[Teem]

I got my drawing tablet a few months ago, but I've never used it until now. Can people please be BRTUALLLY honest on this, my first pic which is pathetic in comparison to the rest of the stuff here. This is my first handdrawn pic and I want to get better...

[proximo]

Hey dude whats up , well when i first saw your pic the first thing i noticed was there is so much black at the bottem it just seem waisted you know ,, somthing you might think of doing is make the rockt blast like really big and in the black space make it a lake and have it reflecting off! eheh just some thought but i would put sopmthing there to pull the image togeather ,, i like it so far , looks cool ..

[AliasMoze]

Teem, as an animator learning to paint, I can offer you these things that I've learned so far. Spooge, Fred, and other real world painters have offered me tons of free advice, so here's some of it:

1)Values. They are, IMHO, the key to whether or not a painting is technically good. Values (the approx. grey values of colors) are the element that most tells the viewer about the objects in the painting. Fred Flickstone hosted a class in the forum a while back on painting basics shapes. You should definitely check it out and do the exercises. Above all, learn to get the big values right in a piece. It's very difficult, but it's important.

The rocket in your painting, for example, is way too bright. The fire would be bright, but the rocket's body and the smoke would be much darker in reality.

The cliff in the foreground in not shaded realistically. You have to think about the basic shapes making up the cliff and then paint them accurately. The top surface of the cliff would be brighter below the lantern and probably dark toward the back. The sides would be catching a little light from the lantern, but not much, so they'd be very dark.

One trick I use is to imagine that I'm in the scene and that I am the light source. From that vantage points, what surfaces are most inline with me?

Study real life for values. I do lots of quick speed pics for study (10-15 minute sketches from photos). They have taught me allot. Rarely are values in reality what I thought they were in my mind.

There is a value scale, from one (white) to ten (black), and everything in an image is somewhere in between. Think about what the brightest values would be (the lantern) and what the darkest values would be. Use the HSB color picker in Photoshop. The "brightness" or "B" slider controls value.

2) Blocking out. If you aren't already, block out the entire image as a colored sketch first. This is one that people told me over and over. It's simple really. Everything in a painting is relative (values, colors, saturation). The sooner you can see the image as a whole, the sooner you can compare values and values, colors and colors, etc.

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As far as your image specifically, aside from my above comments, I'd have to ask why the middle surface there is black. Is it land or water? Either way, I'll bet there would be some amount of moon light falling on it, right? Also, the shapes in the cliff are a little weird. At that angle, the person would slide right over the side. Also, mix it up with the stars. Stars are different brightnesses, different sizes.

Hope that helps. Good luck in learning

Here is a quick 15 minute sketch I did in the beginning. It's no masterpiece, but these are so educational. Here's another one I just did.
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AliasMoze

"That activates my hilarity unit."

[This message has been edited by AliasMoze (edited July 30, 2000).]

[psi burn]

the sky looks really flat, make the size of the stars more varied, like some big dots, some very tiny dots, to make the space seem a little more 3d

[Nex]

hi there, here comes my brutal attack:

first of all your composition could be a lot better. The eyecathers in the picture are way too small and too far on the edges of the canvas. Use the search tool for a thread named "composition" by samdragon and you will find some very helpful tips there.

The cliff looks quite good so I was very puzzled that your rendering abilities surpass your ability to put a good composition together so much.

The figure on the other hand has some major anatomical problems.. the arm is portruding out of his/her head and its WAY too long, it almost could reach the ground in an upright standing position.

The glowing ball of light could be a bit more "glowing" maybe make the inside brighter and stuff like that.

Cya