I got a new graphics tablet recently and wanted to get back into the flow, so I thought I'd go and try a portrait in a more realistic style. It's not photorealistic; that really isn't my style, but still an improvement over my usual pixel art. I used a reference photo (no tracing, though), and after two hours I had a nice sketch and started to colour it out. (It's still WIP- face and hair are not shaded and refined yet).
I suck at shading and palette setup, though. And I really have no idea how people keep their layers in order and set up lighting and all. Heck, I am not even sure if you keep the sketch lines visible.
Tablet owners, portrait painters, long-time fellow artists, shower me with tips and C&C!
(http://i.imgur.com/G85DF.png)
Looks great.
Hells! Awesome! Too! Stunned! For! Anything! But! One! Word! Sentences!
I like the first best. The 3th seems to try to hard... making the eghes bleed till you see Jesus. But yeah, think that last one is overdone. Makes me think you are joking somehow.
Cool stuff though, keep em comming!
First of all, I think you jumped a couple of steps between the 1st and 2nd picture. :grin:
Second thing is that the hair on the left (her right) kind of has too much volume, kind of fights gravity and stretches too much on the left.
Quote from: Anian on Thu 20/12/2012 19:17:00
First of all, I think you jumped a couple of steps between the 1st and 2nd picture. :grin:
True- but believe me, you don't want to see me failing to draw a circle a dozen times ;)
Quote from: Anian on Thu 20/12/2012 19:17:00
Second thing is that the hair on the left (her right) kind of has too much volume, kind of fights gravity and stretches too much on the left.
Ah, right. Yes. It looks better in the reference; I think there was movement there, but I see what you mean. Shouldn't be too hard to fix though.
Quote from: Anian on Thu 20/12/2012 19:17:00
First of all, I think you jumped a couple of steps between the 1st and 2nd picture. :grin:
Second thing is that the hair on the left (her right) kind of has too much volume, kind of fights gravity and stretches too much on the left.
Trust you to always look on the bright side o' life, Anian.
Looks feckin awesome Ghost.
Quote from: Onker games on Thu 20/12/2012 21:20:08
Trust you to always look on the bright side o' life, Anian.
This is actually one of the rare occasions I really wasn't being negative. Constructive criticism makes people better. The drawing is really good so far, certainly better than what I can draw, why not make it even better?
You seem to be off to a good start. Looks really nice. I think every digital artist has a different way of handling layers. I handle mine pretty much like you did.
C&C is always appreciated; I often don't see the woods for all the trees when I am working on a picture...
Completed, too. I see a couple of flaws- the hair is still pretty fuzzy and I'm not fully happy with the face's shading... then again, it's been a while since I drew on a tablet. Thoughts?
(http://i.imgur.com/cqab6.png)
Kept the sketch lines, but reduced their opacity to 65%. Mostly brushwork in this one, with a bit of smudge tool for the hair. Shading is a mix of picking colours and applying them with a soft brush, and burn/dodge tool (which I usually try to avoid; feels like cheating). Twelve layers used, to keep hair, face and pullover separated- but all shading is done on one layer.
The line drawing was pretty clean and strong. I think the patchy shading is the most distracting part of the whole.
Don't try to add so much definition by shading, just use it more subtly in support of the lines.
I think It might be helpful to start playing in black/white/grey, that can help getting more feeling for plotting/balancing density values.
That's one pretty girl. Nice picture.
Quote from: tamatic on Fri 21/12/2012 12:09:34
I think It might be helpful to start playing in black/white/grey, that can help getting more feeling for plotting/balancing density values.
That sounds like a good tip- thank you!
I like the lineart and the choice of colors, the eyes are great too, but the shading of the hair looks flat. If you desaturate the picture you can see that there are no volumes defined for it. Try to think of the shapes and the lightsource and shade accordingly.
Hm, the last version reminds me of certain modern comic books where they scan the line art and colour it digitally.
Your "pencil sketch" is by far the strongest piece here (it's actually very good), while the coloured picture is at best a very early step in a long process. There are way too many highlights scattered over the portrait, and rather generic ones too - it's like every protruding shape has got its own shiny little highlight, and it's distracting.
Here's a quick paint-over:
[imgzoom]http://www.esseb.com/andail/graphics/portraitover.png[/imgzoom]
I lowered the saturation and tried to settle with one colour to focus on. I always start with very low-saturated colours, and then I paint with lights, so to speak. Remember, it's only coloured if it's lit up, and it should only be lit up if it's in focus; otherwise tone it down.
Instead of highlighting various parts, settle for a direction and see if you can sculpt the shapes out of it.
Quote from: Andail on Sat 22/12/2012 21:46:56
Here's a quick paint-over
I see I have a long way in front of me. That's really great, Andail, and a good source for learning and improving. Thanks a lot!
I'm still not so great at this but I am learning and have got alot better over the past few bits.
QuoteInstead of highlighting various parts, settle for a direction and see if you can sculpt the shapes out of it.
That ^
Honestly I can't really add much that Andail hasnt said or shown in his draw over... :( Great sketch btw!
I made a PSD while coloring your lineart, I think it contains a good base to get things started when coloring a painting with layers, especially when you are less experienced with painting and light as it allows a way to keep everything organized and you can apply it one by one in a logical way. Even if you paint from a reference I think it would be very educational to use layers this way as you can really see how it should be on the photo and you understand how to apply it yourself when painting. Instead of trying and just copy the colors bit by bit. And when you are done you can start looking into how you can improve it as a piece of art and not a copy, maybe enhance some bounce light to pop some forms out more? What about adding a little rim light to really define the silhouette and make it more interesting?
I think the most important thing is to read up in light and color, when one get the idea of light the rest becomes much easier as you can motivate your choices and have the answers to the problems.
And you can apply your own style: colorful, dark, simplified, detailed etc. Doesn't really matter as it's just an interpretation of how light and color actually work. You will also start making artistic choices where you know that it's not how it would be in real life but you are looking for a certain effect.
(great drawing by the way!)
(http://www.danielthomas.se/upload/pics/Paintover.jpg)
http://www.danielthomas.se/upload/pics/Paintover.psd
This is a tip someone told me which really helped.
If you pick a lighter version of a colour sometimes it doesn't look that good, but if you change the hue a bit (sort of like how the highlight of an orange can be more yellow it looks a bit bit better)
(http://i.imgur.com/THgKC.jpg)
Nice picture!
Quote from: Daniel Thomas on Sun 23/12/2012 09:14:00
I made a PSD while coloring your lineart...
That's one amazing paintover- thank you for taking the time to do that! The PSD file's interesting; I see how ambient and occlusion work and I feel really stupid now for just relying on dodge/burn...
One question; what exactly is the "adding some punch" layer? I see the effect, but is it based on some concept, or just a gut-feeling addition?
Quote from: Ghost on Sun 23/12/2012 14:43:57
One question; what exactly is the "adding some punch" layer? I see the effect, but is it based on some concept, or just a gut-feeling addition?
Just adding some punch so it's not so flat and even, to be honest it is very flat(especially cheeks and hair) because I didn't spend so much time working up the forms, just a mater of time. Gut-feeling sounds like a good way of explaining it.
Hehe, and here I was worrying I had skipped a step too many in the paint-over...
Beautiful portrait, Daniel, as always :)
Quote from: Andail on Sun 23/12/2012 22:16:21
Hehe, and here I was worrying I had skipped a step too many in the paint-over...
Beautiful portrait, Daniel, as always :)
It's all in the PSD, step by step. ;)
Thanks!
Daniel do you always do your layer setup like that?
I pretty much just keep all objects on one layer each object and paint on that. (Not really utilizing blending modes and stuff like that normally.)
No, I don't. It's just a good way to keep control over what you're doing.
Frito, using few layers is convenient and smart, especially when you're not working on big images.
It's kind of a matter of personal preference and skill I think. More layers gives you more control and over individual effects and is a nice way of having a backup/history image available for each bigger step you made. (there's also snapshot option in history panel, but that is purely for backup and not really convenient for slight modifications and changes).
Again, this is a rather small image, when you're working on 4000x4000px at 300dpi images and such, then the extra layers will reduce the speed of things, almost no matter what machine you have.
Guys like FZD (http://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL) work with very few layers usually, but they're industrial level professionals.
I use layers but normally for each part. Like... Head Arms Torso ect and the odd detail over it.
I was more or less referring to his use of blending modes. (I use one for highlights and use overlay sometimes.)
But yeah I've had documents with 90ish layers before. I have only noticed lag when I use that coupled with photoshops animation.
The sketch is nice and the colouring you did had a nice comic style feel to it. But I agree with Andail as well. Also, the PSD from Daniel looks like it could be very helpful (thanks for posting that by the way).
Great drawing and good luck with future pieces :)
Some excellent advice here already, so I'll just throw in a few cents about a somewhat overlooked point:
One common occurrence when people start using larger brushes is that they go for the big smooth ones, as they tend give a pretty decent result quite easily, perhaps not realistic, but something in the ballpark.
The problem with large smooth blobs, or at least one problem, is that they're not very good at conveying forms/mass, and one of the purposes of lighting/shading is to explain to the viewer exactly what kind of object they're looking at.
With outlines, this isn't a bit issue, we know how to read them (usually), and the lighting/shading mostly acts as a filler, but once you move to an outline free painterly style, things get rather messy.
So the trick is knowing when to go for the smooth brush (or paint it smooth(ish) with a sharp brush), and when to go for the sharp (or just a smaller version of the smooth brush).
The following is a simplified take on lighting, but it's a pretty good place to start:
(http://marcus.krupa.se/AGS/ghost_lighting_cylinder_01.png)
So here's a simple cylinder, and what you have are two different kind of occurrences: a large smooth light transition on the cylinder body, and a sharp cast shadow.
The smooth transition is due to the cylinder gradually turning away from the light source, reflecting less and less of it into our eyes.
The shadow on the other hand is sharp, since what you see is the light on the table obscured by the cylinder, which is a sharp solid object. (Note: this is a simplified take on it)
----
If we apply the same rules to your outlines (skipping out on details, and going for the larger shapes), it becomes something like this:
(http://marcus.krupa.se/AGS/ghost_lighting_anim.gif)
(animated)
(http://marcus.krupa.se/AGS/ghost_lighting_clay_01.png)
So what we end up with when we remove the outlines is something akin to a painting of some clay sculpture, where you can read the main shapes and light without outline assistance, which is kinda what you hope for when you're working on lighting.
(Should note that this is very simplistic lighting)
Here are the different transitions marked out:
(http://marcus.krupa.se/AGS/ghost_lighting_clay_w_notes.png)
----
So, that's pretty much it, making things sharp when they're supposed to be, and making them smooth when they ought to. Hope it helps!
Wow, thanks for this explanation that even I was able to understand. Just one question: How would you go from the clay statue to a colored version for example with the colors Andail used?
WOW :shocked:
Loominous, this is really impressive!
Thank you for this great explanation!
(http://www.smileyvault.com/albums/userpics/12962/love.gif)
Quote from: loominous on Sat 05/01/2013 12:01:33
(http://marcus.krupa.se/AGS/ghost_lighting_anim.gif)
That is both impressive and really, really useful. I assume it'd mostly be used as a reference, similar to "lightmaps"? I see I have a long, long road before me, but just looking at all your paintovers makes me eager to walk that road. Thanks to all of you! And keep it coming, of course!
Oh, you can use it as a lighting foundation if you want, where you just push it further, but it was mostly just to demonstrate smooth/sharp value transitions.
Taking this route can actually be helpful, since you clearly see how much light all areas are receiving, whereas if you started by making areas darker/lighter (like making the hair darker, and the eye whites brighter), it would be more difficult to determine how much light they're picking up relative to the other areas.
So if you'd want to take it further, you just need to start adding colours/values to the different areas, as you have the basic lighting done (this "clay" basis lacks any highlights as well, so you'd have to add those, if you want any that is, as not all styles include them).
Here's an animated gif where I've taken it towards something comic book like (as you didn't want it too realistic), a style I'm not at all used to, so it's not very good, but it could be of some assistance I suppose:
(http://marcus.krupa.se/AGS/ghost_lighting_from_clay_to_colours_01.gif)
(animated)
The psd file (1.5ish mb) (http://ghost_lighting_from_clay_to_colours.psd)