future noir illustration -updated version

[Andail]

I'm not entirerly sure where to use this. I might do a comic out of it, or just put it in my illustration portfolio.

I would love some c&c.

[Haddas]

it's awesome, although the lampposts seem to float above ground, and there's this 'hole' where the lips end and cheek starts. plus the ear looks a little weird. but it doesn't change the fact that the picture is just awesome

[Nacho]

I think it's awesome too, but I am not very sure about the lighting... Ive been just investigating the old 2-colour style of the classic belgium painters (Peyo and Hergé) and I think this should be a good ocasion to ink in black most of the face of the girl, which should be logic too, considering that the side of the building that we see is very dark and there is a souce of light too in the second take, behind the girl.

The effect sould be very interesting.


This is just a quick example...

[James Kay]

Nice stuff!!!

Is that supposed to be kanji on her clothes? What is that? Looks a little bit like "dog"? "Mountain"? "Mouth"? And something else? All very distorted though....

[Oz]

Awesome work Andail! Drawn completely from scratch or photo sourced? Very nice. I love the style. Would go well with my current project (The Prophecy).

[andail_unplugged]

thanks everyone...

It's drawn completely from scratch, both her face and the buildings.

Farlander, yeah, the lighting now is not correct - or rather - we must assume there is a second light source before her face.
The kind of shading you suggested is indeed classic and great when carried out well, but it's not the kind of effect I'm trying to achieve here.

James; I have no insight in asian languages, I just tried to imitate the style. When I drew it, my internet connection was down, so I didn't have access to reference pictures of proper signs and letters.
If you have some good idea for proper letters, feel free to draw them on some reddish background and send them to me

Oz, I'd gladly draw some concept art for your project. It can be a trial period before I attempt real commission work. Just PM me or something.

[MrColossal]

My impressions:

I think this makes a good beginning and needs to be worked on more.

The lamp posts are obviously copied pasted and then transformed and are very bland, just a stalk with a ball on the end.

Her shirt is very ragged and pixelly especially on the collar.

Everything is very brown. I'd like to see more colours, or at least more variation between the colours that are in the painting now [I'm crap with colour]

The metal dome on the right seems out of place mostly because it's the sharpest thing in the picture and the lightsource seems a little different on it, as in there should be some light cast on the front of the building.

Also I can see a hint of smoke coming out of one of the smoke stacks but it all gets lost in the brown background. There's no contrast to make the background seem like it's in the background, just overlapping.

As in the brown smoke background seems like it's butted right up against the back of the building and the only reason things look like they're in the background is because of the slowly diminishing lamp posts and that we know that a girl is not larger than a building.

I'm sorry I have to go to work now

more later maybe

eric

[AndersM]

very good work, but somehow the brown colour looks too cheerfull to bee 'noir' to me...

[James Kay]

James; I have no insight in asian languages, I just tried to imitate the style. When I drew it, my internet connection was down, so I didn't have access to reference pictures of proper signs and letters.
If you have some good idea for proper letters, feel free to draw them on some reddish background and send them to me

You always have to be careful when you're trying to immitate or copy kanji. That's why there are people out there with tattoos that don't say what they think they say.Ã, 

Your scribbles do look vaguely like letters though, but they are obviously not. I'd help you out but what do you want it to say? It's probably best to find something online that you want to copy.

[Andail]

Update:


You can probably see what I changed...

[Oliver]

Whoa, that's awsome. I tottally like it!
The hair looked a bit odd to me at first, but after looking it for a while it seems ok

[Igor]

Very nice illustration!
New version has much more contrast and it "breaths" a bit more, but i'm not sure if that's a good thing here. As far as mood setting goes i find the first one much better. The dark, monotonous colors, created nice claustrophobic feel, that went well with the title.
The lamps are much better now though.

The thing that still botheres me is girl's face. Somehow it doesn't hold the "sketchy" confidence in lines and shapes of the rest of illo (buildings, etc.). The result is, that it doesn't quite blend with pic and looks a little stiff.

[loominous]

I think the first one worked much better as well.

The sketch style of the buildings (the center one in particular) works really well and looks excellent (except the dome which seems to be lit by a really strong spotlight).

The face however drags the pic down considerably imo. The shape of the head seems distorted and the skintone sick and plain odd. The facial features are too inaccurate n sloppy to look good.

I m not saying that a sketchy style doesn t work in the face but it s very hard to get it to look good in my experience.

Some modifications:

Requires Flash 7 player (about 100 kb)

Some notes:

(I) Made the eyes more asian looking. They re still western in that they re set fairly deep.

(II) The far building had the same values as the front building, which deprived the pic of some depth.

So all in all, a potentionally excellent pic if it wasn t for the face and some other smaller issues.

Edit: fixed the link

[Andail]

That's a very ambitious c&c, Loominous

Apart from the fact that you totally changed the face - not just edited it - sure, it looks better.
The background also improved.

But to the face again; it's hard to explain perhaps, but there is nothing left from what I intended with the portrait in terms of style and mood. Firstly, I didn't want her face to look asian (I would have made her slant-eyed, her nose smaller and more curved, her face flatter etc) despite her outfit. Secondly, her skin-toned may be a bit too ghastly, but yours is just too rosy and healthy. That wasn't simply my intention.

I do agree there are anatomical flaws in my version, which I will correct using your tutorial. But if I wanted a perfect, healthy face, I would have used Rembrandt as a referance, or just pasted Mona-Lisa to the canvas

Thanks again for your efforts!

[Gregjazz]

Interesting chinese/japanese writing.

Sorry, I couldn't help it.

Nice art, it just needs a bit of cleaning up here and there (unless that sketchy style is what you were going for).

[Andail]

Right, I made a prettier version of my lady, without going to the extreme cuteness of Loominous':
Also lowered the contrast of middle building.

[evenwolf]

Andail, I really enjoy the somber tone of your drawing.

I'd just say the lampshades are a step down- unless you can get them symmetric and to the point where we dont see the top of the light peaking through (top left lamp).

[loominous]

Apart from the fact that you totally changed the face - not just edited it [....] But to the face again; it's hard to explain perhaps, but there is nothing left from what I intended with the portrait in terms of style and mood.

I guess my modifications got a bit extensive, but they re all modifications, that is, I havn t redrawn anything, although nothing in the face really remains from the original version.

Firstly, I didn't want her face to look asian

Guess this was a clumsy assumption of mine. No offense was intended.

her skin-toned may be a bit too ghastly, but yours is just too rosy and healthy. That wasn't simply my intention.

I might ve compensated a bit too much with the rosiness I agree.

One thing to remember is that when you re used to a color, such as the color of her skin, you sort of get stuck with it and can t objectively judge other colors. So while mine seem very rosy, it s not infact as rosy as it seems as when switching between the two.

--

One thing I ve noticed is that you seem to highten the contrast using the contrast/levels function in PS.

The problem when doing this is that when increasing the contrast, you simultanously increase the saturation. While midtones n highlights can stand pretty high saturation the shadows will suffer quite badly, and the endresult will look unrealistic (even when going for cartoony style).

Speaking of shadows/darks, make sure you never go pure black. In order to keep the contrast strong, you don t really need to use the extremes (black n white), just make sure the values are dynamic.

--

Another thing is the values in the face which goes for the new version as well. The values you choose will pretty much determine how good/realistic/convincing it ll look in my experience, and I know of some artists who start doing the pic in black n white just to get the values correct from the start.

The problem in both faces as I see it, is that you re using the whole valuerange, even though nothing is really in shadow (since the face is lit up by other lightsources, I m considering the color below the cheekbone as the higher end of the shadowrange, that is, as dark as the face could get).

The face is lit from the front sort of, which means the light will hit pretty much the whole visable face straight on (with the exception of some eye n forehead areas n the nostrils).

Because of this, I d suggest that you d use the midtones for pretty much everything n highlights for the parts which reflects the light directly. So the shadow values wouldn t really be used at all in the face with a few exceptions.

It s important in my experience to save values like this n not try to include the whole range in each object, which might make the part lack contrast, but will be compensated by other parts.

Edit:

I made a prettier version of my lady, without going to the extreme cuteness of Loominous'

I tend to go for a handsome look on characters atm, not because I m a beauty fascist, but since since I want to master humans. I believe that once you can actually paint an ideal human, then you re able to give them them deliberate flaws to add character/make them more interesting. If you don t know how to create the ideal, then your characters will have flaws that you lack control over.

[Goldmund]

I rrreally like it, but I think there's something not right with the colours: with face, hair and background so bleak, the red of the kimono looks a bit out of place and stands out too much. You know I'm not trained in visual arts, this is just my impression.

[Pft!]

I notice the lamp shades are slightly transperent? (sp)