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Rhalin
05-28-2005, 08:46 PM
This will be my first WIP since I joined the forum a couple days ago, hope it goes well!:bounce:

Aside from that, its my first try at a different technique then what I've done in the past. I'm more used to dropping down some color and smudging the fudge out of it to get the shading I want. Hopefully, this "planning" thing I'm trying here will yield better results. I think this is the first painting I've started where I actually had a fairly clear idea in mind when I started.

The major questions I have:
Is the pallete ok? I tend to use too many colors, I think, and I want to narrow it down a little bit to add some kind of color harmony to the picture.
Is the compostion ok? Most of the pics I've done, I feel are poorly comprised because I painted out the figure first, and added the background later (bad bad bad, it seems).

I know it doesn't look like a lot at the moment, but I wanted to get some advice on these (and anything else) before I get into it to a point where its difficult to change

http://rhalin.sytes.net/cgtalk/shianna_sketch1.jpg

Its a picture of my angel Shianna, third in a series, one for each season. In spring, I wanted her to look youthful, and the image to have a sense of life and expectation maybe. I was planning on setting a few of pink flowers around to spice it up a bit, as well as the pink flower in her hair. I set her on a stone platform in a pool, fed by a river cascading little waterfalls. I had planned to spread around some assorted flowering bushes and trees. The water I'm planning to be very shallow and clear, with very little, if no reflection. (honestly, I'm not entirely sure how to paint good reflection there)

I'm open to any advice that anyone has to give, I want to make this image my best yet!
Sunbane
05-28-2005, 10:10 PM
Is the pallete ok? I tend to use too many colors, I think, and I want to narrow it down a little bit to add some kind of color harmony to the picture.
Yeah, I think it's looking pretty good. It does depend a little on what you want to focus on though. If the focal point of the piece is very colorful, then you /may/ want to push back the colors for the background a bit. I think in this case, where the character is rather bright, you can afford to use a more colorful background.

Is the compostion ok? Most of the pics I've done, I feel are poorly comprised because I painted out the figure first, and added the background later (bad bad bad, it seems).
Yeah, it's hard to get a nice composition when starting with the character. =) It's good that you're planning ahead. I like the composition, but there are two things I would have done differently:

1) I would personally have mirrored it, so the angel would be on the right side. This is because I believe that most people read images starting from the right. This is a minor point though, and just my personal preference.

2) I would have moved the angel a little closer to the center, so her head would end up at about 1/3 of the image length (more or less). This would give her more weight..."importance"...in the composition, and the composition as such would become a lot more harmonious.

But, remember that these are just suggestions. It's your painting, and you will do what you want with it. =)
Good luck with it, and have fun!
Rhalin
05-28-2005, 11:30 PM
1) I would personally have mirrored it, so the angel would be on the right side. This is because I believe that most people read images starting from the right. This is a minor point though, and just my personal preference.

2) I would have moved the angel a little closer to the center, so her head would end up at about 1/3 of the image length (more or less). This would give her more weight..."importance"...in the composition, and the composition as such would become a lot more harmonious.



Yeah, I've got this "thing" for images weighted on the left, they usually have a habit of ending up on that side, and characters looking towards the right. When I'm drawing by hand, I usually find it easier and more fluid to draw on that side for some reason.

I'd actually been considering moving her that way, wasn't sure if it would work or not though, was also thinking about moving the image up a bit. Not entirely because it would help the composition, but partially because I'm not entirely sure how to fill in the background up at the top. I've got a rather weak point in that I dont have very much experience with backgrounds, so It'll all be figuring it out as I go on that part!

Thanks for the help though, I'll post updates as I go!
Rhalin
05-29-2005, 03:48 AM
Here we go... Moved the angel's positioning a bit, also on a suggestion, removed the top bank of the river and added another level of cascading falls. I'm not sure how thats going to look after a bit of editing, but it does lead to an interesting effect, and helps me avoid having to put something up there :D Did a little random cropping. One last change I might make is add some canvas space to the bottom (and top, make the cascades higher, not add another level), the almost square proportions I'm working in just dont feel right to me, I need a rectangle!

One other good thing about moving her more towards center is it's giving me room to do a few things I wanted to, such as make the wings a bit larger, and possibly extend her dress a bit and give it some more volume
Rhalin
11-13-2005, 02:11 AM
It's been way way way too long since I've done any painting, almost forgot how gratifying it can be! Would have probably been longer, but a local art show came up and I had to prepare some prints for it, got me back to work on this sketch.

Apparently the time off was well needed though, I sat down and started tinkering with the background, and ...well, I'm not entirely sure where I got the idea to work it how I did (and before this, I didn't know -how- to do it)

So here's the reworked background, with a little luck, I'll figure out how to do the plants I want around (vines, a few bushes, etc) to add some brighter colors maybe. I'd like to figure out a method to achieve similier results to the folliage I admire in Lunatique's work (but of course, my own take on it), however, at the moment such a technique eludes me. I'll figure it out after a bit, I'm sure (I am open to suggestions though!). Hopefully I'll find some free time to keep working on it.

Let me know what you think, any comments are suggestions are very much appreciated, thanks!

http://rhalin.sytes.net/cgtalk/shianna_sketch3.jpg
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