ManicJake's Sketchbook

Hey everyone!
I'm looking to improve so feedback is greatly appreciated.
I'm specifically looking to develop technique/general skill as I haven't done much artistically in the past (I have taken one art course in Primary school, and did a drawing class in college last year).

[Taron]

Hey Jake! Great start for your thread! Foxy!
You've taken an already more complicated subject so early on, which makes it difficult for me to give you any specific advice. At the same time you've already done a great job with it, which makes even harder!

There are a variety of different categories or dimensions that represent challenges in painting:
- composition
- form
- color relationships

- perspective
- lighting

...just to name some of the basics.
I'm assuming you've chosen a reference for this piece, which helps to rely on their colors and forms, but both still remain challenging as you have to interpret them. Once upon a time I've heard that we humans have the tendency to exaggerate observed traits in our mind. Human faces, for example, become essentially caricatures as we remember the length of the nose, the eye positions to it, the size of the chin and so on....we push those aspects, giving greater contrast to different faces. I'm sure we do the same to everything as we memorize it, even while we observe directly at the top layer of our mind. It takes a good deal of practice to go deeper and deal with our ability to interpret those memories and even direct observations. Best there may be to directly compare what you paint to your reference and carefully examine the differences.
Then you may ask yourself why you were pushing certain colors, why forms are stretched or squashed, where more refinement seems necessary and all this kind of stuff.
I'd advice you to go at it piece by piece, as in; category by category. Don't overload yourself.
The most important thing here is not that you do a perfect copy of something. This exercise is for your mind alone! It is about schooling your internal process of seeing and interpreting what you've seen again. Like learning why a 20 meter tall building in your memory becomes a 100m skyscraper, or a slightly green patch on a red floor becomes glowing neon green in your mind and how to correct it all when it's meant to come back out of you again.

You are most certainly on your way and I'm excited to see your coming exercises and masterpieces!

* LIKE * welcome*

[Taron]

Yeah, that's a good start!
The shading on the objects is really nice already. The drop shadows, though, are all over the place and don't quite correspond with the light source.

Ok, I've made you a little example...(even if very rough)

lighting_shadows.jpg (47.18 KiB) Viewed 26309 times

See what I'm doing there? I've used the Grid function to get a fairly consistent perspective. I've moved the box around a bit (uh, my perspective tools still need work!).
Once I've placed my light source, I've projected it's horizontal and depth position onto the ground I chose.
Then I do essentially the same with all the highest edges of each object. In this case that was easy.
Then I connected those ground projected object edges with the ground projected location of the light source. (see all the bright lines).
Then I drew lines from the light source through the highest edges of the objects until they intersected with their corresponding lines on the ground.
Now I have a very good indication where edges of my shadows would be.

Later on you may never have to do that again, if you developed a strong feeling and orientation for those shadows, but somehow they may always surprise you, too, so it's good to keep that technique in mind.

Great start, though!

Welcome

nice fox-painting, but my critics are: I would place a horizon line never through the middle of the image and I would put the fox maybe also more the left or to the right side - because of the GOLDEN RATIO RULE and I would place some little more, e.g. a little mice or so in the foreground - for telling a story - it's just my opinion .. and sorry for my bad english

... great start - if you like you can visit & learn digital painting also on this page: http://www.ctrlpaint.com - ok, matt kohr did use mostly Photoshop, but most of the videos are general rules for painting/drawing, good also for VERVE, Gimp, Krita etc.

hey, foxes always remind me of half cat, half dog.

If looking to improve reference is always something worth looking into.
Personally I often make a mock-up in a 3d software to get a lot of range with shadows and stuff.

blender.org
is free for 3d, lots to learn tho. be warned

[Taron]

Hey Zero, I would never say "never" on all things composition, except maybe to "never" stick religiously to something you've heard or read about. See, thing is, there's an emotional quality to a choice of composition, which should be the deciding factor, whether or not to use a golden ratio or to do anything else. Sometimes the power of a golden ratio placement can come from a differently arranged surrounding. I would advice you not to submit yourself too much to traditional suggestions.
Now, the horizon line suggests a variety of things to the viewer, depending on the rest of the offered perspective. In the case of the fox, I don't find it bad at all to keep it at half height, because it really gives a sense of being eye to eye with the fox, rather than looking down on it. Without anything else in the picture, the horizon line is really the only other clue, you know. So... I don't mind it at all there and it makes it very personal.
But the golden ratio is something every artist should learn and know about. You are absolutely right there!

@ dear Taron, you are right ... - if its possible, we could implement a rating system in our Gallerie? For posted artworks? Good Idea, bad idea? 5 Stars - very good = image, one Star = , ok but I would give him 3 stars for his first pictures, as a beginner in Verve even maybe 4

@dear Shadowcopalypse - Blender is very hard to learn, maybe he will lost making something in 3D very fast? A good idea is also SKETCHUP, its not so powerfull like Blender, but easy in Use and good for making thumbnails and shadow-studies.

But its importing to know, 3D Software is a helper*, but not a replacement for avoiding for learning&doing drawing in perspective I think

*helper for study of shadows/lights/materials and even 'how to paint' Ambient Occlusion Stuff ....

[Taron]

Ask me in a different thread, but: No rating systems here, ever! ...leave this thread to Jake, though, please!