've just done my first real artwork (yay !).
Of course it's not the first thing I do, I draw since I'm a child and blablablah, but I've been quite unproductive those last years, particularly color-wise, doing more 3D than 2D, and the almost only things I've colored are cartoon drawings like that :
Self-portait^^
Wes Borland, funny guitarist from Limp Bizkit
Chibi Mecha
It's cool, but not the best thing to train my eyes, knowledge of colors, lights, shadows etc etc...

So last week, I rushed to finish an artwork in time for a drawing contest in a french minies magazine (the fernch White Dwarf from Games Workshop).

I started monday, finished thursday, so something like 5 days of work 8 hours a day.

Here's the artwork :


As I said, it's my first "real" artwork (I did a few textures and stuff, but this wacom tablet was kind of jam for pigs (it's a french expression^^), until this artwork, so even if it's not perfect (far from ?) I'm quite happy with it, and a bit proud of myself (yeah, that's important^^).

But I had to rush, so I didn't took the time to think the composition and lightings well.
In fact it changed quite a bit from what I planned first.
The guy was supposed to be slashing 2-3 guards, but the guards didn't turned out great in colors, it totally lacked some dynamism, and froze the whole picture. So as I had only 2 days left, I said "bye" to the guards and tried something else. It took me a few tries to get something good, cuz' the warrior was often lost in the background I added, which wasn't good at all.

The warrior had to be the one on top of any other character, or it wouldn't work, so I finally decided to put this sort of background with the army, and later added the coulds, the top left corner was particularly empty contrary to the rest of the picture so this shape of clouds with still a clear part of sky filled this emptyness a bit (maybe a bit too much BTW, cuz' maybe it takes advantage on the warrior itself ). (oh and the clouds are mostly done of edited picture, I would have try it myself but I hadn't enough time :/)

With this sort of step by step, I think it clearly shows I lack experience.




While I guess it would have been better to speedpaint it first then add details where needed, I kinda had to add details since the beginning to give me a proof it could be great at the end.
If I had speedpaint it, maybe I would have seen the guards were not a good idea, or maybe would I have found how to turn it into a great idea.
But the few times I tried to speedpaint something, I quickly thought "wow, you're going nowhere there... " and I'm not used to the big brush strokes that'll be soften later.
I may compare it to playing guitar, the first few weeks, you wonder how the hell something clean and constructed can come out of this instrument, as you can't play 10 notes without doing a mistake. Well I think that I'm at this point concerning speedpainting, still painting a few brush strokes and wondering where it can lead.

I also saved the lighting, cuz' it was quite neutral and dreary (another thing that shows I should have speedpainted it first I guess^^)

Another reason I should practice speedpainting, is that I simply like it, one of my fav' manga is BLAME!, which is drawn in a spontaneous, rough style, and speedpainting is kinda the same thing but in color^^.

So if you have any critique, comment, advice, things you would have done that I didn't, things I seem to be good at, and of course things I seem weak at, please tell me^^. (well if there's really a lot of wrong things, spread it on a few days )

Mmh and maybe I could do some close-up. The size is A4 (2500*3500px)

Hey I hope you'll be more talkative than on CGTalk^^
I don't know if the quality of my work let them speechless *dreaming* but there's not many comments.
Here's the thread if you want to read my blablah, maybe I missed to say anything here^^.
http://www.cgtalk.com/showthread.php?t=158887
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BLeh

[Greensun]

really awesome! though I must say the clouds look a bit unrealistic..
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Rabies up your bunghole

[P-Rik]

Yep... Cool stuff!
I like the pictures hidden under the 3 links... it' s a cool cartoonish style!

Hum about the main picture.
I'm going to list what i will have probably changed to give my opinion :

- About the colours :
- The metal apears too grey... it should reflect the colours.
- Not enough Blue ... perhaps in the top left corner.
My test :


And the fact to have a bright blue sky in this corner will permit to put some blue touch in the forground and will have egalized the orange aspect too present for me.

This picture looks pretty good ! And I think U can try to make some test with pshop to find what is the most important to change... For me, the only crits concerne the lighting...

Ok... time for bed....

cheerse !
Pierrick
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Pierrick l'Illustrateur des bois.
Website !

[Greensun]

I think adding that blue sky really ruins the apocalyptic atmosphere in this picture.. tho I must say I like how you feel about the metal reflecting those colors.
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Rabies up your bunghole

[PuC]

Very nice work.. the added lights (reflections) I think would make an improvement, it kinda connects to two parts together (the sky and the warrior) I definetly like your colours and the way you did that axe.. great piece
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Tingalingaling, dance style an swing, DJ ya suckah with da freestyle rabbin!

- Shabba Ranks

[Falk^^]

Thanks^^

Mmh... you find the clouds unrealistic Greensun ?
In which way ?
I mean : the way I painted them ? (well, hem, the way I "editedpictured" them ? ) Compared to the rest of the picture.
Or the way they are ? (really dark, then red, yellow and everything)

Cuz' there's mostly two pictures. One of B&W clouds that I turned at 90� (it gives some unusual shaps and movements to the clouds, like those vertical trails), and one of an "amazing" cloud (well it looks great^^), from grey to red to yellow, this was exactly what I had in mind, but I hadn't time to try it by hand (cuz' I know it would have need several tries^^).

So the whole clouds are meant to represent the chaos and apocalypse blablablah, that's why they're really black under, and turn to more "natural" shade on top where they're lightened by the sunset.

About P-rik's proposition (thanks to him BTW, he's a buddy of mine and gave me his opinion and some advices during the week I did it), yup' some blue somewhere would be good, but it's really hard to place, like Greensun I don't like it that much in this picture. Maybe I could find some sort of great monochrome artwork (I mean something all in red/brown shades), to see how it looks, and if there are some tricks to make it more "readable".

But yup' the metal of the blades is too grey. It's what I did at the end and maybe I was half sick of it/half "too much is the ennemy of good" and didn't tried yo add heavier reflections.

PuC just to be sure of what you're talking (and what to edit), it's the reflections that P-ric added on the blades that look good ?

Maybe I didn't pushed the whole reflections enough, well it was my real first^^.

Now for the next I think the hardest thing would be to change from a fantasy artwork to a real-world-looking artwork (even if it's some spaceship or whatever). In this one the lighting is... well... what it is , and it's quite fantaysist in the style, for instance the red light in his back comes quite from nowhere, it's just here to help the readability of the artwork, and I have a lot of pure black shadows...

Now, let's track the mosquito down
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BLeh

[allpetter]

I love it!

I was about to sit down and make a overpaint,
After a tryout I just realized I couldnt do anything to make it look better.
My experience doesnt have what it takes.
Cause this piece is awesome!

Great work!

here is what I did to it!
I think what I had in mind was to give it a better read, which didnt work out very well; sicne it did read splendid before my filthy hands touched it...
I also tried to give the weapons some sort of mosion by adding some stupid effect.
I'm sorry!


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Fru Tina K�ttet

[Falk^^]

Sorry for not replying sooner, I was in a sort of "no mail not much messageboard mood", like women, but me it's about taping on keyboard (Well I was more in a "painting minies" mood, having a lot of different artistic hobbies is really yime consuming^^)

Well thanks first^^

Hehe don't be sorry ! Your touch up (that's the right word ?) is interesting, though I think it verifies what I thought after someone suggested me something on another board : he told me that I could add rays of light on the main character to "justify" it's lighting (compared to the guys in the background). But as I thought, those rays of light make him look more like a "good" character, like a holy knight, than like a bad guy ready to kill, rape, and kill those he raped ( )
Oh and I like the "squared" highlight of the sword, maybe better than a simple rounded HL.

After all maybe all it need is a "greyish" and more detailed army in the background (something that could be inspired by this one : http://www.goodbrush.com/cm/displayimage.php?album=search&cat=0&pos=0 but not that dark at the front).
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BLeh