cowardly imp

[r1k]

Im trying to learn digital painting to do some illustrations for a card game Im making, and figured you guys could help me to improve faster.  So I painted this earlier and I think it could use some improvement, albiet its still kind of rough at this point.  Its for the card "cowardly Imp" so I thought it would be funny to have the imp afriad of a kitten.

I scaled it down a little to post here.
This was my first try using Mypaint, since I was trying to avoid that "photoshopy look" if you know what I mean, but I painted over it roughly in photoshop at the end a little.  Im not to concerned about having everything very smooth since it would be displayed smaller on an actual card.  Actually thats one thing I tend to dislike about alot of digital painting is that everything is too smooth and blended.
heres 1 of the references I used, I cant find the other one:
http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/smartphoto/smartphoto1009/smartphoto100900503/7874208-expressions-handsome-man-is-terrified-and-feeling-fear--open-mouth.jpg

any edits would be highly appreciated.

edit: I just did this really quickly but Im thinking about a more graphic approach to the shadows.

[Psiweapon]

Hey, cool pic! Very interesting imp!

About the black shadows, you have to think whether you want the pic to look "inked" or not.

The mouth, eyes and immediately surrounding areas are very well defined. The black shadows in the first version aren't well defined, but look cool nonetheless.

The thumb we can see in the imp's left hand (on the right half of the image) really just shouldn't be there, it looks awkward. Or if it just is not a thumb, you should do something about it anyways because it reads like one.

[r1k]

yes I think I want to go for a more inked look.  Perhapes I should study some comic books to see how they do it since I have trouble acheiving that look.  About the thumb you are right I could not notice it before but its making the hand look awkward.  Thanks.

[Psiweapon]

Yes, that thumb thing is the kind of error one somehow manages to not notice, but that once seen cannot be unseen. Like doble elbows and other shit. Happens to everyone of us, I think

[Mathias]

. . . trying to avoid that "photoshopy look" if you know what I mean . . .

No, what is the "Photoshoppy look"? Most concept artists use PS based on what I've seen. Are you aware of Photoshop's new media brushes?

But it sounds like you're having a style choice crisis. Bold outlines wouldn't be bad move I don't think. Though, you'll be moving further away from rough oil paint looking stuff and more towards cartoon/comic as a result, probably. The blending of basic styles is always possible, though doesn't always work.

And made me think of this, for reference. Kind of a joke . . .

The cat really bugs me. Looks like you found a reference photo, painted over it, then awkwardly turned it 90° to make it look like it's a cute sprawling kitten, whereas it looks like it's actually from a photo of a cat jumping up on its hing legs swatting at something.

A small composition suggestion - change the horns to be smaller and not exceed the canvas. Why give the eye something to trail away out of your image?

Facial expressions are so hard, but I don't really interpret his as fear. More so, it seems like he's in shock that his pet cat has fallen down and he's worried it's hurt itself. Like an old lady. An old cat lady.

Lighting - pretty omni-lit scene here. Have you thought about classic horror lighting? No, I don't think you have. But I think you have now. What do you think? How about a green light source? That's an even bigger tip of the hat to classic horror. Could be kewl . . .

[Facet]

Mathias! I think this is finished now and r1k moved on to another one in a series. A bunch of posts got swallowed earlier, giving pretty much exactly that advice ; I did a dramatic lighting/tangent-less kitty edit, and Ymedron did an expression one, here's mine:



Agree on the 'PS look' I guess by that people mean smudgy airbrush and PS is really whatever you make of it, I don't think Mypaint has much over it in terms of emulating trad. materials (although I think the new 'real media' stuff in PS is a bit naff atm ), but Mypaint definitely does lack a whole bunch of versatility beyond the brushes.   

[Mathias]

What up, Facet!

Aw he did?? I didn't know.

(Are you saying there was a forum database hiccup causing posts to disappear? Not cool!)

Bahaha @ your edit! Love it. And whoa, that's like the roughest edit in the history of this board haha. But very effective - I see exactly where you're going with it.

Never tried MyPaint. Once messed with Corel Painter (wow) as a PS alternative, but I can't seem to get away from PS, since it does everything else so well that I need to do to my stuff. I can never just "paint" - I use a lot of shmancy tricks.

[Facet]

Yeah, unfortunately everything was rolled back a bit, there's a post about it up top.

Bahaha @ your edit! Love it. And whoa, that's like the roughest edit in the history of this board haha. But very effective - I see exactly where you're going with it.

Ta, 'the roughest edit' - that sounds like a challenge

I used to work semi-regularly with Painter for precisely that flashy stuff but christ is it slow (at least with my hardware), and kinda clumsy and unreliable sometimes. Taking full advantage of all the digital conveniences that are available (in PS) just makes sense. Painter can export .psds for ease of jumping about though, which is nice.

[Mathias]

Gaahhh, information loss sucks.

___


Yep, Painter is cool. But yeah, also kind of quirky. As for me, I'm simply not advanced enough to want to graduate from Photoshop yet. Though now I question the logic in using a different program even if/once I get to a point where I think I've mastered Photoshop as a medium (not gonna happen!). It simply does so much, and so well.

[Ymedron]

If you are interested in my expression-edit, here it is  It's a bit derpy looking at it now, but meh.