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Looks cool Bt! I really like the sky.

Well, it is very saturated - but you already pointed that out. The sand should get lighter and less saturated further away as well, instead of darker. It also needs light and shade - at the moment it's kind of flat. When colouring, try and do the 'shading' correctly instead of putting down flat colours - it makes life easier when you start texturing (after all, how we see texture depends on how light falls on it ).Ã, 

This is a paintover I did... I know that the left cactus isn't very good, but I tried to do something a bit different from what I usually do I also didn't make the shadows too long, though they would be longer in real life. Umm... the green used might not be the type of green in cactii either. Hope it helps anyway

Very well rendered Looking forward to seeing more

The grass is better - it's easier to tell it apart from the trees now... just now it needs to be less 'green' - maybe add some yellow greens as well?

Anyway, with the trees - holes can help if it is sparsely leafed, but I think you may have to start over with the foliage, because the overall shape of the leaves is rather round (and most trees aren't quite as uniform as that). It will help to define the branching, because then it helps you to know how the leaves will sit on the tree.



Ok, I found this pic on Google, and annotated it. The holes in the tree show the branching. Some of the branches come out of the screen towards the viewer, and so the foliage coming off those branches will be facing us. Other branches are headed more vertically up, so we see less of the foliage coming off them. And for the branches pointing away, you won't tend to see the foliage, though you might see the underside of it through the 'holes' of the tree. You sort of have to think about the tree as a three dimensional shape when drawing it. The bunches of leaves will cast shadows on the inner parts of the tree, so you will get areas that are darker underneath the groups of leaves. Note that areas in shadows will be less saturated than those in full light.

As for details, don't worry about it until the light, shadows and colour are alright, because that's what makes the picture work

Looks nice My main crit would be that the tree foliage looks like round blobs at the moment - maybe you could show more branching rather than having a trunk and leaves piled all on top of it. Having some gaps in the foliage to show a bit of sky or whatever will also make it more convincing.

With the colouring, it could do with some highlights overall; more contrast between brights and darks to make it more dramatic. At the moment the green is a bit dark overall - adding bright shades and hues of green could fix it. It would be nice to see different greens used for the trees compared to the grass too. It's good for a first attempt though

Andail was pointing out that the lighting wasn't completely correct - it was something I overlooked. The 'hills' in his paintover are actually areas where it should be brighter Because the trees are lighter on the right side, and shadowed on the left side, one would have to assume that the sun light is coming from the east (so little light touches the left side of the trees and hence they appear darker), and shadows are cast towards the west. So the lighting is correct now, unless you want to redefine the placement of the source of light.

Stuh is right about the flowers - they should get much more smaller as the forest gets deeper (perspective).

You can use the paintover if you want - you'll have to fix up the lighting on the log in the png version, and tidy it up here and there as well.

Umm... no I didn't save it in png format *feels a bit sheepish*

I take it you wanted to look at the leaves in greater detail? (Most people have problems with that, myself included)

I had a go at doing the foliage again, this time as a png image I couldn't replicate the same results as before though...


I used the scattered maple leaves brush, size 3. As I said before, I don't really paint leaves like this, it was just a quickie. The main idea is to have an idea of how the leaves should sit on the tree, and which parts of the tree would be in the light or in the shade...Ã, 

Actually, the water should be darker and more murky, because the forest is thicker and so there is less sky for the water to reflect off. In the first picture, the sky in the background indicates there's enough light, so the water was fine there.

I actually liked the first version better - with the horizon you could have drawn some mountains in the distance, and that could have fixed it up (you can also say that it's the edge of the forest, which would explain why it didn't seem to get thicker).

With the second version, the trees further away should look darker (like as you walk into the forest, it gets thicker, and hence less light) .

About the tree foliage - well, it's nice in a stylised way If you're aiming for something more realistic, maybe it's better to define the areas of the tree in which the leaves are coming out towards the viewer. Leaves will cast shadows on itself, so you should have some areas which are brighter, others that are darker...

The grass, I think is fine. If you want sharper grass though, maybe it's better not to use the grass brush in photoshop (Or choose two colours that contrast a lot more).

I thought lighting could have been brought out more, shadows particularly.

Quick rough paintover of some of my suggestions:


For the foliage I used the leaf brush, and two different greens. I don't usually use that brush (I usually paint with a 1-pixel round brush).

It's a great improvement on your previous paintings Reptile Keep it up.

The backgrounds are great!Ã, 

Just as a suggestion, I'd work on the walking animation a bit more. I don't think his body should swing from side to side quite that much (the torso should move a bit, but not as exaggerated as you have there).

Some good work here, I look forward to seeing it finished.

It's a nice tutorial and is easy to follow I like your choice of colours - especially the reds, greens and yellows. I don't necessarily agree on all the techniques, but that's just me and my way of doing things ;)Ã, 

Anyway, with regards to perspective (though I could always improve myself )- in your town scene, the problem is that the front wall is directly facing the viewer. Since we are looking at the front of the building straight on, we shouldn't be able to see the sides of the building as you have drawn (because the walls meet at 90 degrees). If the buildings were drawn facing at an angle to us, then we should be able to see the sides. Drawing face on, you should have a vanishing point of some sort, where the lines will eventually converge.



Hope this helps