Hey Spirit, I haven’t been around this forum in many months so I haven’t seen your work in a while. I must say that from the last pic of yours I saw to this one I see a marked improvement. Your ZBrush work has come a long way.
I know you practice a lot, it really shows.
Glenn, magical! Would love to see you do more of your Painter wizardry though 
MichaelZHsee, great start. But his right hand bothers me, just looks so uncomfortable assuming it holds most of his (yours) bodyweight in this pose. And a slight turn of the head could make it more interesting so we wouldn’t see it from the very front. Just suggestions, I’m sure it’ll end up look highly amazing!
KWAK, nice to see some 3d. I was hoping for that. Can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with.
Rebecca, that’s just beautiful! Neat choice indeed.
It’s coming together slowly. Still lots of work to do on the grayscale (loads of stuff to fix if that’s not obvious) but I hope the next update will be in color.
Hey razz, that’s looking really cool so far! It would be cool to see the horns come out more from the head maybe, but I’m sure your plans for this are better than mine. Definitely looking forward to progress!
Razz here too !?
ok, the ultimate workshop here !
I am thinking to sketch myself as an Ostrich…
here is my attempt. I’m still new to digital painting, this is only the fourth or so project I have worked on. It a cross between me and a Lion, despite the fact it looks apish with the dark hair. any words of wisdom would be outstanding. I foolishly started this without a strong light source in my reference, so I might re-shoot my ref. the harder and more complete your criticism the more it will help.
Hey razz, thanks!
gpepper, just dooo it. 
TheBeatnik2334, heya, welcome! Thanks for posting. If you don’t mind, I might have a few suggestions.
Are you using reference? I highly suggest gathering different ref. resources and combining them to create your image. You don’t have to draw strictly from your imagination, more or less, whatever you need to do to further your digital painting abilities, I always encourage you to do. A key bit is looking at the real world and finding stuff that suits our needs in terms of ref.
Consider the perspective too - features on any face are wrapped around the sphere / cylinder of the head, but in your piece the features feel as though they are related across a relatively direct / straight line. Basically think of the eyes and mouth as relating along an ellipse that wraps around the head, like the rings of Saturn were those rings stuck to the planet. Someone before was asking if it was okay to trace reference to get the feel of how the figure or face is constructed. I would recommend trying that on a straight reference of a close up of a lion’s face, to get the feel of the proportions and of the roundness of the form.
Hope that helps!
-R
I am using reference, although I didn’t take it well. The main issue is that I’m new to digital painting. I have a decent drawing background, so if it were a pencil drawing, I would be able to shade it well. the issue is when I use photoshop to paint an image. I tend to do this thing where I start out well but my strokes are not neat and refined, causing me to spread out and muddy up the image. Ill continue my practice though. thanks for the feedback.
Ah, gotcha. Well we’re all learning, by no means do I consider myself to be an expert, so please take anything I say with a grain of salt.
One thing you might consider trying is scanning a drawing and working from there. I’ve done that many times and I enjoy that process.
A couple of digital painting tips: when in brush mode, press Alt and click any part of your canvas (assuming you are using Photoshop) to select a value from anywhere. You can also at the beginning of any painting create a value scale from black to white by creating a rectangular marquee selection and using the gradient tool to get a range from pure black to pure white within that rectangular selection. Also right click your pen to change the size and hardness of your brush. You can modify the Shape Dynamics of your brush and even change its roundness, spacing, etc. by clicking on the Brush presets icon at the right upper menu of PS.
As a general approach, I’d recommend using a large, not a small brush, to block in big shapes and values - try blurring your reference or just squinting your eyes to see the bigger areas of value. Also I’d just treat the hair as a mass instead of as individual strands until the value structure and shape design is worked out.
All of these things I have to continually remind myself to do, since we are all learning and most of digital painting is just a reiteration of the basics and fundamentals, just using digital tools.
But I’m just blathering.
-R
I really appreciate all your help. I actually read ImagineFX a good deal, So I have a decent “Knowledge” of digital painting, but being self taught I have never had the mentor who I could actually interact with to guide my through my trail and error. In a little while Ill post a picture of a nude in my sketchbook thread. It was actually completed with from a female anatomy for the artist pic, so it will give a better indication of painting skill.
Hey, no prob, I’m self taught too in the realm of digital painting (I think I did one or two before launching the Workshops, there’s a method to my madness, see? ;)) so I’m happy you find the Workshop useful. Off to a class, woop!
Hey there’s Rebecca. I haven’t seen you in a while. Nice to see you again. Really neat workshop.
mlutz,
Nice to have you aboard - welcome to cgtalk!
I like that large righthand sketch, any reason you chose not to pursue that one digitally? It’s a good start on the digital sketch, would really like to see you take that to a final stage in the next week!
Cheers,
-R
Great idea with this topic and opportunity to try something new. I am going for character from outer space.
Hey gingerbreadman, welcome. May I suggest working in grayscale? It’s a common starting point and a much simpler and more effective way to work out the value system in a painting. In a way I think the simple sketches in the first post are more effective than the full color version because they are only in grayscale. Adding color is just an added layer of complexity when the most important thing is the underlying structure.
You can see some tutorials on this subject here:
Tutorials - How Do I Go From Grayscale to Color?
Hope it helps, looking forward to an update!
-R
DaddyMack: funny zen meditation turtle!.
Shapemaster: cool concept acceptable
Xvampire: I like how you look like in the thumbnail Edit.
MichaelZHsee and Razz: strong portraits and great pose!
Mu: luck with your snake creature portrait!, thanks for the reference of Phil Straub’s composition tutorial, is a bigger help to know about compo in English. Perhaps the iconic composition is applying right now.
NR43: I Like the concept of The rat-bird-cat seems funny. If I add body I have something like the first next picture, but I’m thinking that is like a (cliché) body with head of octopus (similar to Davy Jones from Pirates of the caribbean) so I’m not sure about it.
Rebeccak: I did the homework, tentacles were small and cramped. I made the correction on the canvas composition, but before following with the pose and details I have to choose one of these:
First with body and Second more like a creature.
WIP #2.
luck everyone! :wip:
Hey stridiggio, really good stuff, there’s clearly a lot of work and effort here. I like the top one better, I know the image is probably cropped, but might I suggest leaving some space above the head and perhaps a little surrounding space for the final composition? Another suggestion might be to more clearly define where the light is coming from, and to more heavily emphasize / detail the face so that there is an area of focus within the painting. All that said, really nice progress, and looking forward to your next update!
Here is my reference…
My self as Caravaggio/Eros :)))))))))))))) I will redraw it (this is photoshopped
comments are wellcome. Of course it’s meant to be funny and not serious
I wish I had some darts for love… everything will be easier
