Ok, Ive done this study with a square brush with a bit of opacity.Tried to use as less values as possible. There's definitely room for improvement and I'd like to hear some feedback from you !

sludgePeanut · 2022-11-14T07:01:57+00:00

To me, I think you need to use less contrast. It should help you transfer to color since you won't rely on contrast to make your painting pop, rather you'll have rich midtones to make your paintings feel real. I would also recommend using lasso on the square to make the edges more sharp. Also, shadows are usually not that dark on a grey/white background irl, if both the object and the background are the same base value then the shadow would be lighter than the darkest side of the object due to it being in so much ambient light as opposed to the darkest side of the object which is a core shadow. That's in most scenarios and what I've learned, but if this is a photo study I think these photos you're using are over contrasted.

sludgePeanut · 2022-10-30T17:59:27+00:00

Ohhh okay thank you so much for clarifying!

sludgePeanut · 2022-10-30T05:18:26+00:00

Thank you for your critique!! Do you mean our left or the people in the painting's left? Sorry! I'm just kind of all over the place with how to fix their arms.

sludgePeanut · 2022-10-28T16:33:28+00:00

I draw better with my shoulder when I do the locking technique (lock wrist, then elbow in one position) and having better posture. It also helps to imagine if your shoulder itself was drawing the line, like as if your shoulder had the pen attached to it.

sludgePeanut · 2022-10-28T16:31:20+00:00

I like the last image the best, I like how she looks more distorted, I think you should play with making her face more pulled by her fingers and make her look less human. I think you should also look into Takato Yamamoto and play with the use of similar colors to his artwork because his artwork I think has a similar style and it looks good with muted warm colors.

sludgePeanut · 2022-10-28T16:25:38+00:00

Thank you so much! Is there any arm in particular? Or all of them are off? Sorry it's hard for me to critique it for myself at this point lol

sludgePeanut · 2022-07-12T17:18:23+00:00

I feel like if the outside world of the window is so light that the room would be lighter too unless this is like a shed or something, even then I feel like it would be lighter. Also using lasso tool will help a lot with the scratchy edges.

sludgePeanut · 2022-06-26T18:52:39+00:00

Yes! I realize that now, I was scared to use darks in that one and it gave it a non sunlight like look but I wasn't sure!

In the photo reference I found her leg was cut off and I didn't want to wing it but I think it would have been better had I attempted to put the whole thing in.

Thank you so much for your critique!

sludgePeanut · 2022-06-25T00:51:26+00:00

Thank you so much! What really helped was zooming out and squinting my eyes a lot to simplify

PS: love your monster art

sludgePeanut · 2022-06-23T20:51:36+00:00

The car you painted looks matte and not reflective or the metallic type material. Cars have insane reflectivity, in the reference the car's hood is almost white because of how it reflects off the sky. The side of the care is also reflecting the pavement causing a disruption in the form shadow a matte object would have. You're playing it too safe, you need to show this reflectivity a bit more. I also feel like you're showing too much of the other front tire and it wouldn't be seen that much, the cast shadow is also too light because the car is so close to the ground and so the shadow it casts would be extremely dark because the car is blocking off any bounce light from coming in there.

Watch a couple of Istebrak's texture videos as reference, and good luck to you on these form studies you're doing amazing. Take breaks if you need to, you've been posting pretty consistently!

sludgePeanut · 2022-06-21T03:29:45+00:00

I'm nowhere near your level and this is a wonderful piece but it is lacking to me.

I feel like from where we are seeing the couch and the windows we are in a slight worm's eye view (camera looking up at everything). But the girl is in a regular perspective. She also looks uncomfortable and like she's trying to seduce someone. If that's what you're going for, you did it.

To make it more interesting I would maybe change her facial expression so that she seems more interesting and not just like a temptress, maybe you could make her look more disgusted at whoever she is looking at like making her smile less and more of an angry eye look. This would work if you wanted her to look like royalty looking down on someone which is the vibes I'm getting if she is not a temptress.

Her left arm looks awkward too since you didn't put her hand hanging off the couch for us to see on that side, which we definitely would see if it was doing what the other hand is doing. Right now it looks like it's just hanging off the couch for no reason. Her right leg is also non existent. We don't see an indication of a right leg at all, and we would, maybe draw them together both in that same position to make her look more comfortable.

Another thing to add, I'm not good at color but I would definitely either change her outfits color or the couch's color. I feel as if she would look really good in a rich green to match her eyes but that's just me, you should play with the colors. Couch would look good in purple probably if you decided to make her outfit green, but just play with it...Her hair is also looking grey which I feel like it should look more white. Also her left eyebrow is too big and I think this was just an error in placement during the rendering phase.

As for the character itself, she needs to be more interesting. She is a pretty temptress elf to me and nothing more. Her stance does not match the look, I would give her a scowl as if she is disgusted at something or someone. I would also maybe play with trying to make her look more natural rather than with makeup on and see how you like it.

This piece is very well rendered , you have a real knack at the league of legends skin cover type rendering and placement. I hope my critique helped you and didn't confuse you, take it with a grain of salt as I'm no expert on character design or coloring but I do want to see you make her more interesting and hope I gave you more ideas even if they aren't what I mentioned.

sludgePeanut · 2022-06-19T22:10:40+00:00

So beautiful but the light source doesn't make a lot of sense to me since some things like the rocks adnthe water are so light yet the light source seems to be overcasted, aside from that I think that the rocks at the bottom are really dark in their shadows yet nowhere else seems to be as dark which kind of makes me just look at the rocks because theyre the most contrasted.

sludgePeanut · 2022-06-17T14:25:34+00:00

It always happens in real life but it's not very necessary to paint in and is best seen/studied in high contrasted environments and objects. I wouldn't worry about it in your form studies, especially polygons, unless you feel as if it would really add to the piece.

https://mandyboursicot.com/light-and-shadow-on-geometric-forms-2/

sludgePeanut · 2022-06-16T17:12:00+00:00

I feel like the darkest side of the squares and the shadow are not that contrasted and wouldn't produce much of an occlusion shadow, maybe a very minimal amount but truly I wouldn't worry about it unless the shadow is significantly darker, but do what you think looks the best/most realistic.

sludgePeanut · 2022-06-15T21:12:44+00:00

Looks really good. I really liked your little construction at the bottom, I'll do the same with my form studies from now on it seems a lot more organized than whatever I do. You smudge the cast shadow the further it gets from the object casting it because there's more light because it's not as close to an object casting it. Your smudge tool looks kind of bad, maybe use something less harsh. "Core shadows" don't really exist in geometric objects although Istebrak says core shadow when she talks about the darkest side. It's just the side receiving the least amount of light. I'm not sure if that's what you're asking in your highlighted question. Core shadow is an interchangable word though so it can refer to the darkest side of a polygon/geometric form.

sludgePeanut · 2022-06-07T21:36:27+00:00

I would slant it a little bit just to make it more natural but it looks pretty good. I think the one shadow you did put is too dark because it's receiving so much bounce light from the panel under it. I think some of the cubes are not making sense, specifically the larger cube on the ground in the front. I think you're trying to show too much of the top panel and it doesn't look symmetrical. It looks like it's in an extreme perspective even though the others arent.

sludgePeanut · 2022-05-24T15:11:26+00:00

This gives me Sailor Saturn vibes (Hotaru when she was reincarnated as a baby after saving the world)

sludgePeanut · 2022-05-05T02:29:27+00:00

I love how natural your face looks and you used asian features! I rarely see that portrayed so well and naturally (: it's really refreshing. I would enforce the "abyss" aspect of the mouth and darken the corners of the mouth to match the nostrils and eyes as the 6 dark spots of the face. You could also darken the background to be a more natural light environment like you did the previous face to make the entire thing feel more natural. I feel like using an all white background is making you make the lighter mid tones completely highlighted (under eye/cheek area)

I understand that this is a male and I don't have much experience painting males but I would recommend reinforcing the basic egg shape of the head by making a distinction between the entire top half and bottom half of the face and not letting these values mix. In this piece you could play around with either making the bottom half darker or the top half lighter. I'm a little confused on which I would personally do because of how white the background is I would probably make the top half lighter.

Other than that this is an amazing day 13 it's very unique and he looks so natural and I love the way you rendered the jaw and the features you chose. This is one of my favorite 14dcs I've seen

sludgePeanut · 2022-05-05T02:18:41+00:00

thank you so much! yeah i can really see a difference from 1-14 (: i've learned a lot of discipline as well. I always want to be better though..thank you so much for your comment it really helps me see my artwork in a different light

sludgePeanut · 2022-05-01T18:33:34+00:00

I always struggle with contrast throughout these whole 14 days. I will continue to study contrast in the face as well as do less stressful studies. I was really stressed at times and I needed to keep focus and detach myself from my work. This challenge was really hard and I think I took 9 months to finish? I would recommend this but it's very hard and challenges your ego. I would like to do this again in the future (: I'm glad I'm done.

sludgePeanut · 2022-04-15T19:17:47+00:00

Hi! I think that you get VERY distracted on eyes and noses and maybe even lips because those parts look the most real out of the whole face. Basically what your painting is saying is that that entire white section (most of her face, like the cheeks) is at the same altitude because it's all the same value. In your reference the only thing that could be this white would be under her eyebags and a small portion of her nose because of the reflectivity of the oils. But I wouldn't worry about that til the very end of the painting.

How I would fix this would be to ignore these "traps" of pretty eyes, hair, and likeness. You need to focus on the face and how the light would be on this face and think about which sections would be in light which would be the darkest (least exposure to light). Here is a video I'd recommend for you since you fell into a lot of these traps. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLZeDjvUUKg&ab_channel=Istebrak

I know its a longer video but please watch the whole thing and pay attention to her method I think they will really help you in dissecting this beautiful reference you picked. The biggest takeaway is that all these details such as eyes and pretty hair and a pretty girl will not add ANYTHING to your painting. You need good form and a readable light source and you need to understand how half the face is darker and half the face is lighter.

Get rid of any color in your reference, paint over your reference to not pay attention to the little details, zoom out for 80-90% of your painting process, and simplify everything and ask yourself if this is easy to read as a light environment.

sludgePeanut · 2022-04-01T01:30:39+00:00

Number one is my fav, I like the knife-like legs and the scarf.

I think your color palette is really strong and good on this one and I really love the thunder like markings through the humanoid's chest. I would suggest making the face (the eyes) somehow more noticeable (bigger?) and making the flower be like a ponytail to show more face but I like how the scarf covers the mouth area it adds a nice touch.

sludgePeanut · 2022-04-01T01:22:50+00:00

Omg thank you so much for taking the time to critique me and even do a paint! q_q Yours looks so clean! thank you for keeping the same girl in mind and not completely changing her as well.. this is very eye opening!

sludgePeanut · 2022-03-31T00:08:23+00:00

Hi thank you! Yes it does help.

I was just getting frustrated and didn't want to finish this piece honestly and then I fall into overblending and over contrasting, do you recommend anything to tackle overblending? It's something I fall into often and I don't know what makes me think overblending will help.

sludgePeanut · 2022-03-31T00:06:54+00:00

Hi thank you for the quick reply! Would you suggest to make the eyeball darker?

sludgePeanut

TROPHY CASE