[paulus]

Hello everyone!

I'm new here and am really excited about this forum.

I've been studying traditional arts about six months now and am very interested in digital arts also.I've had a wacom tablet (volito A6 ) allmost a year or something now, but I've never really tried to do any painting..or anything with it.
So here is my first attempt in digital painting. We're currently painting a selfportrait in my school so I decided to try what I could produce digitally. It's not a portrait of me though, just a study of a male face.







C&C, tips and suggestions are much appreciated [/img]

[paulus]

C'mon people!

Please gimme some advice/C&C

[judson]

Woooooow nice, I love it, try to make more volume, maibe with the dodge tool.

Salu2.

[paulus]

You love it...wow!

Thanks for the tip! Gonna do some more adjustments to the overall coloring as soon as I get the ears done. Oh and somekinda shirt too.

[ElfGirlKimmy]

Nice work thus far... I'm no expert, but I'd suggest some variation in the color tones of the skin. Maybe some more blues/purples in the shadows on the face and some yellow in the lighter areas for some starter ideas.... Right now it looks mostly the same color, which isn't true to reality if you spend much time focusing and observing the tones in people's skin in real life (which is a good practice and one I'm trying to force myself to do more often).

I only notice this because its the hardest thing for me to get a grasp on, and I'm trying to become more aware and critical of the skin concept for my own art. lol. *struggles with it horribly*

The eyes are nice, I like the green - he needs some lashes though.

Keep pushing the face definitions and tone differences, and it'll help a lot, me thinks. I really like what you've got so far, its well done. Keep it up.
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[faeklone]

Work on the values a little bit more. If you squint at the picture he looks a little flat. If you use more variations between the absolute bright and the absolute dark, it will stand out and work better in 3 dimentions. Normal places where more valuse can be used where you haven't:

- Under the nose should be darker if the light is coming from above
- The lower lip should be lighter than the upper one

The shadow on the right is good, but it's not catching the planes of the face in that area. Find where the light is coming from, then figure out where the planes of the face are and how the light is interatcting with them.

I agree though, put some lashes on his, and even give a bit of light reflection on the bottom lid, it makes it look a bit more realistc. The eyes are the best rendered feature of this picture though. SO keep it going.
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[paulus]

Thank you for your comments. They've been very useful.

ElfGirlKimmy: I'm not expert with skin tones either. I tried to add some blues/purples here and there, but it looked like he had been beaten up

Gonna try to figure that skintone stuff out in my self-portrait.

BTW! U've probably seen this already, but Ron Lemen has a skin tone tut. at gfxartist.com http://www.gfxartist.com/features/tutorials

faeklone: I added reflections in bottom lids an in the left tearcut, but it doesn't show so well in the resized pic. And yes, I will add some lashes.

Testing some stubble here. Done with airbrush

[/url]

[iuvo]

Hi... First let me say that I like what you've got so far. There's a nice expression in the eyes, and I like the skintones you've picked.

Since I suck with words, I did a quick paintover for you, just as an example on what I mean to show you. I hope you don't mind.



The first thing I noticed was the lack of shadows on the nose, it looked like it was lit directly from the front. I drew you an extra (pretty generic) nose to the right so you can see what I was doing. Also, the ears look like they were placed a bit too high (I drew some lines where I'd place 'em), but peoples ears are often placed differently.

A face is 3-dimensional. That means things like noses, lips, eyesockets and cheekbones cast shadows no matter which angle the light is coming from (almost.) You lightsource was a bit unclear, I went by the heavy shading you placed on the right side of his face, and set the lightsource to the upper left corner.

When I start a painting I zoom way out.. To about the size of the painting I'm showing you, and just roughly add in the lights and shadows with a hard brush. Then, I zoom in to add detail. Once in a while I zoom way out again, to make sure eveything looks good that size too. Then you avoid the problem with having added detail noone's gonna see anyway. Plus you get a better overview of the whole thing. Flip your picture around once in a while too (mirror it) that way you catch mistakes that you don't notice otherwise.

Best advice I could give you? Draw faces lots of from photos and life, if you have the chance (try doing at least once a day.. Use the droppick tool to see what colours their skin really is) it'll teach you tonnes more than any of us can.

Keep at it, I couldn't draw for shit 6 months ago;) I hope you could use some of this, as with all advice; use what you can, and throw the rest away.

[paulus]

Oh yeah!

This is exactly what I needed!

I haven't got the time to finish this one right now, but your advices will certainly help me when painting my self-portrait.

And thank you for taking the time to do the paintover. It clarifies your point very well.