study - tree frog painted in Photoshop

[flamedevil]

Hey, excellent work, your frog looks very good.
I love those colors !
The reflection on the legs and the eyes is cool .

I just have one critic, the background, you should change it.By example decrease the blur to see something, a tree or a forest i don't know....

Keep it up :thumbsup:

[lildragon]

WOW!!!! this is one incredible piece, I would have to agree with flamedevil tho, change the bg but man o man this is a stunning display of artistic talent... it looks totally 3D... frontpage material :thumbsup:

[FCBS]

Very good work there :) - you wouldn't happen to have a higher rez picture to share?

[Anton Andriesh]

Excellent! :eek: I don't agree about changing the background. This one makes the frog smaller. The only thing I can advise you is to add one more color to it. It looks a bit monotonous now.

You have told all about the process of creation, except one thing - maybe the most important: is it painted using a mouse or a graphic tablet?

[Neo85]

Amazing!!:eek:
Very Realistic:buttrock: :thumbsup:

[Chappo]

AWEWSOME ! :D

any chance for making a tutorial on how to begin and how to paint like a master in PS ? ;)

[jeroentje]

Wow Looks great :bounce:
Background is fine, maybe put a tiny bit of noise in it to get some of the smoothness out of it. But that is all I can think of to crit.

Excellent work :buttrock:
jeroentje

[frog]

Thanks for all the positive comments, I'm actually totally taken aback to see this on the front page :surprised

Tito has asked me to produce a tutorial which I am going to do, however I am working on several paying jobs at the moment so I will need a little time.

As for the BG, it's far from perfect but the blur is simulating a the effect of photographing a small subject through a telephoto lens. Any photograph of a similar subject would have such a blurred background due to the lack of DOF at high magnifications. Not only would it be inevitable in the case of a real photograph but it helps to focus attention on the subject.

I would like to add that I am far from being a master of PS :) Ironically I find it quite easy to do this sort of very clean looking work, realistically or more stylised, but I have been struggling for months to try and roughen my style up and so far it keeps coming out awful :hmm: Just like everyone I still have plenty to learn.

[edit] It was painted with a Wacom of course :)

[insect666]

W O W !
I'll write something when I get my jaw off the floor... :drool:

To say the truth - I couldn't imagine this was possible with a 2D app, before I saw this! :insane:

And no need to change the bg, I think it looks just perfect!:
If you'd give a little less blur - it would get more attention than the frog.
If you'd add some more color - the whole pic would look like a flat easter egg with some blur applied...

[facial]

Great work, :buttrock:

[moojuice]

Look don't get me wrong, this is definately on the right lines, BUT it seems no one is prepared to offer any constructive criticism other 'this rocks!' or 'awesome!', when there are several major flaws that need addressing.

Firstly the lighting is completely inconsistent. The branch is completely lit from beneath, with no top light, but the frog is lit from the top left which makes things look very unnatural.

The left arm seems lit from the left, yet the main body of the frog has no shadow or tone on the right side.

The eyes look a bit randomly shaped and the shadows cast by the frogs hands do not relate to the lighting on the hands themselves.

The background lacks depth and doesn't compliment the image as a whole. perhaps use a blurred photo.

I don't mean these criticisms to seem harsh, but this looks like a fairly average airbrush picture and definately not 'photoreal'.

Everyone seems very reluctant to actually offer any real criticism, you will not progress as an artist if people are not prepared to offer any useful advice.

Hope this helps :) (because that is how it is intended)

[thinKer3D]

:: sweet! ::

[dark_lotus]

Hey Frog.

Thats amazing. However I have to agree with the background.

I think that you should consider de-saturating it to contrast that georgeus frog!

Freddo!

[visualboo]

I would like to add that I am far from being a master of PS Ironically I find it quite easy to do this sort of very clean looking work, realistically or more stylised, but I have been struggling for months to try and roughen my style up and so far it keeps coming out awful Just like everyone I still have plenty to learn.
Wa wa wa what? Dont give me that crap :D

YOU RULE!!

[slime]

Good work!

But I agree completely with moojuice about the inconsistences.
I must add also that if you want to aim for a photorealistic look, you should desaturate a little the frog and more the background and add some noise.

About the background, the blur produced by a camera objective is very different from the photoshop "gaussian blur". There are ways to simulate it and some plugins that works with composition suites. Would be nice if photoshop 9 have "real lens out of focus simulation" or something like that :cool:

In case you wanted a "saturated airbrush style" picture, this works great. Perhaps could be used in a birthday card? ;) Just joking. :D

Once more. Good work! and keep on fighting! :)
Indeed, I think that your statement is the perfect one to become a master: "I still have plenty to learn.".

Good luck!

[Aura]

Really incredibly amazing work!!!
Does it the really 2d artwork?
Too amazing! Love it so so so so much!:love:

[frog]

Thanks for the crits :)

I completely agree about the lightsources, I took a few liberties with my ref and made up some of the highlights, shadows and textures. The main lightsource is bouncelight from below, I added the strong reflections coming from the left because I liked them :)

The saturation I change my mind about everytime I look at it!! More on that in a second.

About the background, the blur produced by a camera objective is very different from the photoshop "gaussian blur".

I know all about this, I like photography. Camera blur tends to emphasize highlights and looks more "defocused" than "blurred" if that makes any sense. However this isn't Gaussian Blur but airbrushing. I'm assuming there are no bright highlights in the forest behind the frog (I did use reference) so this generic blurry stuff is acceptable to me. Everyone is complaining about it though so I could well be wrong!!

Also, it is very fashionable in current photography (especially for wildlife) to use super-saturated films such as Fuji Velvia. I was thinking about this too when making this image, I figured photographers do it because it looks better than just documenting reality, so why not illustrators too? I may have gone too far or maybe it's something that people are more prepared to accept in a photo (which is de facto "real") rather than an illustration (which is "fake").

Or maybe I just went overboard and need to tone it down :surprised

On a final note I welcome any criticism, its always good to hear opinions and to be honest my clients are far harsher and more demanding than anyone on this board. But I have to say it is unlikely I will actually make any changes to the image since it's quite a while since I finished it and I don't have much desire or energy to go back to it :shrug:

[frog]

I just wanted to add a quick point relating to the headline for this thread on the front page:

I actually think that a still such as this is much easier to do in Photoshop rather than in 3d. The rendering might look difficult but it isn't really all that hard with the tools that Photoshop offers. Once you nail the shapes, textures and lighting you're there, which you would have to get right in 3d too but over more stages.

I am confident that I could model and texture a frog to this level of realism in 3d but what I would find very hard to do is achieving a such natural looking pose. When you draw, poses are quite easy. But in 3d with rigging and setting all the bones into place posing becomes very difficult. Maybe this is why so many 3d characters can look a little stiff.

Also, doing this in 3d would take a lot longer than in 2d, only worth it if you wanted it animated.

[Stevo]

This looks incredible, although the object isn't recieving any qualities of the depth of field.

Great work!

[ruscular]

I think you hit it on the head when you were talking about why actually 3d computer render character fall flat being a bit stiff.
You give me an idea that maybe one could combine 2d and 3d for graphic still shot for like a 3d comic book.

I look at the lighting and it is a bit off, but I do see that you have low intesity side light and main light reflecting off from water perhaps and the subject is tuck away in the shades of trees. but the way you light the subject has kind of a global illumination look that makes us see that it could be 3D.

cant wait to see the tutorial!!

[psil]

fantastic frog, Frog!:applause: I agree that the lighting looks a bit discrepant between branch and beast. And I'd be tempted to add a bit more shine to the eyes - even if not strictly accurate.

Brilliant! roll on the tute!

[Larry_g1s]

Unbelievable :surprised ! ! !
The lighting & colors are fantastic. Great job.

[bigbad]

What was the resolution on the picture you worked on photoshop?

Nice 3d....sorry 2d. :)

[frog]

res was nowhere near as high as it should have been, 1166x924.

I should have done it at least twice that size, but as I said earlier I still have a lot to learn :arteest:

[HapZungLam]

oh gosh, it is a 2D artwork?:eek:

[lmc]

Amazing. good good work:applause:

[Toeng.com]

HOLY SMOKE!
this is some serious talent you got :)

:bounce: :thumbsup: :applause:

[Adam]

can we get ahigh rez version

pleeeeeeeeeese

:beer:

[anim8r2]

Wow Frog!
I don't know how you guys paint such beautiful images with PS.
I use painter and still the tablet eats up more time than the real thing.
Anyway, outstanding job! I hope you get to find the time to make the tutorial.

[CGTalk Moderation]

This thread has been automatically closed as it remained inactive for 12 months. If you wish to continue the discussion, please create a new thread in the appropriate forum.