Huzzah, thanks for the feedback, Boron!



I haven't made much progress because I've been away from the tablet, but I've been messing around some more. Changed the pose on the arm, but I think the point about foreshortening will still be useful as I refine. Scaled the daughter up some, messed with the sneaker even though now its more obscured, and still need to fix the key chain.

Hey everyone,

Some context: I've been working on a digital painting assignment that asks for a composition conveying the theme of "life," whether through a nostalgic childhood scene or a picture showing the passage of time, or what have you. I think I have the concept nailed down okay (apologies for the roughness), but I really want to push the realism in this piece. My main qualms in that regard are texture and anatomy. To elaborate on those points:

-I'm not satisfied with the texture in my last few (digital) paintings because I relied on the same default PS brush too much, to the point where everything looked like it was made of the same stuff. That said, I don't know where or how to begin when branching out with textures. Do I just grab any brush that "feels" right for the material and go with it?

-As far as anatomy, I feel like the man's shoulders don't connect to his body right, and I'm worried about proportions, too. Sometimes some body parts, like their heads, look way too big or small. (Which is why I should spend more time actually drawing people, ugh.)

Spoiler: Original
Spoiler: Full-size image original

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

Edit 12/1/15: Small update. Experimenting with brushes/textures and color, and trying to fix some facial anatomy. Going to color the man and daughter eventually as well.

This is looking great, FRAWG! You deserve better critique than I can give, but whatever!

I made you a really messy edit on the first mockup (some of things apply to the the other mockup, others are less relevant). Here are the main points, as I see them:

-The floor has a really well-executed texture and is pretty distinctive, but my immediate thought is that I would stub my toe every five seconds if I were walking around in the room. Maybe try toning down the contrast between the highlight and shadow to decrease the perceived sticking-out of the boards? Some areas already do this really nicely, too, especially towards the left of the room. In case it's any help, here are a bunch of wood board references -- most are from Frogatto, plus a piece by Cyangmou: Spoiler

-I used filters to play around with increasing the brightness and saturation and shifting the hue more towards red. This could be a stylistic choice, but I think your colors could do with a little more pop.

-The planes of the tables/shelves could use more contrast to add more form; they look a tiny bit flat right now.


I wish I could be more thorough, but that's all I've got for the moment. I hope this helps, and good luck with this whole project!

Necro-post (sorry!) more than a year later . . .
Spoiler


So I've made some progress and a lot of changes, and I feel pretty much done with the characters besides minor details, but the text is still pretty bad. I was thinking of trying to merge some Victorian script with ancient Greek lettering; obviously haven't had luck there yet. Thoughts and/or edits on the text or any other part of the image would be much appreciated!