Cut 'N Paste (WIP)

[CybrGfx]

Your values are all over the place, from too high-key contrast, to over-muted meh in the background. The overhead light source is too inconsistent to illuminate the scene like this, B&W photo, damaged or not...

That linework is about the only thing holding the overall visual consistency to this. You remove those, and the contrasts will run rampant.

You'd be better off using the linework as a very pale guideline layer, and paint your values entirely without it, except to use as a reference, turning it on and off...Without the linework as a crutch, you might work at making the values more balanced in general.

~C

[PretendArtist]

CyberGfx

Thanks for taking the time to take a gander at my piece and for leaving some feedback. Its great to get some critical feedback and advice.

I definitely hear what you are saying and am working to remedy those issues. The background was competing too much with the figure in value so I knocked it back, but apparently I knocked it out :) Thanks again and hope to hear from you again.

P.S: Do have any of your work posted anywhere online? It would be nice to check out some of your stuff too

[PretendArtist]

After some feedback from a view other people I have decided to re-draft this. The angle right now is not telling enough of what is going, which is why I will be placing the camera almost directly above head looking down upon the scene. Corpses will be yanked out all over the place, barely staying on their tray/falling off or nearly falling off, with their tattoos cut off. New compositions thumbnails and roughs will be posted some time this weekend.

[Scott Harris]

damn. that is some nice perspective.

i really like the concept.
Do you have a reference of the "aged paper" look?

[PretendArtist]

Thanks Scott.
I don't have any aged paper reference that I will be using in this piece. I was planning to mostly draw some of the damaged photo look as the finishing touch. I'm a fan of Jeffrey Scott's use of it stylistically creating the look of old damaged photos. He is an awesome guy by the way, I talked with him for a while at WonderCon last year. So I will study a little bit of his use of it and some photo restoration before photos. Thanks for looking and the perspective on the next update should be even crazier :)

[Wooz1]

Ooo I love this concept, it is fantastic; so grim and twisted. You have conveyed an exelent mood and style through the great perspective also :)

[PretendArtist]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wiahBAGpkKM/SZoG8dgGPgI/AAAAAAAAAYA/TxYyqoasCuk/s400/Cut%27NPaste_Line_BW.jpg
You can check out the hi-res at http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wiahBAGpkKM/SZoG8dgGPgI/AAAAAAAAAYA/TxYyqoasCuk/s1600-h/Cut%27NPaste_Line_BW.jpg

The first draft was not doing a good enough job of telling the story. Look forward to hearing your thoughts and making any alterations before progressing to roughing in the values under the super low opacity lines in Photoshop.

[PretendArtist]

After getting some feedback from people, I'm going to make a few alterations. Particularly, further foreshortening the length to the back wall with the free transform tool and then a bit of cylindrical perspective distortion to add more creepiness. Here's a little list of some of the other alterations to make before moving onto roughing the values:
*add line weight to Cut 'N Paste & more white breathing room between planes
*overlap two closest corpses figures with broken neck almost entirely off his tray & get rid of excess fabric
*flipped over gurney and more trash on the floor to break up the perspective
*get rid of last column of corpses, which would hit the items when pulled out
*some shoe footprints from him stepping in the blood & dripping off Cut
*thinking about empty space around/underneath Cut or just projected shadow

I'm glad others and myself noticed these issues before I moved on the values. Thanks :thumbsup:

[PretendArtist]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wiahBAGpkKM/SfkgJ5lDkYI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/wynE7mxCjus/s400/Cut%27NPaste_LComp_3.1L.jpghttp://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wiahBAGpkKM/SfkgTl70i0I/AAAAAAAAAYY/MFNBm-ahfwA/s400/Cut%27NPaste_LComp_3.1V.jpg
hi-res here (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wiahBAGpkKM/SfkgJ5lDkYI/AAAAAAAAAYQ/wynE7mxCjus/s1600/Cut%27NPaste_LComp_3.1L.jpg) hi res here (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wiahBAGpkKM/SfkgTl70i0I/AAAAAAAAAYY/MFNBm-ahfwA/s1600/Cut%27NPaste_LComp_3.1V.jpg)

Still working on the line drawing, but nearly done! Probably half a day or so left on the line and then I can start to abolish the line drawing as I keep refining the values (too low contrast right now & needs more of a noir feel). I'm thinking to keep everything grayscale except for the blood, tattoo design color and the filleted flesh. Keeping color in only the blood and filleted skin is just too "Sin City" and generic for my tastes.

This piece is taking a bit longer than I intended, but it is to be expected with it being my last semester of school. I'm pretty happy with how it is coming along and I think it will be something special when its finished. The plan is to have it pretty tight in the values with no more need for the line drawing in the next two weeks.

Thanks for looking and any feedback is always more than welcome.

[PretendArtist]

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wiahBAGpkKM/SgO_B5AVENI/AAAAAAAAAY4/FCNSw1BsVLU/s400/Cut%27NPaste_LINE_final.jpghttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wiahBAGpkKM/SgO9A_4ft1I/AAAAAAAAAYw/wGuq0Y9yWnM/s400/Cut%27NPaste_Value_1.jpg
Hi-Res Here (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_wiahBAGpkKM/SgO_B5AVENI/AAAAAAAAAY4/FCNSw1BsVLU/s1600-h/Cut%27NPaste_LINE_final.jpg) Hi-Res Here (http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_wiahBAGpkKM/SgO9A_4ft1I/AAAAAAAAAYw/wGuq0Y9yWnM/s1600-h/Cut%27NPaste_Value_1.jpg)

The line drawing is finally finished and now I can finally move onto refining the values to the point where I will no longer need the line drawing. The line drawing is shown with the values for clarity and to get an idea of the lighting. As I obliterate the line drawing, the line drawing will be barely visible. I can't wait to see how it turns out in the end.

Criticisms and thoughts are always more than welcome. Thanks for looking :)

[embryotic]

hey!

your line art is really good man, Its weird that your application of values is so lost because you seem to be a rocking good drawer!

Hold back on all that black and white - start with a 128 grey back ground and put your blacks down on a new layer use a brush at 30% opacity, do the same with the whites on a separate layer.

usually I duplicate the darks/lights layers and adjust the layer opacity till I like it.

but the black in the background should not be the same as the black in the foreground no way

Once you've got those values sorted you can use any colours you want!

really awesome drawing - the perspective and lens distortion are brilliant!

[PretendArtist]

Thanks for the feedback and critique embyrotic. Values are something I really need to work at. I hurried too quickly on just getting an idea for how I wanted to vaguely light it without factoring in atmospheric perspective, light pollution or bounced light. Laziness and impatience on my part. The values were really bothering me and I was planning to start over with them anyways because they were just chucked over the top of the line drawing layers as a multiply layer and are in no way accurate.

Thanks again for the reminder and I'm posting it on my sketchbook and monitor ;)

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