Sketchbook Thread of Heozart

#41

wow - wes - what a progress!!
nice!
glad you had fun with the smudging technique - you seem you´ll be able to get quite a lot of it very soon :slight_smile:
and - your revised sketch looks much better now, I´would say

well - it is quite early to comment the color painting since this is only an early stage - so - 
just one thought that comes to my mind - 
you are doing fine, wes - I only think you should perhaps concetnrate on the global/main big shapes first - and add details later; 
I am trying to say - adding fine details in the early stages may sometimes resullt in the inevitable (and time/energy consuming) revising/repainting them later; 
I mean - for example - you have already painted quite a detailed hand of the girl, but - the background shapes/area is not done yet (I guess), so - when adding the background later, you might have problems keeping those fine details you have already painted, if it makes sense .. 
painting from "big/rough" to "small/fine" may save a lot of your time and energy in the end - especialy when painting such a complex piece like the one of yours  ... 

anyway - I definitelly love the color scheme you use!
I think you neednt worry about the colors so much, you are doing fine, 
and - smudging/blending colors together may sometimes solve the "color transition" problems for you .. just keep in mind - it is critical/very important to try to keep/add a good variety to your strokes/colors in the early stages, so as to have enough "color material/reserve" to work with when blending/smoothing later (remember, blending/smudging makes the resulting colors get dirty/less saturated - and the difference between them gets less visible) -

and do not worry - if necessary - there is usually a way how to “redefine” or “fix” your colors ex post, later, if you feel your painting needs to be fixed in any way in the end :slight_smile:
fixing the “wrong” color is much less pain than fixing the “wrong” values/shapes in the end (for me :slight_smile: ) …

I am looking forward to seeing how you proceed with this one - keep working!

p.s.  hm .. I have the opposite problem - smudging in PS (or also painting with some brushes, that have a texture or a "dual brush" feature applied to it) takes much more time/memory than blending/painting in Painter, I have never ever experienced those memory problems in Painter so far, so I do not know :(
#42

Alena, thanks for all your comments - I am so encouraged. I wanted to get the big shapes down first like you said, but I got carried away with little things again today. I think my problem is that I see big empty spaces (like the area between city hall and the buildings, and left of Atlas) and I don’t know what I am going to do with them, so I end up going back to the areas I can work on.



I know the girl’s face is oversmudged now, but does she look ok proportion wise? I couldn’t quite figure out what, but something about her face kept bugging me so I tried to fix it but I am still not happy. She’s supposed to look kinda like Kate Beckinsale, btw. The guy is supposed to look like Sean Bean, and I failed that one too, lol. At least Atlas is looking good. :slight_smile:

#43

Posting where I am with the painting before Alena does a paintover the old progress. I repainted the costumes since I was just testing the colors last time and I didn’t like how they were a little too glossy. I think it looks more like spandex now. The background has been changed a little too. The horizon is at an angle, and the lines are more loosely in perspective so it doesn’t look like a technical drawing.

My biggest concern now is the background looking mostly orange. Maybe it will do good to keep the focus on the characters, but I have this habit of ignoring local colors. I was able to avoid that on the costumes because I spent a lot of time analyzing how the local colors in the costumes would look in a sunset lighting, but I wasn’t able to find good references to use as a guideline for the background. I am also trying to figure out how shadows fall on stairs and it is giving me a headache.

#44

hey wes - so - finally here it is, the paintover I promissed :slight_smile:

there is a great progress in the illustration (and in your skills) so far, 
but - there still is quite a lot of things that need to be fixed a little bit -
well - where to start off .. 

some of the issues that might need to be fixed are very minor, so I do not comment, I leave them out as this is still the wip stage of the illustration .. but - there are a few major/more important things, that do not seem ok to my eyes when looking at the composition: it is the perspective, and the faces (proportions & features) of both the girl and the hero;

about the perspective first:  
uhh - not an easy task at all to figure out what the perspective you used was ... I had a really tough time when trying to figure out :) since your perspective is a little bit off in some areas ... 

I assume that you were trying to use the curved/distorted type of perspective in your last composition (not an easy task at all!) - but - the perspective you ended up with turned out a little bit too much distorted, and a little bit "unlogical"; 
I mean - for example - the distant buildings (seem to me they do not fit to the composition perspective very well) or - the dome/cupola (not sure of the Engl. term for that) - there is kind of "visual conflict" about the dome/cupola there, since it is viewed under slightly different angle/perspective then the rest of the area it is placed into), etc. 

I am not going into the details so much - I´ll only try to show/suggest what I mean in the following paintover (pls note - the perspective planes depicted/suggested here are only very roughly done, I just put those planes there "visually", did not work exactly/measure anything - so it is NOT very precise in fact - I just very loosely placed/incorporated those planes into the image for you so as you could have an idea of what I am talking about)
 
[b]fig #1[/b] shows the perspective you use (as I figured out) - but - the cupola does not match this perspective very well; the round base of the dome/cupola should be more "tilted"/flattened, in my opinion ... and - accordingly - the whole dome/cupola should be viewed much more from side (not that much from the "top", if you can understand what I am trying to say); 
now it has its own perspective applied to it (see [b]fig #2[/b]), which is a little bit off, compared to the overall perspective used .. (see [b]fig #3[/b])

[img]http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/perspective_demo%20kopie.jpg[/img]

and - about the girl/hero faces:
I did not want to completely change your concept - I only tried to refine it a bit, keeping as much as possible (the original pose, lightening, basic features) - but - as I have completely different style of painting - it was not easy for me (and - as you can see - the girl´s/hero´s paintovers are far away from being perfect) 
so - pls, take it the way I did not try to paint perfect new faces (nor tried to make new "sexy idols" out of the Comrade Hero or the girl :) ) 
the only thing I wanted to do was to suggest the possible features/proportions you might possibly use as a very loose guide for your further work, if you wish to ...
 
and one more thing - I was not sure about the man´s eyes, are they supposed to be shiny/shining somehow?? I am asking, because the flat red color looks weird to me - in my opinion it should be either much darker (if not shining) or much brighter (if shining), with the reflected/bouncing light in the nearest areas, nose etc. - so I suggested both the possible variants, see the animation)

here they are:

[img]http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/he_dark.jpg[/img]

to better see the difference I made also simple gif animations of both 
(pls note, the *gif´s indexed colorss do not have the quality of the original)  

[img]http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/she_PO.gif[/img]

[img]http://www.ahdesign.cz/images/00/replies/heozart/he_PO.gif[/img]

not sure if this "messy art" of mine may be useful for you in any way - 
anyway - good luck :)
a.
#45

Wow, very ambitious piece! Gonna be awesome when it’s done!

I think the overall orange is cool, have you thought about maybe having the shadow areas go into more purplish - like shadows look in late afternoon/early evening (Gurney, Parrish)

http://bp2.blogger.com/_Eiwce13X738/R4m6PohFVaI/AAAAAAAABS4/UIu8toGP6Bw/s1600-h/Gideon%26Avatar.sm.jpg
http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/illustrations/jackbeanstalk/images/parrishbeanstalk.jpg

might help separate your objects a bit? Characters look very cool, I love the costumes and poses. The girl’s raised arm, where it meets the neck, maybe could be more subtle, the dude’s upper arm too, but overall proportions and poses look good.

Can’t wait to see it finished - you should submit it to the gallery when you’re done for sure!

#46

Hi…Wes…:slight_smile:

Been enjoying the developement of this latest piece your working on.
Couldn’t resist doing a little color and lighting study of it.
I don’t know if it will be of any use to you, but here it is.
If you don’t want it posted in your thread, just let me know, and I will take it off…no problem…just thought you might be able to use some of it, is all…:slight_smile:
I kept the lighting at a diaginal to match the strong diaginal in your composition, bright on the left side, dark on the right side. Used a cooler purple blue to offset the warm orange, seperate the elements, and add depth…also put a brighter yellow light over the tops of the distant buildings to keep the veiwers eye in the composition…and to stop the viewer from leaving the composition by/through the pointing hand/fingers of the woman.
Looking forward to seeing the progress and final outcome of this piece.
SHOULD BE GREAT…:thumbsup:
TAKE CARE
Glenn

#47

I am sorry for the long absence. I got too frustrated with working on a high resolution image on my old laptop…so I had a desktop built and bought a 24 inch screen! I just got it yesterday, and I cannot believe how much faster it is. This painting takes minutes to load on my laptop, but only a few seconds on my new computer. :smiley: But of course my wireless adaptor (among some other things) had to be incompatible with Vista 64, so no internet on that machine yet. At least Photoshop, Painter and Wacom don’t seem to have any issues, so I am going to get back to working on this piece today.

Alena, thank you so much for the paintovers. You make it look so easy, lol. I love the golden highlights, and Comrade Hero’s face looks much better proportioned. I will try not to make carbon copies of your paintovers, but I will definitely make some changes. Thanks for pointing out the perspective error too. I think the dome went out of perspective because I didn’t want it to look like they were flying very low. I am moving everything in the background down a little so the figures are higher relatively.

Del, thanks for the compliments! I am lucky these characters are all covered up because I don’t have skin tones all figured out like you. I tried some purplish shadows like you suggested and I think it looks better. I also tried to fix her right arm, but I think I am only making it worse. Oh well, I will keep trying.

Hi Glenn, please leave your lighting study here, I am very flattered to have you post in my thread. I visit your thread all the time so I have seen your great works, but I just never knew how to comment on your experimental approach. :slight_smile: I like the idea of keeping the right side dark a lot, as well as bright yellow over the buildings. Thank you very much for your insights.

I have Colors! set up on my Ninteno DS finally, and here are a couple of doodles:


I must say painting on the DS is a lot of fun! The scren size is less of an issue than I thought because you can zoom in on the lower screen while still being able to look at the overall picture on the top screen. It doesn’t have undo, but it does have a color picker and the hand to drag canvas around. Sorry Alena, no smudge. :stuck_out_tongue: I hope to do these regularly and post. Take care all,

Wes

#48

Yep this DS sure looks like a nice toy for painters :slight_smile:
Wish I could afford one… or a new workstation. I have a feeling my pc might give up on me soon and unfortunately I won’t be able to buy a new one…

Anyway, looking forward to see your next updates!

#49

I am finally finished with this piece…but does the red look too saturated? Maybe it is because my monitor is not calibrated, but I had this problem of colors looking different in Painter/Photoshop vs Windows picture viewer. Colors looked desaturated in the picture viewer, so I adjusted the image and now it looks too saturated elsewhere including desktop background, internet explore and firefox.

This was by far the most intimidating piece I’ve ever worked on, and I am quite pleased with how it turned out, although I wish I could have done better in a lot of areas. I would like to give a big thanks to Alena, Del and Glenn for feedback, direction and encouragement. It would have turned out very differently for the worse if not for your help.

With this piece out of way, I plan to start going back to life drawing later this week, so hopefully I will have new stuff to post soon.

Edit: Actually, it looks less saturated in Photoshop and picture viewer, and more saturated in Painter and elsewhere. Does anyone know how to resolve this problem?

#50

Hello Wes,

what a nice mix of different stuff you have here! I really enjoyed to go through the pages and I don’t know what I like more, your cartoon characters or some results from your figur studies, great work:thumbsup: ! Ah, and not to forget this stained glass face, what a wonderful present!

Nice to follow the progress of your last painting, an ambitious project indeed. You can be proud of your composition, I just think your final is a bit too saturated, it’s almost glowing and with the strong red and orange colors it gives the impression of a firestorm - I like the version from the previous page more, but I guess this would be easy to adjust in photoshop.
Keep posting!:slight_smile:

Cheers,

-sabrina

#51

Hi Sabrina, thank you for the compliments! Regarding the final image looking too saturated, I guess it is not just my monitor. As I said in my last post, it looked less saturated in Photoshop than in Painter, so when I was doing the final adjustment in Photoshop I made it match the look in Painter. It looks as I intended in Photoshop and in Windows picture viewer, but looks a little too saturated everywhere else. I don’t know why there is this difference between programs and have no clue how to fix it. At least the saturated version has grown on my now that I’ve looked at it so much.


DS doodle from my car dealer while getting my car serviced.


Another DS doodle of a shrimp from photo ref. I was not being very efficient with my brush strokes so I stopped.


Started over later on my computer without looking at the picture. I couldn’t remember all the details so didn’t try to make it exactly the same.


A bike sketch in Painter. Ref from the RC8 video on KTM web site. I like how this one looks at thumbnail size, so I made it my new avatar. :slight_smile:

#52

Congratz on finishing your heroes painting Wes. Sure, the colors look very saturated, and I have my monitor calibrated through hardware.
The saturated colorsdon’t bother me at all.
In fact I think it looks pretty nice this way.

#53

HEY…Wes…:slight_smile:

Nice job on the comic painting…:thumbsup:
You might pop that forground characters closest leg,into the front of the other leg…overlap the lower part… calf muscle, ankle, and foot…so it looks like it’s closer to the viewer,…right now, it looks as though it is going under the far leg, instead of overlapping it,…or looks like the far leg is overlapping the closer leg…A subtle reflexted highlight along the back outter edge of that closest leg should do the trick, and eleminate any dought in that area as to which leg part is in front of which leg part…:slight_smile: …Just a passing thought and small suggestion that may be useful to you.
TAKE CARE
Glenn

#54

Thanks Johan, glad you like the painting. :slight_smile:

Glenn, now that you have pointed out, I see clearly what you mean about that leg. It is a finished commission so I am not sure if I can change things around now, but I guess I could play around on my own. Thank you for catching that.

I got a monthly pass for life drawing today. I had forgotten how much fun it was. Conte on brown paper.




#55

hi Wes! … sorry I did not reply earlier (I was busy with my work for a while) …

so - you have completed that ambitious piece of yours - wow!
I was not doubting you would complete it - I was just curious how you´ll manage all those tricky things there … though there is still a few little things that need possibly to be fixed a bit (you´ll gonna hate me, Wes, won´t you :slight_smile: ) - but - those are only minor issues …
all in all I would say that you have done a great job!

about the saturation and the colors - well - this is quite a complicated issue - and there is no “simple/general” solution for that, each image/workflow has to be solved individually…

in your image - the color itself (the oversaturated red) is not that big problem as far as web/monitors are concerned, the monitors are able to display such reds (but if you were printing this image, you would experience problems) - but - what is a problem here - and what is much more important/fundamental issue here - is that you have lost some details (clothes, clouds etc), that were substituted with the same “flat” red (because of bad/no color management of the browsers);

I do not go into details, as I assume you know the basics -
in general - there are at least four major issues that affect the way how the image looks like in the end -
a) the colors used in the illustration (color saturation, values, dominant color …)
b) the color management system (on/off? working space? profiles used/attached?)
c) monitors (calibration? gamma settings? …)
d) browser (does it support color management?)
(… besides other things …)

one has to accept that it is simply not possible to do anything about some of those issues (the monitors settings/browsers that other people use), - so - it is never possible to find “the only perfect solution” suitable for every single viewer (as far as web is concerned) - but - you still can affect some issues a bit to fix the major color/values issues … when trying to count with the “imperfection” of the browsers and the character of the particular image …

in your particular case - when your image tends/inclines towards some particular color, the best way is to “treat” that color (for the web output only, not the original image) in the way, that will “distribute” the color/tonal values a little bit “better” (within the image) for the output …

when I opened your image in Photoshop, it was quite ok - since Photoshop is color managed and was able to “fix” the display for me … but - most browsers (or even some other simple graphic programs) aren’t colour managed - so - the computer/program “does not know, how to display”, so as to say …
so - you have to “help” the “silly” browsers a bit yourself …
in this case - I tried a simple example (not the best solution at all, just one possible way how to handle the oversaturated red) - I tried to keep your profile attached (though most browsers ignore it) - the only thing I did was that I only “redistributed” the reds a bit differently (channel mixer); I mean - I used some “red information” (that appeared as redundant in the output) for the other channels - and “pushed up” the image midtones a bit so as you could see more details …

since I did not have the original image - I only adjusted your image “visually” (not measuring anything) - and - I am sure - the output perhaps still needs better settings;
but - I only wanted to show/suggest one of possible ways of how to fix this particular “oversaturated red issue” …

I am not sure if you could understand my terrible English (everytime I start this kind of complex topic I get short of words, not sure if everything makes sense at all :))
so please - if I was not clear enaugh, feel free to ask - If I am able to - I´ll try to explain next time better :slight_smile:
take care,
and keep your great work!
a.
p.s. love your life drawings :slight_smile:

#56

Hi Alena, thank you so much for taking the time to write all that out to explain.

I actually know very little about color management. I had never noticed this problem when working on my laptop. (Does that mean the screen was perfectly calibrated or it was so poor I couldn’t tell the difference?) From my experience and what you are saying, I guess Photoshop and Windows picture viewer are color managed and other applications are not. I will have to see if Painter has color management options.

I am still a bit confused, but it doesn’t have to do with your english…more like my lack of knowledge in the subject. So in order to work around this issue, I would have to adjust the outputs, save for web, and compare the original image on Photoshop and the saved image on web browsers until they look the same?

Btw, what you posted feels much more airy than the saturated version. I think what I had originally intended was somewhere between the two.

I am inspired to go draw after looking at your new posts, so I am going to eat and do that. Take care,

#57

After I read what Glenn said about imagination being like a muscle, I decided to give my imagination some exercise. No, not lifting 300 pbs yet, more like tossing baloons. I work with references almost all the time because I have too much trouble capturing my imagination on canvas. And I am usually too concerned about making my image look exactly like the source material the best I can. So this time, I took a reference image from Corpse Bride, and just looked at it for about ten minutes, paying attention to the values and the details, without actually painting. Here is the reference image:

I noticed there were a lot of vertical elements, the tall church on a hill, trees, and rain drops(which I omitted). So I decided to make the orientation of my version a portrait rather than a landscape, which would also ensure that mine would look different somehow. Then I closed the reference and got to work in Painter and this came out about an hour later:

I know it is not very detailed or refined for the time I spent, but I am still pleased with the result. It was very liberating for me to change the detail as I saw fit.

Thanks Glenn for the motivation. Hopefully one day my imaginative works will be as great as yours, Alena’s and many other peoples here.

#58

Hey Wes,
laptops/notebooks use different “display” technology than the “ordinary” PC monitors - this is the very first thing to keep in mind; (LCD for laptops, CRT for standard PC monitors);
there is many different features/characteristicts for both of them - and - one of the most significant is this one:
the LCD monitors “do not shine” (emit light) like CRT monitors do - and - on top of it - the notebooks/laptops are very often covered with a anti-“light spreading” film/layer (in order to avoid/lower the reflections) - so - all in all - beside other things - this results in less saturated /bright /shining /contrast etc. LCD displayed image than what you can see in CRT displays … (sorry, if I am talking about something you already know)

but - the monitor is only one part of the whole thing - so -
if you have not noticed problems with colors/dislpay of your images before -
there might have been many different reasons for that -
(now talking only about the case you used the same laptop both for creating and then “web” viewing the images):

  • your display/screen characteristics might have been “limited”, so you could not see much difference in differently viewed (due to different “display/color management” settings) display of your images …
  • your system/Photoshop color management settings might have been set differently (I mean the different “inner” working space - which you can find/define in PS under Menu/Edit/Color Settings - if I am not mistaken - in the “Working Spaces” section), than in your new computer; (whatever you had set there - if it had differ from each other - your laptop and PC - that sure must have resulted in different display/processing of the images) …
  • you might also have attached different/no profiles to your images before, that has very straightforward impact on how the images display in Photoshop and in other apps…
  • etc…

when talking about the working space settings - for RGB images you should use (or - better said: the best /safest /most used/ recommended is) the working space, that is both supported by many other devices, and the gamut of which is pretty “safe” for further converting/processing the image) - which is the “Adobe RGB (1998)”.

you mentioned also Painter - yes, you can also set your color management settings in Painter - well - I would say you shoud do that - and - when working with both, PS and Painter, it is strongly recommended to use the same settings, at least for the “inner” working space (I am not sure - I cannot open my Painter now - but I think you´ll find the CM settings under Menu/Canvas/Colormanagement … and the “working space” settinns you should see just in the middle - it should ALSO be set the same way as for PS (whatever space you set there), however - as I already mentioned - the Adobe RGB (1989) is the best/most recommended choice in this case

you can - very oftten - see/hear also of sRGB (either as a “sRGB profile” or “sRGB working space”) - but - it is not a good idea to use this one on a regular basis (now talking about the process/workflow when you create your own images; since working with photos downloaded from your camera in case it has assigned the sRGB profile to the images - is a bit different situation)

if you - perhaps in the future - want to learn something more about color management, I would reccommend Bruce Frazers´s books - and especially the one called
Color Management (link here)

there you can learn both the basics and also get some info on very advanced technologies/processes of CM - and - at least you can learn how really complicated, tricky and complex the color management actually is … :slight_smile:
(which brought a headake to many different people in the end, as far as I know :slight_smile: but it definitelly is worth it )
a.

P.S I am glad you can now use your Painter again :slight_smile:

#59

I just found about ADAPT 2008 Conference a few days ago, and I’ve been busy planning my trip to Montreal (and Toronto while I am in eastern Canada.) When I saw the name Craig Mullins on the speakers list, I knew I had to drop everything and go - he is the reason I started digital painting. I still can’t believe that I will get to hear him speak a week from today!

Alena, thanks for another lesson in this confusing subject of color management. I bought a LCD monitor for my desktop because I didn’t want a bulky CRT on my desk. I learned about different LCD panel types while shopping for a monitor, and it was clear that I did not want a TN panel. I ended up getting a S-PVA panel one, and I don’t regret it.

From today’s life drawing session. Men are much harder for me to draw for some reason…


#60

Wow man you get to see Craig Mullins? The man is a genius!
Sometimes I regret living in Europe… digital art is still not accepted here as an art form.
No digital art cons here (except for UK)

Beautiful life drawings! The reclining man in red and white is truly wonderful!

Edit: forgot to ask… what monitor did you buy then? (brand/typenr)