Beginner needs help...

[Kageko]

Well, what should I say. The drawing is well done, but your colouration/shading isn't far enough to say how to continue.

Maybe you should use a sharper brush for the shadows. Your cloudy painting doesn't fit with the strong robot design.

[Revitgnome]

Hi Echom,


you are going into the highlights way too early. I suggest the following:

-choose a good color as the base background layer. A light grey may not be the best
-on a separate layer, start blocking in all of your standard colors for your robot. It should denote the overall color scheme of what you are going for.

-next, block in your mid tones.

-Finally, block in your high-lights. A bit of planning and deteriming the location of your light source will emmensely help.

-Finally start blending the colors, render in the detail. Go brighter in certain areas, go darker in certain areas....etc. etc.


****A good starting tips is to focus on your over-all composition, and then overall color, before starting to work out the details.****


Good luck...looking foward to seeing more of your robot.

--Cheers

[echom]

@Kageko
Yeah, I know the shading looks bad at the moment. I was actually trying to figure out the overall lighting. But you're right a finer brush makes it lots better.

Put a little more effort in it:
http://echom.de/personal/lightsketch2.jpg

[echom]

@Revitgnome
You've got a point. I guess I'm coming too much from a 3D perspective here. I'll block some colors tomorrow. Maybe I can even recycle some of the lighting...

@all: Thanks a lot for the comments :D

[echom]

Kk, back at it. So, before going back into the detailing of the robot itself I took a bit of time to think about this whole scene and make a rough sketch of the idea:
http://echom.de/personal/rawsketch3.jpg

Here's the whole thing with the robot overlayed on top:

http://echom.de/personal/sketchcompose.jpg

I'm not exactly sure about the palette, yet. It's supposed to be all fiery and menacing, but I also think it's a little monochromatic (the colours of the detailed robot are not part of the palette...). I dunno, I'll keep going with this for the moment.

[echom]

And another update. I've taken it out on the robot in front and I must say, it's coming along quite nicely. Doing a composition in the beginning really makes sense :D

Here's an over view of the current scene:
http://echom.de/personal/mini01.jpg

And a detail of the robot (since there's two now, I'll call him HEROBOT and the other one VILLAINBOT). So here is HEROBOT:

http://echom.de/personal/detail01.jpg

I also started on fleshing out VILLAINBOT a little:

http://echom.de/personal/mini02.jpg

Still not quite sure about the palette. I guess it's ok (and more than I can handle already), but I'm thinking about giving HEROBOT some blue glowing somewhere to juxtapose the whole yellow/red thing...

Crits and comments very much welcome :D

[Kageko]

I really like the robot in the foreground, but you should deversify your colour palett.
The giant robot in the background doesn't look as impressive as you probably wanted it to look. I'm missing another colour, for example a green tone that goes well with the blue in the foreground.

I hope you aren't angry that I'm showing directly on your work what I mean. (After almost 4 years without practice, my English isn't at it's best anymore.)

http://i730.photobucket.com/albums/ww309/sonnenkraut/echom-1.jpg

Just play around with colours! Revitgnome gave you some good advices.

[echom]

@Kageko
No worries about overpaints, they help a lot!
You are right about the palette. Its definitely too little colour. Making the darker parts of Herobot blue is actually brilliant. Thanks, I'm going to stick with that. I just don't know how to justifiy the green in the foreground. I've played around with the your green but it's just not hitting me.
Finally I came up with something greenish, that I seem to like. It changes the atmosphere quite a bit and creates a more open environment. But I think it might actually work in bringing out the fire on Villainbot. Here's a quick break down with the colours for each layer (not as in Photoshop layers, I'm already drowning in those http://1.2.3.9/bmi/forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/eek.gif):

http://echom.de/personal/background.jpg http://echom.de/personal/midground.jpg http://echom.de/personal/foreground.jpg

I am probably going to have to change the colors on Herobot later on...

[Kageko]

That turquois is a good contrast to the orange-red. If I were in your place I would darken the pillars directly to the fire to underline the dramatic effect and to shape the giant a little more.

To be honest, I don't like the composition of the last sketch where you've added the small robot. It's so boring because both important elements are placed centred in the plump line. The giant area is almost as large as the small robot's although it's correct in respect of the perspective constuction rules. I'm missing some dynamic lines.

You could also change the perspective. There's a giant in the background. Since the vanishing point is low, it should be at frog's-eye-view. At the moment it's rather at a front view.


Third: The plateau in the foreground is irritating. It would probably be better, if it would stand on a broken pillar instead.

[JakubFromOz]

I agree with kageko the plateau isnt needed it takes alot away fromt he imgae

[DArcy1]

Hi there


I do like the design of Herobot. Very nice. My biggest concern here is the composition; specifically the visual link (or lack therof) between herobot and villainbot. Right now there is nothing to connect them beyond their placement in the same geographical area. Does herobot even know villainbot is there? I think you are going to have to re-draw herobot to connect him; perhaps having him turned to be looking over his shoulder at villainbot? And perhaps something in his hand like (**hideous cliche alert**) a massive oversized gun or sword that he just used to inflict the damage on villainbot.

Hope that helps a bit

D'Arcy

[echom]

First of all, thanks for the comments. I'm really learning a lot from all this and you always point me in a better direction.

@Kageko & DArcy1
You are right about the composition. I'm realizing, that I shouldn't just throw things together and think it's going to work out. So, once I finished this one, I might do the same theme again with a completely different composition, and I'm really going to work this one out BEFOREHAND...

@Kageko & JakubFromOz
Do you have a quick idea of how to change the perspective without having to redraw the froeground. I think I'm stuck with the pose. May I could just take his right leg down, I dunno.

So here's what I've done today:
http://echom.de/personal/mini03.jpg

I'm not very fast, I know... So, I tried to get the rough lighting on Villainbot right.

@DArcy1
About the weapon, I think you are right. He's not going to take down Villainbot with his bare hands. Since I don't know what to put in, I just gave him the "Umbrella of Terror", for the moment. Maybe I'll come across something later on.
I also turned the head a little. Although they don't look directly at each other, I think one can assume that in this pose Herobot cannot miss Villainbot, really...

Most of the changes a sort of cheap, I know, but I want to get this one done somehow and take all I've learned on to the next painting, hopefully avoiding all the mistakes, I made here...
I'm also aware that the black areas on Villainbot definitely need to be worked on. This looks absolutely http://1.2.3.9/bmi/forums.cgsociety.org/images/smilies/eek.gif

Cheers again for all the help :D

[DArcy1]

I LOVE the umbrella of terror ! :applause:
And although it's a small change, moving him to the left and turning his head has done the job - they are connected now.

Cna't wait for the next step

Cheers

D.

[echom]

I cannot let go of this thing. I've been out the whole day and the only thing I could think of was coming home and continue to paint.
So here's the latest. Didn't have much time but I took a couple of hours to work on the background.

Cheers :D

http://echom.de/personal/mini04.jpg

[Kageko]

You shouldn't add to much detail in the background. The more you paint there, the closer it comes to the foreground.
Actually the pillars you've worked at were behind the giant. But now it's on the same layer.
Think a little more about the distance between the giant and the little robot instead of working at things that aren't that important. (Or do you want to set focus on the pillars?)

[LogicLost]

I think the highlights on herobot are on wrong side of him, light source comes from flames on destroyed one but herobot is highlighted from left side.
Hope that makes ant sense to you :)

[Katea]

Funny concept with this umbrella of terror - I really like it a lot :)

Geneally now that the robots are connected it makes a lot more sense. I have to agree that the pillars should not be so detailed and they looked much more distant before, that was far more natural and it created depth.
I would advise that you should make the umbrella more rugged and dirty. I love the David and Goliath feeling of this piece which is emphasised by the use of a common and usually harmless object :)
Now - in my opinion - you have to decide if the umbrella is a herobot's natural weapon (like David's slingshot which he knew how to use pretty well) or you want to get another aspect of the D&G story emphasised - the fact that the stones lay everywhere looking harmless and one just needs to pick them up - in which case the umbrella should be sth herobot had just picked up in the middle of the fight. So either you should make the umbrella a super-extra kind of weapon with curves and details etc. or you should try to make it look abandoned (like when the storm makes the umbrella useless by bending it's structure and we just drop it to the nearby dumpster) That's my suggestion :)

If I may say I prefer the secont option. You could then make the umbrella superbly sweet, with lace or flowers or both! It could be a little girls umbrella f.i. - that would make it really funny in my opinion :)

[JoKeRman]

Hey there.

I agree with Logic about the highlights. Also, I don't know if you're trying to go for HEROBOT being a lot closer to us than VILLAINBOT or if HEROBOT isn't supposed to be that much smaller than him. If you're going for the first and want to show that HEROBOT is much smaller than VILLAINBOT, I think V-BOT'S features need to be blurred a bit since he's a lot further away.

*EDIT* Didn't realize that Kageko was saying almost the same thing. Woops.

I really like the concept of this piece. Hopefully, my comments can help you achieve what you're going for

[echom]

Hey there everyone,

thank you all for the comments.

@Kageko & JoKeRman
You are right about the background. I made a mistake when saving the image. I had another layer on top of the background, which blends it a bit more into the turquoise. Still it shouldn't be in the same visual layer as Villainbot. Funny enough, I was thinking about blurring the background this morning as well. I'll give it a try and see if it works out. Don't know about blurring Villainbot, yet. But it might save me from the hassle of detailing him ;D

@LogicLost
Yes, that is very true... It's sort of a left over from moving the robots around on the canvas. I'll have to change the lighting on Herobot, completely. I just wanted to get the other layers somewhat done. I'm just scared of investing all energy into Herobot and not finishing the whole thing...

@Katea
Gosh, you are giving the image some really deep interpetation! :D The umbrella was actually just a joke after a long and exhausting night in front of this thing. Still, now that you just given it all the mythological meaning I'm really thinking of keeping it. It's just so far out that it's actually funny.

I don't have much to show tonight. Just cleaned up the outlines of Villainbot, so I can now clean up the rough blocking. The rescaling just took all the thin outlines away *grrr*. Also took out the glow from the pillars (which were supposed to be skyscrapers, but I don't mind ;D) and blended them with the background.


http://echom.de/personal/mini05.jpg

I also figured out why I have this nasty black area on his left shoulder. The left half (right half from the camera's persoectve) of his torso is way too thin... Gotta do something about it...

Thanks again for all the great and helpful comments.

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