CGTalk - Gentle hunter WIP

nakatoni

01-01-2010, 07:57 AM

Oh my, oh my, seems it's been ages since I visited CGTalk. To put it short - been busy with commissioned projects and personal stuff that eventually made me post here. Previous work gave me headache but it was for Imagine Publishing and I hadn't much time for it (damn deadline >_<) Anyways. Here's something I started in... 2008. Yeah, I mean very first version, crappy and ugly so I started it all over again. All Photoshop, I think for finishing touches I'll turn to Painter.
As I'm working on it for several days now here's short walkthrough so far.

New sketch 2009 in greyscale
http://www.imagic.pl/files//14759/WIP%20gentle%20hunter/1Gentle-hunter-bw.jpg

Working on color palette

http://www.imagic.pl/files//14759/WIP%20gentle%20hunter/3Gentle-hunter.jpg

At this point I decided this cloth looked stupid (and still didn't get around the knife she's supposed to hold behind her)

http://www.imagic.pl/files//14759/WIP%20gentle%20hunter/6Gentle-hunter.jpg

Still not good but I'll get back to it. My usual way of painting - jump from area to area before I get too bored to continue one and the same thing for too long.

I was stuck for a moment with the general look of background - forest, clearing in the forest, maybe something totally different. In the meantime I opened new document and designed some patterns for the cloth, as well as sketched some refined lilys to see how they'd look.

http://www.imagic.pl/files//14759/WIP%20gentle%20hunter/pattern.jpg

http://www.imagic.pl/files//14759/WIP%20gentle%20hunter/pattern3.jpg

Then I flattened the image, turned to greyscale and scribbled stuff to see what would happen.

http://www.imagic.pl/files//14759/WIP%20gentle%20hunter/10Gentle-hunter_scribbles.jpg

Not everything was good. And I'm really starting to hate these lilys in the foreground, removing them would be the right decision but I need to figure out what to put instead. Or maybe they're too big... I'm not sure.

So far I got to this point. Refined the rock a bit but still it doesn't look good to me.

http://www.imagic.pl/files//14759/WIP%20gentle%20hunter/12Gentle-hunter.jpg

All areas need work, especially the skin and hair where I just painted very basic things. I want to paint some berries in the top right to balance the image. I'm not sure about lilys. I'm working now on the foreground on the right, I want to make it no grass but bare land with dead leaves, sticks etc, normal forest stuff. And I think I should change the cloth on the ground, looks unnatural I guess. Flipped image looks kinda better but I'm going to stick to this composition.

Any C&C most welcome. I need to create illussion of distant trees in the far background and gradually refine foliage towards viewer as now it looks a bit flat. Any suggestions - shoot! :)

nakatoni

01-01-2010, 06:16 PM

Worked on it more today, changed these lilys, got rid of the other lilys and changed overal coloring, subtly. And as you can see the dress is now more naturally flowing behind her, still need refining as well as hair and skin which I didn't touch today.

http://www.imagic.pl/files//14759/WIP%20gentle%20hunter/13Gentle-hunter.jpg

Still a lot to do but the longer I paint it the more I like it ^_^

nakatoni

01-03-2010, 06:41 AM

Got around it yesterday in the evening, I didn't do much but here's current stage

http://www.imagic.pl/files//14759/WIP%20gentle%20hunter/14Gentle-hunter.jpg

Fixed the leg, changed overall color, finally painted the knife which is to be detailed more and added some more details to foliage... if anyone's interested.

SocialSystem

01-04-2010, 03:28 AM

I'm really enjoying watching this progression. I love the gentle colors you're using.

The thing that strikes me the most is that her arms are way too short. The elbow should fit just above the hip bone and, if lowered, the tips of the fingers should come to about mid-thigh.

nakatoni

01-04-2010, 05:06 AM

The thing that strikes me the most is that her arms are way too short. The elbow should fit just above the hip bone and, if lowered, the tips of the fingers should come to about mid-thigh.

Thank you. Well, that means I have bad anatomy myself because it's referenced from my own personal photo O_e Perhaps I should change it... Or maybe it's not well defined shading - the elbow doesn't reach the hip because it's bent towards viewer (I can't put my arm other way LOL).

SocialSystem

01-04-2010, 08:44 AM

I hope you don't mind that I took some pictures to give you an idea of what I was visualizing.

It sounds like what you're going for is something like this, with the arm completely hidden behind the back:
http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/6673/img2557gy.jpg
When I did this it was extremely uncomfortable and even difficult. I can see how, if the body was a little more sideways, the arm could be easily hidden, (you can see in this picture compared to the others that my body is a little twisted) but straight on (and by this I mean that she is square to the bird) like the girl is in your picture it just doesn't seem realistic.

I'd also like to note that in this pose my hand is not seen straight on like the hand in your picture seems to be, and like my hand is held in the second picture. It's viewed at an angle.

The most natural way (or so it seems to me) to hold a knife behind one's back is like this:
http://img37.imageshack.us/img37/1528/img2558g.jpg
This is what I was thinking you were trying to express in your picture. Partially because that's the way I would assume she's holding her arm, and partially because in the picture it LOOKS like that's what you're trying to do.

Hopefully that helps a little? Sorry, I know I used the opposite arm haha.

DANKA

01-08-2010, 09:30 AM

You have a nice tecnique, and a good sense for details, but you should work more on composition, anatomy and structure of the girl body...keep up!
SocialSystem gave you a very nice photos as reference!

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