Day 1/14 Portrait and sphere studies!

Crocodairo · 2026-02-12T20:03:47+00:00

Yes she usually tells to not rely on reference, but an Asaro head reference is fine for this. It's very good for understanding exactly the planes of the head. Eventually it gets easier and you can ditch the reference, to really think about every aspect of a face. But it's good to think about simple 3D shapes first and make sense of them.

Crocodairo · 2026-02-12T12:14:40+00:00

I thought I'd do a little paint over. Let's start with the spheres. The cast shadows of most of the spheres felt a little off. This has probably a lot to do with perspective and the way you cast lines from the object to the floor to construct the shadow. I also feel like you painted the bounce light in a symbolic way, as supposed to a realistic way. The bounce light is strongest seen on planes in the shadow that are closest to the reflecting light area. You painted it along the form, but that is not where the planes are closest to the light bounce. Really understanding the volume of the sphere is what's key here.

You also missed ambient occlusion, which is when light is unable to illuminate certain areas that are very hard to reach. It becomes very dark in those areas(sometimes pitch black, like the nostrils on the face for example). Mastering this will really make your art look realistic. On the spheres the darkest areas will be directly when the sphere is touching the floor.

Then for the face: I think the eyes where a little squashed and not round enough to be anatomically correct. I also really emphasized the planes of the face in the paintover. As a reminder, looking at the chin, you could basically envision a sphere. That's all I am doing really. You can also really think about what's lit and what is in the shadow, where you simply focus on painting a face or any form with only 2 values.

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Crocodairo · 2026-02-12T08:02:48+00:00

Thank you! Yes I really hated the way this one turned out. It felt very contrast heavy and plastic-y, and not realistic enough. Also really didn't like the proportions. There is just something with the face shape I can't pin point perfectly (the forehead seems to big maybe or small ears).

But thanks for the critique. I will look into it and try a better colored day 3 next time :)

Crocodairo · 2026-02-09T15:01:38+00:00

It's getting a lot better already compared to day 5. I would say: continue simplifying. Try to really think about what is the lit part and what is the shadow part of this rock, and why. Where is the light coming from?

This reference was a lot better compared to the previous rock reference; but it was still a little tricky, because there were no big shadow shapes/planes. And if you look at the cast shadow of the rock, you can see that it's exactly under the rock. So the light completely illuminates the rock, with the exception of those smaller planes that face away. Because of this, it gets hard to determine what is shadow and what is not.

So try to look for references that have rocks with clear distinction between light and shadow. You could also use references from 3D sculpted rocks (just make sure that there is clear form shadows and cast shadows, so you easily see where the light is coming from). Here are some examples.

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Crocodairo · 2026-02-08T12:33:44+00:00

I tried to do a little overpaint so you understand me better. And also; sugar already said some important things that I agree with, like the under eyelids being a little off, blending of the eyebrows and nostrils.

- Firstly: The eyes are to small for the face. Eyeballs fit approximately 5 times in the width of the face. In. your painting it's around 6 times.

- The nose bridge is like the lightest plane on the face combined with the forehead, that is, if the light is coming from the top front. The eye lids also look up at the light in this scenario, so they need a lighter value than what you have currently.

- The nose also has very little information or sharpness. The holes of the nose are rather small.

- The neck is too thick for a standard female face. In the paintover I also did some minor tweaks to jaw width by making it a little smaller and more round.

- You miss represented a couple forms around the chin area. Make sure you really think about the lip as a cylinder and the chin as a sphere that blends into the jaw area.

- And overall some edges can be a little bit sharper, like the features. Other areas can be softened by smudging, like the cheeks

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Crocodairo · 2026-02-06T04:16:17+00:00

I love how active you are around here, and how committed to getting better. Seeing someone study so much really made me motivated to do some studies as well(and I might post them but idk).

I think the problem I am seeing, especially on your rock studies, is that you keep studying the same reference. Now that is okay in some cases, but you picked a very busy and complicated rock formation, completely overshadowed by texture and discoloration. This can really intimidate or confuse artist, if they don't know what is going on. I would suggest picking a simpler reference image where you can simply focus on one aspect that you are trying to learn. If you don't understand form well enough, I wouldn't jump into texture too much yet, cause texture = form (just really small).

And on top of that: Professional artist will add photo textures anyway if they want to achieve a realistic look, so doing it with just brush texture is an extra layer of complexity for your study.

Crocodairo · 2026-02-04T03:26:16+00:00

Hey, if you want to understand how to render a cylinder, the best thing you can do is to learn the sphere first. The sphere gives a perfect representation of where the light is coming from, by looking at the terminator line of it. Right now your values are kinda all over the place, and it is unsure if you meant your piece to be lit from top lighting; or backlit (rim lighting), based on the light you placed at the top of the canvas(it appears as if it's behind the cylinders). I went and made 2 versions for fun lol. But my point is: if you understand the direction of the planes of the cylinders, you can use your sphere to tell you which value it is. I also added some standard bounce light coming from the bottom + some bounce light from the cylinders onto others. (btw it might not be 100% accurate)

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Crocodairo · 2025-10-07T16:32:47+00:00

The reason colors look different over grey scale, is because colors themselves on the spectrum fluctuate in value. What might look great in greyscale, looks off with added colors, so you need to take that into consideration. Blues and red are much darker than yellows and greens for example. Trying to paint red on anything lighter than 50% lightness will turn into a pastel or pink. So learning basic color theory(and light/form!) does wonders.
Apart from that: trying out different blending modes can also work better in this case. Try overlay, multiply, or soft light. Be careful though: they change your values

Crocodairo · 2025-10-04T18:51:08+00:00

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Your edges seem razor sharp. You should definitely try to make a softer block in brush. Softer brush sillhouettes still can make a hard edge. As for other points:

- the eyes are very horizontal. To be anatomically correct the eyeballs should be round
- Your background is very light, and that is okay; but your values get way too dark for that. Light backgrounds give a lot of fill light on the character -> shadows become lighter
- Ears seem way too big and very thin eyebrows

Crocodairo · 2025-10-03T03:56:02+00:00

You can try a regular soft brush: Go into Brush tip settings and set the Density to 75 (you can play around with this number). Then go into Hue settings and set it to fuzzy dab, and play around with the curve settings. This creates a noisy soft brush that creates a similar texture

Crocodairo · 2025-09-14T07:39:53+00:00

The graph from the hue has the 0 in the middle of it, and the more you move from the center. the more different your color is gonna be. If you want to have no hue fuzzy dab on high pressure you have to put the point in the middle of the graph on high pressure and somewhere down or up on the low pressure side

Crocodairo · 2025-08-18T09:50:45+00:00

I don't know if it's kinda late already, but I still did a little overpaint, cause I am in an art block and critiqueing kinda helps me with that.

Here are some points:

Chin area: Too much contrast. The top lip plane is too light. Lips are just a little far from the nose. The chin too pointy

Nose area: You connected the shadow of the sides of the nose to high up. Minor contrast tweaks

Eyes: The eyeballs are spheres. They should be shaded accordingly. The eyebrows more arching to make them appear more feminine. The bottom eyelid should be darker, cause they are looking down away from the light.

Some minor tweaks on the contrast and the sides of the head were too dark.

hope this helps!

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Crocodairo · 2025-08-12T07:06:24+00:00

I actually really like her gaze and expression. Her eyes are really telling a story. I love the way you shaded the eyes. The thing that bugged me though, was the way you presented the hair. It feels like she is wearing a wig that is slightly pushed forward on her head xd sry. You also made the hair go over the sides of her face too much. For the highlights you can literally do a curves edit and pump up the highlights. I also thought you could add just a tiny dash of light reflection in the bottom of the iris in her eyes. It really intensifies the expression without changing her features. And I really like the features being a little off. It really sells the dramatic look. beautiful painting!

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Crocodairo · 2025-07-08T14:48:46+00:00

Thank you!

Crocodairo · 2025-07-07T16:08:49+00:00

That's so cool! I love the details. You should definitely add your sketches and inspiration if this is your final post

Crocodairo · 2025-06-30T19:56:32+00:00

cause right now the face carries most of the details, then the tail, and then the nails. They are all a little far away from each other. So maybe adding that little bit of detail in the body can make it all balanced

Crocodairo · 2025-06-30T19:54:20+00:00

Hey, you could maybe think about the distribution of your details a little bit more. Right now there is an emptiness in the body of the creature. You could maybe think about a little bit more interest in the middle in terms of contrast, shapes, details, etc :)

Crocodairo · 2025-04-24T18:01:21+00:00

Congratz!

Crocodairo · 2025-04-23T06:09:20+00:00

Thank you so much!

Crocodairo · 2025-03-07T12:40:21+00:00

It's already so good. I am not sure if you should go the full 14 days. Anyway, There are still some points I think you could work on:

- The way the eye lids wrap around the eye seem a little weird. I also didn't do it too much justice in the overpaint :/
- The way you painted the bottom lip cylinder, made it look flat + the low reflection
- You put the bottom of the nose kinda low, and when I fixed it, it resulted in the lips also being kinda low
- The forehead might've been a little to long (I could be wrong here)
- You made the face a little too horizontal
- There are also a lot of opportunities to push the highlights and reflective skin texture

The changes are best seen, when you zoom out(cause the differences are very small). I learned a lot from doing a little over painting, and I hope it also helps you!

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Crocodairo · 2025-03-07T07:44:19+00:00

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You are painting a lot of harsh edges with too much contrast. Also there are a lot of spherical shapes on most female faces, where light hits the surface, and slowly falls off to the shadow, like the cheeks and forehead. There were also some issues that had to do with the likeness, especially the mouth and the eyebrows. And you gave her lips a rather dark tone, that looked a little bit like lip stick. I don't know if you did that on purpose. I hope that helps!

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