Open Figure Drawing Workshop 019 - The Awakening of the Underground Giant

[Rebeccak]

pencildj,

Hey there, I think that it would be great to see you push this further.

I think the main thing would be to look at more reference for the body, in particular, the torso. A person’s torso is really not defined in such a linear manner, I really recommend looking at justmeina’s page which is linked in the first post of this thread for reference. As well you may wish to look at reference from bodybuilder sites, since you are going for a very built look in your figure.

I think that the figure also needs more contrast and more small areas of highlight. What’s most important in an image is less color than value ~ and I think that giving more variety to your lights and darks will give the image more depth.

Apart from that, I don’t know why the figure is in space ~ there need to be more clues as to why that is the case, since the theme is about an underground giant. The figure may fit in better to an environment that is earthbound ~ otherwise, the story is unclear.

Hope to see your progress on this!

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

[kamiartist]

hey thanks 4 the crit…i was starting to think the evryone had something against me couse 9 out of 10 times when i post something is completely ignored…but i see what our mean about the space thing.ill see what i can do now i must sleep…been up 4 2 days doing this…later

[Rebeccak]

pencildj,

No one is intentionally ignoring you. I tend to wait for other people to make critiques since I do not wish for these OFDWs to be entirely about my critique, for a number of reasons, the chief among them being that there are too many entries typically for me to critique in depth, at every step along the way. I typically offer critique toward the end of someone’s piece, when they actually have some substance to critique, vs. a starting sketch or basic compositional lay in. As artists, we have to make our own judgements at first and then ask for critique when we are stymied. At the very beginning of a piece, an artist must do the majority of the work for him or herself.

This really is applicable for everyone in these Workshops, including myself…I do not typically expect in depth critique until the end stages of a piece, because things can change quite rapidly.

Hope this makes sense. We all want to see everyone make progress and to push each other here in these Workshops.

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

[Shaolin7]

You work fast, architectus! It’s nice to see the enthusiasm. Mr. Mu made a nice point, by softening edges and lowering the contrast of your gorilla on the ledge, it will not only imply distance but also be less of a distraction from the main point of interest, below. More detailed brushwork + higher contrast is usually reserved for focal points in the painting. Great to see the progress shots, keep on posting. How’s work on the Egyptian theme going, or has that been put to rest?

Aggie, it’s a good start considering you’re getting used to the feel of PS / Painter or whatever app you’re using. It’s also nice to see you’re cognizant of light and shadow.

NR43, very ambitious to take on multiple figures. I’d say check for posing references if you can, or (if you have it) scan Burne Hogarth’s dynamic anatomy for quick refs. Keep building up the anatomical foundation, it will help tremendously in solidifying your concepts when working without the reference.

Hladak, I’d say to you as well to check out some anatomy references. The giant’s pectoral muscles should extend into the shoulders, but it’s cut off on both sides. The way his left elbow is bent, something seems off; if the forearm is facing more outwards in that sort of foreshortened view, then the upper arm should also be rotated more. You shouldn’t be seeing a side view of the bicep + tricep muscles with where his forearm is located. Check it in a mirror, lay your arm down in a similar manner and observe. Hopefully that wasn’t too harsh in tone, I applaud you for posting even if you feel you aren’t up to where you want to be; keep on practicing, look into getting an anatomy book or two (I really like the Bridgeman Complete Drawing to Life book, myself) and hey, don’t take the crits from the likes of me too much to heart.

Rebecca, very classical look; I’m really looking forward to seeing it finished, as I was hoping someone would go with a traditional old masters approach and wow the rest of us. Nice start for sure.

Alright, enough yapping from me so on to the update:

[aggie93]

Reb - Thanks, you know I was thinking I might leave this one and move to something a little more simple. I may try making a flat surface. LOL

Shaolin7 - Thanks for your input. I am using painter 9. Just started using it this past week. I really focus hard on shadows. I am a traditional artist so I understand that concept. It is just hard to get that from traditional to digital.

[Mu11]

.i was starting to think the evryone had something against me couse 9 out of 10 times when i post something is completely ignored

Hey!

I had to smile when I read that, because I felt the same on my first OFDW, but you know, these workshops are busy and highly frequented… people rush in, posts stack up… it’s only natural that you overlook things.

If you feel you need more feedback to get things right, you might explicitly say so with your next update or you might also PM folks who in your opinion might have something interesting to add. THat’s what the PM functionality is for. If they don’t have the time they will tell you. But in nine out of ten you will get a reaction. Just keep at it.

Crit for your painting…:

Apart from the anatomy reference which would help you build the masses in a more elaborate way (short: what Rebecca said… ) I think you should try and think of a lighting setting. Right now, there’s no clear light source. Everything has mainly the same brightness and I do not see where the shadows fall (and shadowed parts are kind of must-have with a character/creature like yours! )

not done yet, Padawan…

Keep it coming!

Shaolin… You are painting yourself into the top list of my favourite painters around this place. Granted, this is a great place with many great painters and the list is long…, but you will be in it, if you don’t somehow mess this up, which will be hard to do, seeing that wonderfully curved muscular structure on the foreground arm alone. The pose, the shading, the environment…from what I can see already you will have a hard time if you try to screw this up… it can’t be done, unless a screw-up master would take over… and I am occupied atm…

[SpiritDreamer]

August 30.2006

EARTHSPIRIT / SPIRITEARTH

Little more progress on the Earth Spirit, Have about ten versions, these two are my favorites at the moment.

REALLY like where everyone is going with their creations so far…pleasure seeing all the progress happening…KEEP UP THE GREAT WORK

Take Care
Glenn

[architectus]

shaolin, yeah I think the egyptian painting coming to life is dead for now, I might work on the statue of anubis later though, as a side project. I like what you got going on right now, the colors work nice, you know for some reason it is starting to remind of of leonardo, not the guy, but the backround.

rebeccak, thanks, yeah I noticed he looked off after posting and looking at the over all piece. I am working at 8x11 300dpi, which is about half the size most work at. Maybe I should start working on 4000 pixels 300dpi instead of 2000. Only thing I can think of doing is adding more color variation, and details in the muscles, make him less dark. Besides now that I look at it, he should not be so dark.

I have been studying Boris Vallejo lately, mainly the way he uses color. Not sure if his use of color is showing through, I hope so.

aggie - I think painter is harder to use, it has a different feel, I use it to get a hard oil feel. However if you use the acrillic brushes make sure you go to brush settings and set the opacity to pen pressure as well as size, and set the minimum size low. Then turn the opacity down after you have the main image blocked in for smoothing, down to like 20-30%. Also, try the just add water for blending in the blenders section. I prefer the oil dry knife.

[Cyanid]

just joining, been “afk” a few days (prelims, exams…difficult stuff :sad: )
well…thought I should bump in:

40 min sketch…
will reply on others later

-Cya

[architectus]

cyanid, hey cool, is he busting out of something, or … I like the idea to show his size.

Oh I forgot to ask a few questions, Mu is the gorilla okay now, I should I lighten and soften him up more?

Also, should I make the darks more dark in the giant, and maybe add more shadows to him?

[architectus]

I feel like I am posting to much, sorry I work fast, if you wish, just say the word and I will post less often.

Oh, yeah, the story. Back in the days when there were such men as Conan, there was a legend of the rock giant. I have no idea what this Heros name is, but he is always looking for a challange, much like Heracles he is a mangod, a super-man of men. Naturally, once he heard of the rock giant legend, he had to go find out for him self.

As legend has it, the rock giant had been sleeping for centuries, waiting for the day when the man of men would step into his cave. Upon feeling the power of such a man, the giant rose up ready to devour his foe.

All the Hero was told was, “follow the silver backs.”

ICan the man of men defeat the giant, or has he reached his end?

Alright, so this is where I am now. I fixed the muscles on the dude, and colors, shadows, lighting etc. I noticed lots of stuff that was not right. If you wish to compare it to the old one, just scroll back in this forum to see how he used to look. He was way to red and yellow for the over all look.

also here is a temporary image for different color schemes, if you wish to let me know if I shold change it to in the direction of one of these, speak your mind, it is much appreciated. Rebeccak your critque has helped a lot. I also raised the guy a bit, but his whole foot disapears into the shadow, so not sure it changes the look to much.

I like the bottom left one, it is disaturated and the backround is warmed up a bit, not so green.

[Rebeccak]

architectus,

You are not posting too much.

If you wish, I can do a paintover to suggest some alternate poses for the smaller figure ~ be advised that I don’t do the amazingly comprehensive paintovers of Stahlberg but generally do a more outlined approach.

Just let me know and I am happy to do a paintover for you as a suggestion.

Cheers,

~Rebeccak

[architectus]

rebeccak, any help I can get. anyone that wishes to do a paint over to guide me along, I welcome.

The guy looks better than before though, right

[Mu11]

Hey architectus,

firstly, great job on the gorilla!

You asked me if the desaturation was enough. That depends…

…it depends mainly on the scale of depth you want to convey…

Take a look at this image in the gallery…

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=353177&highlight=battle

While it certainly is a big machine it is remarkable how well the desaturation works on this short a distance to clearly separate what’s far away and what is not. Note, e.g., how the distant gun is painted! Desaturated, blurred, non-contrasty. All of the high-contrast, max-saturation, sharp edges is preserved for the small area of main interest.

By taking atmospheric perspective (the haze in the air which causes distant objects to loose saturation, effect is strongest near the horizon level and when far away of course) into account on all of your objects it is possible to depict the very air your scene is set up in, too!

So, you might want to apply this principle to the giant, too, and it might give him a tremendous sense of scale. Like, “wow, the thing is so huge his arms is reaching into the backgound plane…”

So, there’s no right amount of desaturation, and if there was, I would be the last to know it…… it all depends on the amount of scale you want your image to convey.

Keep going!

[architectus]

Mu, you are right, and it depends on the camera I am trying to simulate. If it were a cheapo camera from K-mart with infinite focus, then everything would be sharp. If a 35mm camera I could make it so that even if you had one arm forward and one arm backwards, and your face was the focal point, both hands would be blurred.

I did not really consider this when painting the image. 35mm is most dramatic, so I should paint his arm that is reaching back to be less focused. See it is little things like this I might not have thought of if it were not for you guys, thanks a lot.

[SpiritDreamer]

August 31. 2006

Hi Architectus
Had a little fun with your painting this morning. Used light and shadow to create drama. Eliminated the unessential details and emphasized the essential using spotlight effect. Also a 1:10 complementary color ratio. 10% percent green to 90% percent orange.
Also made your giant a little bit bigger and put your warrior in deep shadow so the emphasis would be on the giant. And put your gorilla in sillouette. Just a few things and ideas that you might play around with as you progress with your painting. Liked the way you are studying Boris and Frazetta. Two of my favorite artists.
Take Care
Glenn

[aggie93]

I did not work on mine last night. I think I will wait until the next one. I am still playing with Painter, trying to get used to it.

Arch - thanks for the information. I will try that. I am not liking the oil brushes much either.

Spirit - I like you second one on yours. The yellow-orange from the bottom looks like the sun’s rays casting on the earth. Maybe take out some of the green so the blueness of the ocean shows more. The first one with the second one’s sun rays. Just a thought.

[SpiritDreamer]

Aggie…THANKS…
That’s the plan I had in mind from the start…am going for bottom lighting…tried it from the top, but think I prefer the bottom lighting best…gives it a more dramatic effect, plus adds to the looking up at her perpective…The color part was just an experiment to see what she would look like as the kind of green earth people think about, when they think about earth close up.
But the earth is mainly a water planet…so in the end I will go with that…hopefully in the end, she will be the rich blues,… and in the right color enviroment, with stars in the darkness for the depth effect…
That blue one above is the first time that I tried painting using the brushes in Z BRUSH…
WHAT A TRIP…like dipping a brush into pearled paint…did the upraised arm, and the top part of her body using a Z BRUSH brush, that I created with this pearling effect…can’t wait to explore,
and play with it on my next figure painting…:bounce:

THANKS for the feedback Aggie, and was wondering if you have tried the watercolor brushes out in painter yet…GREAT brushes …can get really nice effects with them, and great atmosphere also…plus you can use them with the oil brushes on the same painting…something that would be impossible to do in traditional painting…you might try that out while you are experimenting in your new found digital world…
TAKE CARE
Glenn

[shyamshriram]

WOW ! So many updates…

Thanx for the valuable suggestions friends sorry i didnt post the updates…was busy with some other works…here is an update

[PureGhostGR]

The artwork so far is so inspirational. Well done everyone.

 I will try to give this a try.. even though it feels too hard for my skills.
 
 Here is my starting sketch:
 
 [img]http://img520.imageshack.us/img520/4020/dawn01bk1.jpg[/img]
 
 My concept is 'DAWN'. In a way it is what came to my mind when I tried to combine giant, awakening and underground (seeing the sun comming out of the mountains). This will give me a chance to work on clouds (which I never seem to 'get' right), flowing fabrics and a dynamic female pose. I would like to maybe give this an art nouveau feeling.
 
 In a way I picture her trying to twist free from the flowing fabrics arround her.. like the sun escaping the clouds and the mountain tops.. 

So far I only have a reference for the female pose and I feel like I am way over my head. The flowing fabrics will be the most hard to get right I imagine.

 Getting back to painting then. :)