More painting practice

[Andail]

Hey Ryan! Yeah that was me, I started a paint-over but had to stop prematurely, so I just uploaded what I had. Afterwards I realised it was too rushed to serve as a paint-over, so I removed it until I could work with it some more.
Anyways, my points were:

* You have gone too far with the atmospheric colouring/lighting. It's good that colours don't wander off in all directions, but right now it looks like you're watching the scene through a coloured lens.

* Too saturated, and too low contrasts. Sure, large chunks of pitch black are good to avoid, but you need more dark than that, or everything will appear to be covered in a haze. Likewise, try to focus on a part of your composition and increase the light/dark contrasts there.

Well, I'll return a bit later with a paintover.

[loominous]

Cool house!

Problems with mixing light source colours, such as yellow in this case, often occur when the area's colour is changed while the value remains fairly intact, and you end up with these somewhat icky blends. This is one reason to give the light sources more punch, but that on the other hand has unfortunate side effects of its own, such as killing certain moods, so it all boils down to style choices. With your impressive sketching rate I'm sure you'll find a light setup that provides focus and keeps the nice mood soon enough.

A lighting thing to try out is what's called the 'fresnel' effect, which can be seen being turned on n off in this example:



The effect might sound a bit confusing, but the practical application when painting is simple. Basically it states that most objects become more reflective the sharper the angle we view them from. So in case of the spheres below, the outer edges will be reflecting the background more clearly than the "middle" area, which we view more straight on.



So to put it in practice in your latest entry, instead of having the edges of the house be a darker value, almost like an outline, instead brighten them up, particular those regions which reflect the sky (to be accurate, only make the edges lighter if they reflect areas that are lighter than the object - if the background area is darker, then the edges should get darker, as the object is reflecting a dark area, like a mirror reflecting a dark room).

It's one of those little things that help give objects volume and is easy to implement, but which are hard to spot without any guidance. To what degree you want to implement it is again a style choice.

If the above confuses anyone, feel free to ask for any clarifications, and though I'm hardly an expert on the subject, the community's 3d folks can most likely offer greater insights.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Really like that 'fresnel' effect, you added to that tree loomy.  It really punches you in the face making it look 3d.
See, these Ben threads really DO teach people something.  I've learned plenty from them.

Hey Ryan! Yeah that was me[..]

Ya! That's what I thought!  Before I posted that earlier today I was searching all through this thread trying to find out where the heck I saw that paint over, due to it suddenly being gone.  I started to wonder if it was something I dreamt lastnight.  It's good to know I'm still somewhat sane.

I think it was for the reason you opened the sky making it look much less framed in, is the reason it stuck in my mind.  It was an eye opener for me on laying out the scenes.

[Andail]

Well, might as well publish it again:


It was a rather quick sketch, don't know how much of an improvement it actually is.

original: