Portfolio: First portrait [new version]

ildu · Sun 03/12/2006 20:58:10

Arggh, I always feel like I'm bothering people posting a crit thread, and that's why this is my second such thing to date

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But I guess this is sort of an exception, because I feel like I really need crits. I'm currently compiling a portfolio and I'm trying to take my art towards more realistic paths. So I'm trying to learn how to paint realistic stuff and mostly humans, they being the most difficult subject there is

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So here's my first ever digitally painted portrait:

Done from scratch in Photoshop CS2 (without a sketch

).
No references used.
Layers: Background, face, jacket, scarf, hair.

Basically, I want this to be as good as possible, so I need to know if you see any big glitches. Do the colors still need adjusting? Are there any anatomical worries that I might've missed? Should I still add detail? Does the zipper look weird? Any suggestions for the background?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT:

New version:

Evil · Mon 04/12/2006 00:54:20

Not very realistic, but a fantastic portrait

Raised and made the eyes smaller, as well as adjusted the angle. Added some darks to the hair and face, a few around the scarf and jacket for depth. Added some hair on the left side of the face, the hair was too far left. Made the cheek a bit smaller on the right side. And lastly, a crop with a vignette.

The chin ended up a little long and the face lost some roundness from the dark shadows. But maybe it'll just give you some ideas. Other then a few darks in the hair, I think yours is great.

Blight3220 · Mon 04/12/2006 20:11:12

Looks really good, but in my opinion she would look better with her face a bit more feminine looking, like a smaller chin and a more feminine jawline.

Nothing really wrong besides that.Oh, and I really dig the colours.

ildu · Mon 04/12/2006 22:17:12

Quote from: Evil on Mon 04/12/2006 00:54:20Raised and made the eyes smaller, as well as adjusted the angle. Added some darks to the hair and face, a few around the scarf and jacket for depth. Added some hair on the left side of the face, the hair was too far left. Made the cheek a bit smaller on the right side. And lastly, a crop with a vignette.

The chin ended up a little long and the face lost some roundness from the dark shadows. But maybe it'll just give you some ideas. Other then a few darks in the hair, I think yours is great.

Thanks a lot. I really like the big eyes, so come to think of it, I probably won't try and make it any more realistic. The hair (and other) shading advice is good. I'll try and work on that a bit more. Let's see if I end up changing the bg still. I'll try to get time to work on this later this week and post an update.

I'll probably start a second one soon, too

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Quote from: Blight3220 on Mon 04/12/2006 20:11:12Looks really good, but in my opinion she would look better with her face a bit more feminine looking, like a smaller chin and a more feminine jawline.

Well, she's supposed to look like a pre-teen girl, so puffy cheeks (emphasized by the scarf) were what I wanted. I had a straighter and smaller jaw, but it didn't look too good. Maybe it was because of the big eyes. Thanks for the reply, though

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MashPotato · Mon 04/12/2006 23:16:35

I hope you're not bothering anyone by posting this thread, because if you are, then what have I been doing with my multiple threads? ^_^

Lovely portrait, Ildu ^_^. There is a nice dichotomy between her wide-eyed stare and the rather sombre atmosphere of the painting. I like the deliberate flatness and simplicity, reminds me of some American folk artist I can't remember the name of at the moment (very descriptive, hm?). I like the round jaw and large eys, and they do give her the youth you were aiming at (to me she looks 12-14).

One thing I had a problem with (and this is probably just personal preference) is that the hair sweeping off her forehead seems a little to separate from the rest of her hair. I did a quick paintover to clairify what I mean:

I also shortened the back of her head a bit by erasing some of the hair, and added a little bit of shadow to the scarf near her hair (on the left). I'm not sure if any of these are necessarily improvements, but they're just to give you an idea of what I mean.

Good luck on your portfolio, and I hope you'll post more ^_^

DanClarke · Mon 04/12/2006 23:59:50

I like it, it seems as if you have your own unique style. My quick crit would be that the eyes seem to lack depth, and seem a bit glazed. Apart from that i like it!

Andail · Tue 05/12/2006 21:01:16

The technique is very personal and it's well performed...however, I don't find it very interesting. Basically, it's the lack of expression; most interesting portraits convey some sort of feeling or attitude. This woman displays no emotions whatsoever, except for some kind of "I dunno, and I don't care" attitude.
But again, very nice technique, great colours and composition.

Nikolas · Tue 05/12/2006 21:53:51

To reply to andails comment, which I repsect of course, but:

for me this portrait shows, great depth and saddness... I mean this empty look on her face seems to be because she's lost somoene, or something simmilar... That's what I think everytime I look at it... Maybe it's the colours as well.

sorry I can't provide any better feedback... :-/

Oz · Wed 06/12/2006 10:43:26

Quote from: Andail on Tue 05/12/2006 21:01:16
The technique is very personal and it's well performed...however, I don't find it very interesting. Basically, it's the lack of expression; most interesting portraits convey some sort of feeling or attitude. This woman displays no emotions whatsoever, except for some kind of "I dunno, and I don't care" attitude.
But again, very nice technique, great colours and composition.

I will have to completely disagree. I think this portrait is very expressionate, as Nikolas points out. And, perhaps the "I dunno, and I don't care" effect that you discard as useless is just what Ildu is after here. Then again, it's difficult to criticize something as abstract and subjective as the emotional conveyance of art.

Evil · Wed 06/12/2006 17:23:32

Look at some of the most famous portraits of the world. Mona Lisa is the most boring pose I've ever seen, but it's still a fabulous, mind blowing piece. Even portraits of the royal family, or similar renaissance style paintings all have a gloomy quality to them. Sure it could use something a little more, but I think the focus is realism before composition and posing.

ildu · Thu 07/12/2006 00:28:18

Thanks for the kind comments and crits, everyone

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Mash: I like the sweeping hair, but as you said, it doesn't look entirely right and looks too separate from the rest of the hair. I won't get rid of it completely, but I'll try and work on it to make it look more natural. As you also showed, some of the hair from the back could be taken off. Thick hair also makes her look younger and more puffy, but I'll have to experiment with that.

DanC & Andail: That was actually a concern early on. She does look a bit blank as if she weren't really paying attention. Earlier I tried to shift the eyes to look straight into the camera, but it didn't really work out. But in a way I do like the expressionless feeling there. It would be a completely different image, if she were for example smiling and reacting with the camera. The main theme for this piece was autumn and the gloominess that's comes with it. The blankness is there mostly because of the theme, but I can't deny that it wasn't partly due to a lack of experience in painting such stuff. When I started this, I decided I wasn't gonna try and get too much expression, since this was my first one. I already feel confident enough to be more ambitious next time

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Nik, Oz & Evil: Thanks for the comments. It's not every day that you're work is compared to the likes of Mona Lisa

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Thanks again, dudes and dudettes. I'm gonna try and get a new version out soon. And I'll start on a new one as well.

LGM · Thu 07/12/2006 05:07:39

Good example of why it works:

If Edie Sedgwick can do it, so can you.

(actually, it's just from the new biopic about her.. But hey, it's artsy.)

loominous · Wed 20/12/2006 01:57:55

Great character and colour choices!

If you're going for realism/semi realism, you might wanna consider some things though:

(yes, she looks different in my edit, mostly due to the altered right eye, which I made more symmetrical to the left; more on this below)

I) Eyes: make sure you include the "inner" sides of the eyelid, so the whites aren't merged with the eyelid. The upper one is usually in shadow, so we don't notice it, but without a small border between the whites of the eye and eyelashes, it'll look fake.

In your version the eyes weren't symmetrical, and that's probably more realistic than if they were, but it's good to know how to make them so, to achieve control. Her left eye - the far eye is always trickiest - is very flat, and isn't wrapping around the face, which makes it look different than the right.

The eyelashes get thinner and scarcer towards the inner sides of the face, and a darker line all the way makes it look like makeup has been applied.

The irises were very large in the original version, and I resized them a bit. The speculars suggested a very low lightsource, which didn't seem consistent with the rest.

The whites of the eyes are rarely, or never actually white, so make sure you keep them sufficiently dark.

II) Hair: as with everything else, it's usually preferred to deal with hair as larger masses, instead of tiny individual objects. I usually start by making the hair like a helmet of sort, which I lit accordingly, n then start breaking it up in locks. The stripy look of the original makes it look pretty unrealistic and flat.

III) Nose: the nose was very flat on the underside, and I suppose your character might have a nose that looks just like that, but most noses are rounded underneath. Make sure you don't darken the underside to much, since there's usually quite much bouncelight from the areas beneath, lighting it up.

IV) Nosearea: the sides of the nose gets meatier as they get closer to the cheeks, and form masses that are usually quite glossy, so it's important to make them seperate masses, and add some small speculars (can't lit it as a flat surface, since the skin there is rarely very smooth). The nose tends to be pretty glossy as well, so you might wanna add some speculars there as well.

V) Lighting/Colours: to get depth and a portrait kind of look, you might wanna lit it less subtle. I chose a warm keylight, and let the shadow parts blend into the background, to make the lit parts more prominent.

Make sure you seperate the lit up parts from the ones in shadow. The transition will be smooth if it's due to a shapechange, and sharp if it's caused by a blocking object, so if the forehead is "turning into shadow", it'll be a quite smooth transition, whereas if part of the forehead is in shadow due to part of the hair blocking the light, the transition should be pretty sharp. If you compare the shadowline on the left and right side of her forehead, you can probably see the difference.

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I really like fictional portraits, and I think they're an extremely good way of learning about mass and light/colours, because of the complex shape of head and our pickiness about the features. Compared to my first attempts, this one is genius.

Edit: some spelling

Elric · Wed 20/12/2006 02:20:33

Oh god, this edit smells of Rembrandt so much that with an appropriate theme it'd be a perfect replication of his "halation" technique.

But how on earth do you blend color so smoothly? I can't spot a single apparent brush stroke!

loominous · Wed 20/12/2006 13:11:40

QuoteBut how on earth do you blend color so smoothly? I can't spot a single apparent brush stroke!

Well, I just used a smooth brush. Faces is one of the few areas where I actually use those (unless I want a brushy look), however they can quickly turn the face into a smooth blob if you're not careful.

ildu · Fri 22/12/2006 13:52:08

Thanks a lot, loom

. I probably won't change it that drastically, but I really gotta try and incorporate your suggestions. I'm especially gonna accentuate the shadowing and lighting, as well as work on the general form of the hair and really try and concentrate on the eyes.

I already got the idea for the next portrait. It's gonna be a little edgier, although not really as realistic

. I'm not gonna have access to the tablet or Photoshop for the next three days, and I'm already getting withdrawal symptoms

. It's horrible, especially when you have already have an idea ready to be executed.

Buckethead · Fri 22/12/2006 13:55:00

I actually thought this painting was brilliant untill Loominous changed it

Nacho · Fri 22/12/2006 14:58:46

The main principle told to people participating in brainstorms is "hey, never criticise something a member of the brainstorm says!" That could chop the creativity of the people involved for fear of pissing it off in front of the other members, and brilliant ideas could never be exposed.

Same for crits in CL, specially of those crits are explained with an ellaborated paint over and come with good points.

You don' t like it? Ok... maybe the person looking for crits did, or maybe even absolutelly disliking it, he could pay attention to some advises. Allow the person asking for crits to say if the crit has been possitive or not. Reply to a crit you don' t like explaining why and generating an interesting debate... Not with that sh*t.

Otherwise, shut up. Shut up to anything related to Loominous. I preffer no member to be pissed, but if one must be, be sure that I preffer you to be the pissed one than a member that I respect so much as I do like Loominous.

DoorKnobHandle · Fri 22/12/2006 15:13:47

I think Buckethead meant that he thought the painting was great until Loominous edited it. Then it was more than great, right?

Nacho · Fri 22/12/2006 16:23:07

"It was BRILLIANT untill LOOMINOUS CHANGED it"

...Ergo, now it isn' t. Also, notice the "

"

He might mean "It was brilliant till Loomi' s edit. Now it' s even better". If he meant that, then I apology.

It' s not that I am very friend of commenting the edits, all have the same value for me, no matter if the person asking for crits is going to use them or not, but this last meaning is definitelly better than the previous despective one.