Just curious, why use such soft edge at where her waist pinches in? It almost seems like you didnât think about your edges when painting that area. I used to struggle with that tooânot knowing where to have hard, soft, or lost edges, and it took a while to get a grip on it. In the end it really about where you want to lead the viewerâs eyes, and how you want to present a subject (in relation to other areas in an image).
Locked, Marta Dahlig (2D)
BlacKeri
#39
I ran with the airbrush along the whole body (mostly visible on arms and waist) to add a âglowingâ effect to the character, making her seem more soft and otherwordly and stand out a bit from her surroundings. It seems I didnât acomplish my task exactly then. 
Lunatique
#40
Marta - I got your PM, and Iâll reply here so that it might help others with similar frutrations, or those whoâs got a handle on it can join in the discussion.
Edges was one of my problems too (and it still may be), and I had researched or asked the artists I respected, or read up on the subject in books and online. My current approach is this (and this is just my personal approach):
-Edges that are hard are either objects that need to appear hard-edged in order to look right or have the proper effect in the image (for example, the gleaming blade that caresses the vulnerable bare neck of a woman, and the blade itself is vital to the message of the image), or used in areas of interest where you want to draw the eyes.
-Soft edges are for areas that need the softness (for example, a teddy bear in a scene), or areas where you donât want things to stand out too much (background objects), or used to help contrast areas that need to pop out with harder edges.
-Lost edges are for areas that you really want to push back into the image and not cause attention, and for lighting falloff where the light is no longer causing enough contrast in the scene.
The soft/lost edges can also be used to help gel foreground/background elements together so they donât appear like paper cutouts in the sceneâto harmonize the various elements in an image, so to speak. They can also be used to depict areas that are out of focus or further away, but there are two approaches to this. Iâll elaborate:
Approach 1 - To mimic what the camera seesâwhere the depth of field is locked in a given moment, and the focused/unfocused planes are very obvious and well separated.
Approach 2 - To convey what the human eye seesâwhich cannot be locked in a given moment, because our eyes can only see one tiny area clearly at a time, and the areas in our peripheral vision arenât necessarily always in a different focus planeâthey just arenât in that âsweet spotâ where our eyes can see clearly. If you really look at your surroundings, youâd be surprised by just how tiny of an area our eyes actually can focus on at any given momentâroughly an inch or so of space. But to do a painting with only a tiny area of clear detail would be frustrating (but it might be cool as an experiment). So what some artists do is to paint the overall image as if the eyes are looking at the entire scene in not an instant, but slightly longer period of time, stopping at various areas of interest. So this approach would have hard/soft/lost edges according to what areas the artist would want you to pay attention to.
But then again, there are artists who do not typically rely on using soft or lost edges to convey distance or areas of focusâthey prefer to use values, colors, brush stroke, brush size, textureâŚetc to convey that information (Craig Mullins is a good example).
I hopes this helps. Itâs one thing to know this stuff intellectually, but to apply them creatively is another story. I struggle with it too, just like the rest.
system
#42
WOOOw! Beautiful art work as always Marta. The skin are sooo marvelousâŚi can´t say to much âŚjust that this painting are superb. A galaxy of stars for you.
:applause:
Migsta
#47
I cant help but look at the keyhole/arm tangent. The image as a whole is nice, but that keyhole looks like its dangling from her arm instead of being on her chestâŚmaybe a lighting/shading issue as mentioned before.
deky
#50
nice
Title: Locked
Name: Marta Dahlig
Country: Poland
Software: Painter, Photoshop
A Modern Classical Painting workshop commissioned by ImagineFX, to be found in Issue 17.
To be exact, I aimed at an early XXth century stylization. Lots and lots of studying done to get the subject, composition and feeling right⌠The works of W. Bouguereau and Lord Frederic Leighton were especially helpful 
For extra fun, I incorporated some elements from works the old mastersâ paintings: e.g. I placed the character in the same forest as Bouguereau his Biblis. Please check the link below for details! Also, I ended up adding a small surreal twist to the image. I will refrain from outlaying the idea behind it, I hope the picture itself manages to tell the story.
The whole image was done in Painter X with Airbrushes, Chalks, Oils and Blenders with slight help from Photoshop. Aside from some live reference, I used many paintings/photos for inspiration and anatomy checks - click hereto see. The images were found through google, goodart.org, art-liquidation.com and (if I remember correctly) getty.
The painting technique was quite different from my usual, with much more Airbrush used in the process. Also, when doing the background, I went for a looser look, only hinting details with viisible brushstrokes instead of painting everything precisely.
All comments and critiques are most welcome :D[/QUOTE]
Somberashes
#54
I really love this piece. Itâs very well done and I love the concept with the lock and key. Very beautifully done.
