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I believe this concludes this workshop then (thanks to Misj' for the nice table of content, which I've added to the first post as well).

So, nice job everyone, and let's figure out what the next workshop should be about, and a nice format (short n sweet sounds good after this one).

Good idea, should probably add one for the first workshop as well.

Would you mind doing one for this workshop?

Misj, cat, how long do you guys think you're gonna need?

Thinking about ending it, so we can rest n start a new focused one in a while, which might be preferable to dragging this one on.

Sure, go ahead.

Thanks, managed to salvage most of my links (the activity coincided with a crash at my isp).

Perhaps it could remain open for a day or so if someone else is able to fix their links (many of the participants used free hosting, so there's quite the amount of missing links).

Would some moderator mind unlocking the old one for a bit so I can just fix the main intro image links (such as the script, etc) (for some reason I didn't host them on my standard server). Shame to have the whole intro missing.

First edition

I'm weird the opposite way, plain surfaces unnerve me, so I clutter things up intentionally.

Can someone link me to Background Workshop 1

First edition

For some reason the activity image urls aren't working anymore, will see if I can fix them.

I regularly hide all panels (it's a single button in Painter) when I'm don't have to switch between layers or brushes. I love the distraction-free image-only view. The navigation-panel is also turned off in that view, so it wouldn't be onscreen constantly. More important though: every panel costs screen real estate. The costs of the navigation panel - to me - is more than the reward (compared to a quick zoom). So it's one of the panels I always turn off.

Yes, I can buy a bigger monitor/cintiq, but I always preferred smaller ones. It's a personal taste (I'm the same with paper. I love drawing on A5 or A6 over A4) that's not for everyone; but I find it generally works better for my workflow and style.

Not to question your preferences, but wouldn't having a larger monitor with the tools exposed, and have the image area cover only part of the screen be akin to having a large desk with a small paper on it?

I tend to just keep looking at the navigator window in photoshop, since it provides a constant thumbnail view.



So my eyes just keep darting back n forth, kinda like the overview map in a game (like starcraft, where also, to make a rather contrived analogy, it's vital to keep the big picture in mind even when you're preoccupied with details, or you might often win the battle, but lose the war).

This is one of the issues with working on each part separately, instead of working iteratively on the whole piece, since you're not relating the parts to the whole to the same extent.

Regarding reflections:

I like to think of them as more or less transparent mirros. So, the steps would be:

1. Paint the inside om the room, as if there was no window, just a hole.
2. Paint a mirror in the place of the window. Usually this means making a reflection of the window pane, and the sky, so just make a perfect reflection.
3. If your program allows it, set the blending mode of the layer to "screen". The screen blending mode will make the layer only brighten the image, (it's the opposite of Multiply, which will only darken), and that's exactly what we want, since a reflection can only add light, not darkness.
4. Lower the opacity of the layer, to a desirable level.

Nerd fact: Surfaces are more or less reflective depending from what angle we're looking at them, the more straight on we're looking at a surface, the less reflective it is, and the sharper the angle we're looking at it with, the more reflective it is.

Can test this by holding up a fairly reflective object, and changing the viewing angle from straight on, and from almost completely from the side.

A window that we're looking at straight on will reflect some of the environment, while if we're looking at it from almost completely from the side, the reflection will be very clear, and probably obscure anything inside.

Getting this wrong is not a big deal, but it can we worth noting, and incorporating on reflective surfaces, and objects in general (normally just by making surfaces brighter that are at a sharp angle (providing that there's some light stuff behind to reflect), and doing it gradually if the object is round (making them brighter the closer they are to the edge).

(For the curious, it's called the Fresnel Effect, here's some article about it I just googled: http://filmicgames.com/archives/557)

The kind of ink art I mean is kinda like this, which was like the 2nd google image that popped up with the queary "inkart":



Now the above is kinda extreme, but I often see the same tendencies in less cluttered work.

Then you have artists like Bill Watersson, which style your former entry kinda was in, who are more restrictive (and just annoyingly good).

Um, why was the Workshop thread locked?

Ben, I think your picture is nearly perfect, and would never think of touching it had you not invited me

Btw, anyone should feel free modifying mine, was gonna upload a photoshop file for easy editing, but my coloring system makes it tricky, perhaps gonna add coloring file n one with different layers.

Good to see you joining in Andail (though one day after the deadline).

Painters tend to fake details, and they are extremely good at it. They make great choices which areas should have real texture and which areas can do with a couple of brushstrokes. This is something I can't (yet) get my head around, and it's something really mysterious to me.

I think the main difference is that painters take a holistic approach to a piece, where it's not enough that the parts are good on their own, the main thing is the whole.

This is why outline based approaches such as the one you seem to be taking make me nervous, because you work on the parts one at a time, instead of iterating the whole piece. Your method does make sure that all the parts look detailed n nice early on, but it says very little about how the piece will work as a whole.

The iterative approach ensures that everything is working together, and since you incrementally add details to all areas, some areas might not be worth having any details in, since some areas need to be suppressed or become distracting when seen as part of the whole. So  instead of each part becoming a sort of independent piece in itself, the iterative approach subjugates all parts to the whole.

This is why I often have problem a with ink artist's work, where you have this huge bunch of details and shadows, but very little focus.

naturally, once everyone has finished their piece and we've all recovered from such intense drawing/feedback/critiquing over the last month.

I've been pondering what one can do about the fatigue issue that seems to set in about halfway through, and my thought so far is that it's worth exploring more focused workshops.

For instance, for a character workshop it can simply be only about creating a solid silhouette, the rest would be a regular sprite jam for example, or for a background workshop it can focus only on colors.

This way we can sort of focus our energy on that issues, and make the whole thing shorter.

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How's your piece coming along Misj' btw?

First, and I think you agree, the placement of the character is less than ideal.

Actually had him at the center first, since the idea was to have him block the pathway down to the restaurant area, but thought he covered up too much of the background.

The idea behind the layout was to have the walkable area be very close n limited, with instead a vista of the main harbor area. So in a way it's good that the eye is drawn to the background, since the foreground really only has to feature the harbormaster's office, and the guy and the stand really aren't any important. His red hair isn't ideal for making him pop either, since it blends into the background, and I should probably have placed him higher up as well, to center him more in the picture (and give space to pass him), but the character was just something I threw in since I was bored of the painting, so don't pay any attention to him.

Having no strong opinions on the construction of the ground, here's some progress instead:

ps. I know this talk about colors, gamuts, etc. is quite technical almost to a non-artistic level, but I really like it, and I think it helps people - at least it helps me - to understand the basic concepts of certain techniques that you can't really see from simple tutorials or progress-images. So I really like this part of the workshop.

I'm always torn in these cases - this kind of technical dissection does lead to a clearer grasp of why stuff does n doesn't work - but I do treasure the romantic side of painting. The scientist in me does tend to get his way in the end though.

For the record, I did change several colors since that post because - as I said earlier - certain hues really didn't fit within my limited palette.

Yea, I figured (but had to take what was available).

I do like the new palette much more, so I pulled out the vectorscope (it's just a viewing mode in Adobe Premiere, if anyone is curious), and this is what it yielded:



So by the looks of it, the green range has been suppressed, and the warm (orange to magenta) and cool (cyans to purples) ranges have been expanded. So a more focused palette, as you said.

So in comparison to Ben's n my piece, you have two ranges, one warmer, though still rather cool, and the other plain cool, with both ranges being pretty much equally dominant, whereas we have a dominant warm range, with single peak of cools.

This equal dominance (sounds like an oxymoron) might be an issue, perhaps try pushing one of them more? I rarely deal with those kind of palettes though, so perhaps it's common.