AuthorTopic: Victorian girl  (Read 45393 times)

Offline Helm

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Re: Victorian girl

Reply #30 on: May 09, 2011, 04:46:18 pm
The problem I see is that the rendering is very procedural for every different surface and accessory or body part. It's not a cohesive look, it looks kinda plastic and disjointed. This is I fear an issue with the brushing: there's no unifying technique, everything (finished) is rendered as finely as possible but without heed to the overal composition. Do you really need visible lace for example? Do you need cleanly reflective embroidery on the corset?

Offline JJ Naas

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Re: Victorian girl

Reply #31 on: May 09, 2011, 07:04:54 pm
Don't forget to work on the bg as well. Backgrounds that have that "oh crap, I guess need to draw a background as well.." -feel to them annoy me big time. That doesn't mean it needs to be sharp and in focus, full of tiny detail, but just.. try to avoid it looking sloppy compared to the foreground.

Offline Mathias

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Re: Victorian girl

Reply #32 on: May 09, 2011, 09:25:16 pm
Helm, yeah that's definitely a flaw Ryu helped to expose. I do prefer his more stylish intuitively painted image over my calculated realistic wanna-be one.


Seems logical to have an actual size (not scaled, just cropped) chunk to look at, if this topic is coming up:



So there's that. Not too bad up close I hope. Apparently, realism is what I've been targeting, but without the effort really required to create a realistic image. Rather, this is polished digi paint with a grandiose desire to be realistic, as opposed to impressionistic or clearly painterly.

But where do you draw the line? When do you know to stop refining? This is a question I'm trying to answer. I just do what comes naturally . . . and whatever happens, happens, hehe.

I do anything when doing this stuff - paint with traditional media simulating brushes, use vector shapes, create flat patterns and apply a series or warps to bend them on flat planes into what is supposed to look 3D (her lace gloves - each finger is done separately, shiny cloak border is painstakingly warped to flow with contour of cloak, etc). I put it all together as I work.

Started with 2 layers, but things quickly got out of hand. Yes, very compartmentalized, which is a pain. See my layers stack if you dare.


But someone tell me this, how do these 1 layer guys deal with things like completely different materials juxtaposed together and not ruin everything as they paint? Look above at the shiny embroidery on her vest area, or the shiny border on the cloak. You can't paint them simultaneously - the cloak fabric is mat, while the border is way more reflective because it's satin or something, and it has fine exact edges you can't accidentally paint over while stroking down light and dark grey on the cloak when defining the folds.

Must I paint everything first that's on the bottom, polish it up, and then start stacking on things as they appear closer to the viewer? My solution for this is a maddening amount of layers. Highly flexible, but also highly irritating because it almost becomes scientific.
The old classic painters didn't have layer stacks and they managed! I guess I just have a lot to learn.




What I wish I could get myself to do is create a palette of main colors, have a predefined set of brushes which I don't modify while painting and just make do with that. Here's a thought - we try to simulate traditional painting when we create these images, right? Why then, do we assume we can violate the rules/limitations of traditional painting and still reap the rewards of a genuinely painterly end-result? Either I need to constrain my digi painting practices to bring them more in line with real actual traditional paint or I need to drop the pretense and just go on to something entirely and honestly digital in nature and appearance.



@ JJ - I hear that! The bg is a stand-in. Final bg will be similar, supporting the fg mostly and hopefully not drawing too much attention)
« Last Edit: May 09, 2011, 09:32:41 pm by Mathias »

Offline pistachio

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Re: Victorian girl

Reply #33 on: May 10, 2011, 04:33:49 am
Hmm...

Hmmmmm...

If you wanted to take that path, maybe, oh I don't know, copy the image--separate file in case you want to go back to your layers and layers of technical layers--and flatten it out, then block out the lighting at about the image size you posted on the forums, maybe a little larger (not the actual size). It's probably not very good advice, considering my current aforementioned stage in the world of art, but it might be worth a try. I suppose it's your skill that matters more than mine in this instance anyway.

Close up, the lighting actually looks deceivingly good, as it's harder to focus on everything unless you stand a distance from the monitor. I can see technical details I normally can't see when the image's scaled down, like super tiny reflections and shadows, even color ramps in a few places. But I think you need to look at the big (little) picture. Like Ryu seemed to have did.
« Last Edit: May 10, 2011, 04:39:04 am by pistachio »

Offline blumunkee

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Re: Victorian girl

Reply #34 on: May 10, 2011, 06:34:08 am
This is a successful illustration, even if it's not going in the direction you originally intended.

If you want to paint like Ryumaru, you have to work at it. Lots of studies and practice. You can't fake a loose painting style, you have to paint loose.

For now, I say keep going with what you've got.  :y:

Offline Mathias

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Re: Victorian girl

Reply #35 on: May 10, 2011, 07:55:12 am
hehe pistachio, I'm definitely not changing my process with this one. Just for the future, I'd love to move to more of a natural way of actually painting, not faking my way through a project like this.



yeah munkee, about the painting style thing, I'm in agreement there for sure. Ryu's put the time in, it's obvious. I have not. I'll keep going with what I've got and seek to evolve my methods as much as possible with each new project. We'll see.

Offline Jeremy

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Re: Victorian girl

Reply #36 on: May 10, 2011, 09:48:08 am
As Helm said, every section is very compartmentalised - colour ramps are near-straight. You have all these reflective fabrics and jewellery and other shiny things, and skin has endless variation in hue, so spread the colour around. Unified palettes <3

quickie paintover, the rose was annoying me with how perfect-looking it was  :-[

Offline st0ven

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Re: Victorian girl

Reply #37 on: May 11, 2011, 12:12:20 am
I think there isnt really much more to say about how to CONSTRUCT your painting any better than Chris did (after all he is the painting master. BTW Chris, its been a while but it looks like youre getting pretty comfy with digital painting at this point?). Theres definitely this feeling that youre focusing very carefully on each particular section or detail of the image without consideration for the whole. The best way to keep that unified is to go broad and blocky/messy and tighten as your forms start to evolve.

If you continue down the path youre going though, i dont think theres much more you really have to worry about doing to 'finish'.



Its a little hard to start mixing in those much needed hues into the painting when its this far along, but as for adding some form and shape into what you have currently, thankfully that shouldnt be too hard.

form wise, since you have such sharp shadows happening with the face and neck, it seems weird how that wouldnt carry over to the shadow being cast by the flower and the arms. Your rose is rendered really nicely, all you really need here is the burn tool to hit some shadows around the edges and underside and accentuate the highlight on the petal tips a bit near the front. the cast shadow should help distinguish the 'underside' of it, as this 'outline' should be one of those 'invisible' kind.

I changed her face a bit, its not perfect, but thought that with a head tiled down position youll need more under brow shadowing, and just some general softening. the shadows near the chin i think should come in to the lip and the chin should catch some light there.

I tried to accentuate your cloth folds a bit, i have this weird feeling about how the actual folds are draping, lots of arrows needed possibly, i think Chris' edit gets that dynamic flow going pretty well though.

the hair i did is pretty messy as you can spend a LONG time on hair to make it look right and i didnt feel like dedicating that much time. Also i dont know exactly whats going on with the hair piece, i sorta fudged it and it looks decidedly terrible (blurry/muddy)

you can probably do this yourself just fine, i just wanted to have some fun with some painting practice as well.

Offline Mathias

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Re: Victorian girl

Reply #38 on: May 11, 2011, 03:50:05 am
AAAAAAAAHHHHHAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRHHHHHHhhhh...>>0

Offline pistachio

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Re: Victorian girl

Reply #39 on: May 11, 2011, 04:28:48 am
Funny how he does that after every better good edit.

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« Last Edit: May 11, 2011, 04:31:31 am by pistachio »