…you’re right. down it comes!
Beginners' Lounge
paperclip
#463
It’s in my anatomy thread, you can still see the censored pic, lol. :twisted: To be fair, it was a gesture pic that I ‘prettied’ up for Roberto’s birthday, but I can see how it would be considered suggestive…
Maladie
#464
Hello everybody! and hello Rebecca, since you seem to be this thread’s manager:),
Today I finally dared to register on CGtalk, after weeks of closely following it.
Last year I graduated from art school in the field of creative writing. For the last few years, however, I’ve been more interested in visual arts and tried to squeeze it in between the writing whenever I got the chance.
This year I’ve been trying to figure out how to direct my creativity (next to being an enthousiastic writing coach:) ). Not filming, not webdesign, but what?
Next thing I discovered an art school course in character animation (for which I’m currently applying), got into drawing again, and discovered this forum: WOW. Feels like I’ve come home…
I don’t know yet whether I’ll be doing 2D or 3D, animation or character design, but I do know I want to combine my love of stories and characters with CG. I am totally dedicated to learn the basics of basics.
Is this a good place to start?
Would love to learn about anatomy, colour, composition etc. etc. Also have loads of time and I already started with some exercises from the first page. As soon as I’ll find a scanner I’ll post some timed gesture sketches (though They Suck:eek:).
Lastly, I’ve never posted on a forum, don’t know how to do avatar-thingie and all the cool abbreviations, so hereby apologize for all future clumsiness.
And paperclip, just took a look at your tourist-series and was really inspired, I love the style!
I’ll check back when I’ve been classified ‘harmless’ by the webmaster,
bye!
Rebeccak
#465
Maladie,
Welcome aboard! It’s great you’ve found the forum and really like it ~ and I look forward to seeing your work! 
You will have to post 2 text posts before being able to post images. If you have never posted an image before, check out this thread which will explain one way how:
I’m a bit swamped today, but will try to take the time to respond more a bit later. At any rate, I enjoyed reading your post, and hope that you will find this place quite useful!
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
paperclip
#466
Hi Maladie and welcome to CGTalk! Glad to have another member around to share the love. :love:
You’ve come to the right place. Start up an anatomy thread, participate in the DSG and join in the next challenge and before you know it, you’ll be hooked! :twisted:
I really appreciate your kind comments about my stuff, thanks! 
Can’t wait to see your stuff in the (hopefully near) future.
Maladie
#467
P’clip, I just posted my first ever wacom sketch in the OFDW14 section, so if you like check it out!
Also you’ll notice I’m asking for help…hint
Maladie
#469
Hello again!
I hope ‘beginners lounge’ means I’m welcome to ask questions about my beginners work, too? If not, or if I have to go elsewhere with my question, just tell me…I wouldn’t wanna scare people away:)…other shy beginners…he he.
I started this piece yesterday, just experimenting with colours, composition etc. The story is that this guy is a little ‘vagabond’, belonging nowhere. He should turn out to be cute, but also a little grim. Maybe he has an important message for someone. He’s always hiding from other people, but at the same time wants nothing more than to belong with them.
My question is: what is a good way to develop this further? Particularly the background gives me trouble. I just can’t seem to ‘see’ in my head the shapes of it. So it ends up very vague. But my challenge would be to make a good composition of the bigger picture, not just the character. C&C very much appreciated. Here come’s:
By the way right now his name is Bertje:). Sorry Bertje.
Rebeccak
#470
Maladie,
Of course you’re welcome to post your beginner’s work here, it’s what the thread is for.
With respect to comping, I think a great way to go about doing so is to work either zoomed really far out in a large canvas, or just to create a small canvas and work on a thumbnail say no larger than 4 inches wide.
For example, here are some of the comps I’m doing for the Journey Begins Challenge (which I would encourage anyone and everyone to enter, just for the fun of it) ~ working this small allows me to work out the composition quickly without wasting time or hard drive space:
[left]The last color sketch is just the grayscale sketch with a layer on top with the blending mode set to “Color” and on which I just painted color information.
If I am happy with the sketch, I can blow it up enormously, to print resolution and a larger size in terms of inches, and then begin to render from there. Or, if I am not happy with it, I can just toss it and easily start over with a new one without having wasted too much time.
I think the problem I see frequently is that folks (myself included) focus on a character, render it, and think, ‘now what?’ ~ this problem can be solved easily at the thumbnailing stage, where you are forced to think about the big picture and the piece as a whole, rather than, say, the rendering of hair or an eye.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
[/left]
Maladie
#471
You’re right about focussing on a character, I think I’m doing that with the ‘vague’ lady too…background seems boring to do…but that’s because I don’t SEE it yet:)…
Thanx a lot for this tip! I’ll try and then get back here.
Maladie
#473
Hey Rebecca, (or anyone else on this thread)
I gave your advise a quick try and I really like it. I know it still looks very clumsy, but at least now I’m able to see this character in a scene, a world of his own, which makes him come to life so much more.
I think I would like to go and try to render this background a bit. I want to make a sharp contrast between the ‘fields of gold’ in the background (it is around the dead of noon) and the cool of the (corn) field below. The farmer is returning to the fields. The character is contemplating whether he will go up to the little mountain village or not.
Before I give this a try, do you see major things you would wanna correct? The perspective is weird, too, but I don’t know how to make a good perspective. Anyone got any tips on that?
Rebeccak
#474
Maladie,
I am admittedly not the best person to ask about perspective, but there are several resources available to help you in that particular area.
Check out:
Art Tutorials, Theories, and Book Recommendations
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=226083
There are perspective links there, as well as many other useful links related to art in general.
Regarding color, check out:
Color Theory and The Human Figure - NUDITY
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=303793
I think that you could afford to work on an even smaller scale for your initial comp ~ you don’t even want to necessarily work out the details of the various figures, but just try to get basic shape, scale, and value arrangements down in an interesting way.
Check out the Composition links in the Art Tutorials links above as well. I think that you can really have a better end piece if a bit of legwork is done in the initial stages of the painting. It really beats having to move stuff around at the end / getting stuck with a composition that is not really working on a basic level. Take a look at the thumbnails for the Challenge:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/forumdisplay.php?f=191
THAT is the scale at which your work should ‘read’. You can see the best compositions from these tiny thumbnails.
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
Maladie
#475
You’re right, I have to work a little bit harder:). Wanting to get on to the ‘fun’ part…but ofcourse it’s much more fun if your efforts on the basics start paying off!
I’ll check out all the links and try to incorporate the things I learn there. Giving myself a timescale: I’m getting back here with an update tuesday.
Thanks for all your help, I appreciate it:).
sturmkim
#477
humm… looks everybody busy with new challenge now…
hi guys. this is 20min. lighting study sketch. i want have warm and very bright(little bit of over exposure it will be) background and enviromental.
so i just focus on bg.
any suggestion will be very helpful…
Rebeccak
#478
sturm,
I think the thing you might try is working out some very small comps to figure out color and value relationships on a small scale.
For example:
[left]Working at this size allows you to make changes and test things quickly. If the composition isn’t working on this scale, it certainly won’t work on a larger scale.
Also, I wouldn’t leave any area of the canvas bright white. Reserve bright white for the smallest areas of highlight only.
Cheers,
~Rebeccak
[/left]
Maladie
#479
Hello,
I had another go at making a composition for ‘Bertje’
. This time I paid more attention to the composition of all the patches of colour and the lines. I also zoomed out more. I hope it’s got better. I’ll update more tomorrow.
