More painting practice

[ThreeOhFour]

Hello once again, all.

I'm sure you're quite tired of my seemingly endless string of "please help me draw  " threads, however after learning a bit and putting it into use in my last thread of this nature, I am once again keen to learn some more - thus I have returned.

My hope this time is to improve my ability at drawing cities. Whilst I learnt a lot doing the last thread on tablet based digital graphics, it was primarily with organic shapes. I still find myself quite dissatisfied with the way that buildings and the like turn out when I draw them, so I've done a couple of example illustrations in the hope that some of you can help point me in the right direction. I've kept them fairly rough (as there seems little sense in refining details when composition as a whole can be improved first):




It probably comes as no surprise to those who are moderately familiar with my graphics in the past that I've opted to use strange, science fiction settings for these two. I do plan to do more than just this setting, however it is the one I am most comfortable with, so it seems a good starting point. The strange forms are closer to organic ones, meaning I am more comfortable shading them, and the large array of lights and colours keeps me interested in drawing the image.

A couple of points that strike me as needing improvement before I go ahead and hit that 'post' button:

- I have trouble using the composition techniques I learnt when doing natural backgrounds in man made backgrounds. Perhaps I need to warp building a little to help frame the images better?

- Possibly too many light sources?

- The horizon in the pink image is a little off, and makes the foreground look as though it is sloping downhill.

I appreciate your time and any advice you may have to bestow upon me!

[SpacePaw]

IMHO lightsources arent a problem, they look nice and give a nice sci-fi feel to the backgrounds (esspecially the pink one).

You have your own style which is easy to recognize so it's hard for me to tell if something looks out of place (to be honest they look great to me )

I think the only thing I dont like is that crack on the ground in the first background...It goes at a wierd angle kind of disturbing the perspective (it doesn't go right with the ground depth perspective)

[Captain Lexington]

Ben, maybe we should just make you a sticky thread.

As for advice, I can only say that maybe, if the big spikes are buildings, they made so more obviously, like be given some square parts or some windows or balconies or something.

And seeing as how all the streetlights are on, maybe you could make it a little darker in the first image?


Really fantastic, though.

[loominous]

That time of year already eh.

- I have trouble using the composition techniques I learnt when doing natural backgrounds in man made backgrounds. Perhaps I need to warp building a little to help frame the images better?

I do miss framing in them. The only part that feels framed is the left half in the second one.

- Possibly too many light sources?

I don't think the amount of light sources in itself is a problem - can have as many as you like without creating issues as far as I'm concerned.

The issue, as I see it, is that there isn't any real dominating sources.

This, coupled with the lack of framing and symmetrical composition, fails to create some pleasing focal points imo, and we're left with a scattered impression.

The flatness of the style becomes a bit of an issue in urban environments, since you easily get a very boxy impression as everything is facing our way. You could avoid this to a degree by having deep backdrops with differently rotated elements, and in general by rotating whatever's available in the middle ground/foreground.

In the first one, the lamp post could be rotated to a 45 degree without clashing with the style presumably, and the same goes for the light bulbs and the distant flying display thing (the latter could could also use some lighter values, to push it further back, as it feels a bit too close for its size atm).

In the second one, the backdrop contains plenty of things that could be rotated, and in the middle ground the surveillance camera could use a twist.

-

So basically I think you already know what could be improved in them, and probably just need a couple of attempts to successfully implement it.

Knowing the concepts is by no means a guarantee that you'll be able to apply them, and I often find myself unintentionally breaching the most basic "rules", because I was focusing on something else, particularly when I'm experimenting in new areas.

[cuestaluis]

There's really not much I can say, I love your style and colors . What I can do is give you an example on how you can fix the floor on the first one:

also, darkened it a bit to lift contrast

[ThreeOhFour]

Thanks for the comments and advice all - I think I've gotten into the habit of thinking that cities should be all straight lines and flat surface  . It seems like in order to learn to do better backgrounds I need to change my way of thinking completely.

So, here I've sketched up a background using loose lines and lots of different angles. I tried to make a layered background like when doing a more natural background... am am pretty pleased with the overall shape.



As for lightsources... I am having a hard time doing sunlight in a way that I like. It's a lot brighter than I expect it to be, and when I finish a sketch it always looks a lot darker than it should. I guess I'll have to try experimenting with going a bit overboard with the light and see where I end up.

Any thoughts?

[loominous]

Think the composition and general impression has improved nicely, though it has lost a bit of the naive niceness of the flat style, and would probably require some sprite scaling, which you seem to want to avoid. Could probably rotate the middleground less to reduce this, or try to design scenes where the walk depth is limited due by physical restrictions, such as fences etc.

I think one of the charms of your style is the low value contrast, so I'm not sure introducing strong sunlight would improve them in any way. Knowing how to do it is nice though, if just to discard it once it's been mastered, so it might be worth pursuing for that reason.

It might instead be preferable to introduce a lower intensity light source from behindish, like you've done in other backgrounds, to retain most of the nice low contrast, while simultaneously getting a bit of punch in the values, as well as colour dynamics.

So perhaps scenes with either a standard orange/red sun close to sunrise or sunset, or why not experiment with suns of different colours.

Anyway, looking nice!

[ThreeOhFour]

More elaborate sketch this time:



I tried to add similar elements to the last one but make reduced walk depth. I've stuck to the kind of monochrome idea just to keep it simple for now.

Some of the shadows are a bit iffy, as are some of the compositional elements, but I feel it is a step up in some ways.

[nihilyst]

It certainly is appealing to the eye and a huge improvement. I like your threads; you're like a flesh and bone sketching machine

[MashPotato]

I like the style, particularly that happy lamppost :D  I think there's too much of a lean to the right with all the elements, though, which is throwing the composition off a bit.  As a quick fix, maybe try flipping that tree.

[Dualnames]

Ever seen firefly? Cause the use of colours really reminds me that..Must be me.

[loominous]

I think the design is more exciting in the new one, but the composition feels quite symmetrical, both horizontally and depthwise, where things are aligned on certain depths, instead in a being spread around, though it might be a necessity in some cases like houses for functionality reasons.

I think the straight on view works quite well, but a small rotation of the middleground would probably make the image more dynamic. The street suggests slight rotation, but the houses seem to be facing the same direction, so perhaps adjusting the house on the right side (rotating it a bit clockwise) might suffice.

As with the landscapes, I think they could use a clearer focal point, where the scene is basically built around an object, and everything is made to support this (in a hopefully natural, not too obvious manner).

Introducing a main lightsource into these sketches early on could be a good way, as the lighting has a huge impact on the composition, and is basically integral to it, and postponing it will leave much of the composition up to chance.

Disney is notorious for their spotlight approach to lighting, where regardless of the conditions, you often basically have a spotlight lighting up the subject, giving it great focus, and many more stylistic styles utilize similar approaches.

How far you want to go in that direction is of course a matter of style and preference but it might be worth trying out a picture with let s say a particularly cool shop that's placed in complete focus due to composition, being placed at the golden ratio, and due to the main light hitting it, and not much else.

But as always, it's looking very nice regardless!

PS. Oh, and one thing: strong tinting can make adding complementary tinted light tougher, where if the sky in this case is quite strongly green, and you want to add red light, you'll have it tougher than if you added for instance cyanish light (which is close in hue). I think it's due a couple of reason, one, with how colour mixes, since you'll be mixing complementary colours that together form grey, so you can get these icky transitions, and if the light isn't strong, and you mix in a bit of the lightsource, you'll end up with greyish light. Secondly, due to the fact that every material works as a more or less muddy mirrors, we expect everything to blend a bit, and having strong contrasting colours seemingly unaffected by eachother can thereby feel weird and fake.

So if you're having trouble making "sunlight" look good, try using somewhat similar colours, so instead of having a blue environment and yellow light, try purple/reddish environments with orange light for instance.

Also, if you want to introduce a strong lightsource, try reducing the overall contrast in the image beforehand. This is due to exposure, where we sort of adjust the contrast depending on the light conditions, where we in a dark room can make out shadow details that we won't be able to see if we introduce a strong lightsource, as the eyes adapt to this new value range, and the old values are squashed together to form basically "black". Low contrast in shadows also helps give a more atmospheric impression, and I tend to overdo it a bit, as I'm a sucker for the gentle effect it creats.

[ThreeOhFour]

Thanks everybody! I'm starting to get a bit more comfortable with arranging the elements now, I think .

I've tried to do a whole bunch of new things in this one - everything Mash and Loominous mentioned, pretty much. I might have gone a little over the top in trying to frame the little booth (which I think is at about the right mark on the golden ratio) but I feel it works alright.



Lots of roughness brushstroke wise, and some dubious shadows and highlights here and there, but it took me long enough as it is!

As for sunlight - well, I think now that I might leave that little challenge for a while yet until I'm comfortable with this one. But I do appreciate the advice, and I'm sure it'll come in handy when I finally do get around to tackling it.

[loominous]

Think it works very well! The composition feels dynamic and exciting and should at least seemingly support limited walk depth, though the close area does appear accessible.

I think the booth could use further focus, but could be resolved by lighting up its interior or similar. Designing this focus into the scene is quite important though, so in this case the lamppost could've been made to shine more strongly on the booth, by placement, direction, obstacles or creative shadows. Some more extreme examples, in this case from Dark Wing Duck :







As these are nighttime images, the effect is of course much stronger, but you can be creative with it in daytime as well, either by designing the scene so that everything is in shadow except for the subject, or by simply lighting whatever you want, like in this case:



-

Btw, just noticed that your strokes and lighting gives quite a clay like impression - almost feels like looking at a Neverhood background!

[ThreeOhFour]

Seems like I still need to convince myself to be less wimpy with the lighting, but I thought I'd have a shot at doing a science fiction style sketch (recycling an idea from an old sketch):



Lighting wise it probably isn't really an improvement, but I actually felt quite comfortable laying it all out - which I am quite happy about. A bit odd colour wise, but I'm pretty happy with the result composition wise.

[loominous]

Looks great!

Some stronger focus would've been nice, but might've spoiled the mood.

One thing that you could try is to vary the "landscape" a bit, so instead of extending the front content backwards you could have subdivisions, such as a sea and harbor in the back left, or high plateau on the far right with some other stuff. It's not that the current consistency is bad, it's just that such subdivisions would probably create a richer piece, which would hold our interest a bit longer and add some depth to the world.

[ThreeOhFour]

Still having trouble getting that strong lighting to look any good 



I tried doing a more varied backdrop but still tried to keep the framing nice and focused on the house at the golden ratio. The yellow light didn't really mix as well as I had hoped, and most of the brushstrokes are horribly lacking any elegance, but layout wise I'm fairly pleased with it.

[Old skool rulez]

i know it's hard as a artist not to critique your own work but dude these are awesome id wish i could draw half as good as that you should't be so hard on yourself

[Anian]

i know it's hard as a artist not to critique your own work but dude these are awesome id wish i could draw half as good as that you should't be so hard on yourself

I agree. Ben your only problem is that you're not me. 

[Ryan Timothy B]

What the heck?  I could have sworn someone had made a response to Bens last red image: http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=38294.msg505429#msg505429

They made it show more sky, instead of that right house tower stopping above the top of the image, and they increased the brightness of the lights.  I could have sworn it was Andail.
Did I dream this?  Or was the post deleted?

Anyway Ben, I really enjoy seeing the large array of colors you choose for the sky in each drawing.  Gives an unearthly feel, which I like.