[Lunatique]

http://www.ethereality.info/ethereality_website/paintings_drawings/new/memories_of_hangzhou/memories_of_hangzhou.htm

Been a while since I painted anything. I really lost the interest for a while because I kept wanting to paint looser, but couldn't seem to break away from old habits. I just became discouraged and angry with myself after trying for a few years, and ended up concentrating on composing music, writing, and improving my photography instead. So, now I decided that I'm going to try and tame the beast. I knew speedpainting wasn't the answer, because I wanted my finished pieces to have a looser look, and I'm no stranger to doing quick sketches and color roughs--they don't help me at all. So this time, I tried a "controlled spontaneity" approach, where I really gave thought to each brush stroke instead of mindlessly fiddling and detailing. I also made a point to use bolder colors and I think it's a bit of a breakthrough for me. It's still not what I'm aiming for, but I think it's a slight improvement over my previous works.

[Naeem]

hey,

u've succeeded in using bold colors. i really like the painting. it looked like a photograph at first but i soon realized it was a painting. beautiful job done on everything! great work

[kimchi]

Stunning. Both the art and the subject. Great piece! Paint more, damnit.

[Capt.FlushGarden]

Hey man that is nice and loose lookingm i really think you succeded in getting a looser feel and not render on it too much , love it! though i would love to se more of your paintings and photos done with other models than Elena, don't get me wrong, she's beautiful, but maybe it has the same effect like painting an object u love too many times, u get stuck, i don't know, maybe its very expensive with models, but maybe u could practise on making characters up in a photoreal env like this, I looked at your website, and most women look like Mod's of Elena, I had a colleague once and all the characters she made reminded me of her hahaha, and my friend ,admits that the characters he begins painting on almost always end up looking like him. I am too much of a noob to se if my characters become like me haha... but i sure do end up painting airplanes alot of the times! anyway take my crits with a pinch of salt!

i really dig how you made the pattern on her clothes, and also how you break the silouettes of the mountains with small brush strokes, sorta like clouds haning over. and also that it looks so photoreal even though there's alot of baby blue and baby pink colors! the painting shows the viewer that you have thought before making a stroke, wich saves you more time than if you would push pixels with the smallest brush.

Keep em coming m8!

Your book tutorial pal,

John

[skullmonkeys]

Wow wonderful! This is a very nice piece of work and I'd agree this is a slight improvement over your previous works, which I am also very fond of.
Hmm yeah maybe CFG is right. I thinks when you paint someone close to you, it really kind of puts you on pressure and you tend to focus on details too much from the start. So if you are wanting to be looser, maybe start with a paid model or something.
Not that I can see any problems with this, I knew right away who this was

Keep up the awesome work. I really like your stuff. Can't wait until you seriously start painting again. Then we could hear a lot of useful feedback, insights, crits etc.

p.s you seem to have a very good grasp on color. Which I am struggling a lot right now. Does all your photography help?

[opticillusion]

Beautiful piece. The composition is very nice, and you've done a great job at suceeding with the challenges you set out to face.

If I can only make a few suggestions. Some bounce lighting would really help a few areas - from her hand onto the wall, to lessen that intense black area, and also from her onto her hair (mainly around her ear and neck area), where again, things slip very much into some dark dark values. These jump right away at me, and maybe it's the suggestion of a mildy overcast day that this contrast brings up my attention. Lastly, the cracks on the left pillar are perhaps the weakest areas of the painting. On the right pilar looks great, and even the stone railing behind her.

Just small things that grabbed my attention. I'm glad you're painting again, but more so, coming up with more challenges for yourself - it's the best way to learn. Great job.

- Jensen

[eyewoo]

Really nice... Starting to see your brush strokes and a bit of texture.... The pattern in the dress is gorgeous. This has got to top my list of favorite digital paintings you've done.
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[merlyns]

Thats great luna, I find this to be an huge improvement over your other paintings, its very well done.
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[Lunatique]

annisahmad/kimchi - Thanks for the comments!

I feel so stupid because I really wanted to do something completely different from my previous stuff, and I ended up only making a minor change. But, I'm not giving up this time and I'll just keep going. I'm tired of being discouraged and running away to do something else creative whenever I feel stuck with my paintings. I need to tame this f$cking beast and discipline it to become my bitch. Only then I will rest.

I've got a series of sci-fi/fantasy paintings I'm working on--and although I've shot reference for them, I feel they will have a lot more room for me to play with in terms doing something different. I actually don't care too much for doing heavily referenced stuff--it's kinda restricting, but I wanted to see how far I can go in terms of loosening up.

Believe me, I'd love to get other models, but I really don't have an interest in painting other Asian subjects. I miss having other races as models, and I can't wait to return to the States.

Photography helps with painting immensely. As a photographer, you have an intimate understanding of light and color--in a much more hands-on manner than painters, because you are constantly working with it, and you are trained to sculpt, shape, manipulate, and invent your own lighting. When you do enough of it, you instinctively understand how/why light does what it does, not merely the typical "illustrator's wisdom" kind of rules in painting, but more of a "I can design and shape lights/colors in reality" way. I think they really help each other. I apply my experience in painting to photography, and vice versa. I think as I get better at both, it'll be even more obvious. (I've been feeling like I'm on the verge of finally making things click--and I wish I don't have to sleep because I'm *this* close to the level I feel I should to be at this age. Gotta work even harder!)

I actually pushed the contrast in the painting, so the lack of ambient/bounced light is totally intentional--and probably a bad decision. I usually make changes after I've gotten enough comments in forums, so I might do something about it.

eyewoo/merlyns - thanks! Means a lot coming from you guys, since both of you have been critiquing my past works since way back.

[balistic]

I like that you're getting a bit more textural with this piece. Those minnerets must've been a challenge to render.

One thing I'm not feeling is the boat, and how fuzzy the contents of it are. It draws attention to itself by being so indistinct. I think if you tightened that up just a bit, threw in a few strokes to indicate someone at the helm and some passengers . . . just an indication, instead of the formless blur that's there now . . . it'd be a stronger piece.

Otherwise, there's not much I can pick at.
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[DeadbeaT]

Hmm, here i am, stuck with a mouse and that being even less usefull since im a leftie with one of those tilted right hand mouses, looking at your extremely great picture and i suddenly get this feeling that i really want to slap you

If you don't want your eye for details, then give them to me!

hehe i just fooling around and even though the girl looks photorealistic, great, sexy and perfect i still like your picture.
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[skullmonkeys]

Lunatique, what books on photography can you recommend?

[Lunatique]

ballistic - Yeah, a lot of people mentioned that. I'll have to do something about it. Thanks!

DeadbeaT - Go get a tablet already!

[Lunatique]

I went ahead and mades some changes. Some subtle, some not so subtle.

[see]

thats amazing. Highly detailed, photorealistic art but still a "painted look" which makes that image so fair and beautiful.

[spooge demon]

HI Lunatique,

I remember you asked me for advice over in the SP thread about the next time you posted a painting, so here I am to scratch my head with you. It seems that you are wanting a looser technique, but still something that most people would react to as finished. That's a tough one. It is something that I try for in my own work, so any advice I might give will sound like "do it this way."

Probably the best way to help would to be a paintover, much more efficient than words. But I swore them off. But I think what I will do is write on it "after R Chang at his request" so there will be no confusion if the image is ever seen out of context.

That is, if you want me to try it. I am happy to oblige, I think I can help.

[Stewart one]

hi lunatique. i really enjoyed the mood and lighting in this piece good work. i think it has sort af a loose feel to it and still feels finished although i think you could push the loosenesss even further and still get away with a finished feel. good work anyway.

spooge- i gotta object to this whole swearing off paintovers. I think as long as you state that it is a paintover your all good. and if someone else comes and misses the remark that it is a paintover and blurges out some crap about copying, then thats just his problem,and anyone that actually looks at the post will understand this. Its a great way to help people understand what could be done differently. so do it! Hope btw that you realised that the remark i made way back in the speedpaint section had nothing to do with paintovers what so ever.
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[Lunatique]

[skullmonkeys]

Thanks for the recommendation Lunatique.

[spooge demon]

OK, can I see any ref you used?

[Lunatique]

Check your PM, Spooge.

[jr]

can i see the paint over spooge?!
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[V Shane]

Thats a nice painting. I can see what you mean about wanting looser. I think the term you may want to look further into is blocky unfinished strokes. Not concerned with blending too much. Being bold with your light comping. One digital illustrator that comes to mind is Justin Sweet. To me loose isn't soft pliable lines that lay across the other tones, its leaving strokes unfinished, raw . Thats the best way I can phrase it without painting it. I terrribly hope you don't mind my showing a close up of one of my digital paintings as an example. Let me know if this is what your talking about? This is armor/skin etc.


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[Impaler]

Just to chime in with more suggestions about books on photography, I can definitely suggest:

Black and White Photography, Beyond Basic Photography and Color Photography, all by Henry Horenstein. His books are all very good, if not a little out of date. A good percentage of college photography departments across the nation use these as their textbooks.

Some of the best books on photography ever were written (or co-written) by Ansel Adams. Specifically, I'm talking about his successive series of books, titled The Camera, The Negative, The Print, and the now out-of-print Available Light Photography (unfortunately, this last one was probably the best out of all four). These books have all been sort-of compiled into a shockingly comprehensive volume titled The Ansel Adams Guide : Basic Techniques of Photography - Book 1. Also worth checking out is Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs, just for insight into an artistic mind.

Finally, Henri Cartier-Bresson wrote an essential (and brief) tome on photographic philosophy, The Mind's Eye: Writings on Photography and Photographers. This book isn't a technical manual, it isn't a collection of photographs, it isn't a guide to making your own pretty pictures. It's more like.. a biography of a man who embodies sensitivity and photographic art, and in that sense, you can learn quite a bit from it. It reads just as easily to the beginner as it does for the advanced photographer. Highly reccomended. No matter your skill level, I guarantee you'll find knowledge and inspiration inside this book.

I always seem to chip in my two cents in your threads, Luna. I hope you don't mind.
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QED, sort of.

[skullmonkeys]

nice! I appreciate the info.

[Lunatique]

jr - I'm sure he'll post it whe it's done. It should be helpful to others as well, not just me.

V Shane - Thanks for the tip. I like the energy in your close-up.

It's kind of hard to describe what I'm after specifically, because even among artists that paint in a looser style, there are still a lot of different ways to approach it. I'm sometimes wondering if going going back to painting traditionally would be more beneficial in that regard. Digital is just not a very spontaneous medium.

Some of the guys i admire are guys like Pino, Richard Schmid, Sargent, Jeremy Lipking, Huihang Liu..etc, and with guys like them, it's not really about painting looser--it's more about deliberate application of controlled spontaneity. There are painters tha paint very loose, but they are not picky about the quality of their brush work at all, but these guys I mentioned are very deliberate in the way they apply the paint.

Impaler - Of course not. I always enjoy your company.

[spooge demon]

going on vacation for two weeks, I will post something when I get back.

[spooge demon]

OK, here is something, not at all what I had in mind, but it is all I can do right now. I hope it had some use to you.

[Lunatique]

Hey, you're back! I was starting to think you might have pulled a disappearance act on us, in the style of Hardcorepixxx, Wasssup, Greg Pro, Pierre..etc. Guess where Greg popped up? He's in the cgtalk's Grand Space Opera challenge right now--surprised the hell outta me to see him there, and scares the hell outta me to go up against someone like him in a challenge.

Yes, your version definitely explains a lot of things that words might not necessarily have been able to. The message I got from your version was:

"Anything that isn't absolutely important in the very central focus should be treated as such--don't fuss over them."

and

"Imply, don't explain."

and

"Pick your battles. Pretend you are a starving artist that can't afford enough paint. WHERE are you going to apply that precious paint if you know you'll run out very soon?"

and

"Don't explain areas that you normally would have to, if it in any way competes with the central focus for attention. You have to sacrifice details in one in order to bring out the other--and the central focus should always win."

and

"Don't jack up the saturation thinking that will add something more to the painting. Values and judicious application of colors is more than enough--if you do it right."

and

"It's not necessary to put compliment colors everywhere to give the whole piece a vivid vibrancy--just pick the right areas to do it in, and you get the same effect."

So, how did I do, Sensei? Did I learn the lessons you meant to teach by example?

Edit: Forgot to say--this really means a lot to me. In the years I've been at sijun, this is the first time I've had the courage to directly ask you for help (knowing how busy you are), and I'm totally grateful for it. A simple thank you just doesn't seem enough. (I'd offer sex, but I think Mrs. Spooge and Mrs. Chang would object.)

BTW, my brother (Dennis Cheng. Different last name due to different dads, but same mom) sent me some of the stuff you did for them (hope you don't mind--I asked him). I was quite surprised at how rough they were--much rougher than the stuff you did for Bond, NFSU, Tao Feng, Halo 2..etc. Was it because you were just depicting atmosphere instead of actually concept designing?

[Capt. Fred]

hey that's clever with the compo. that wall on the right side of the image really makes the composition work, though I don't know how or why.