Art Discussion

[Curry]

This thread is for WIPs and art pieces which people want critiqued! Post progress pictures and get advice or help on technique, anatomy, composition, anything at all! Post a picture and the area/subject you want critiqued and other users can give their two cents.

It’s strongly preferred that critiques are kept to this thread where artists are specifically asking for them, to reduce the potential for hurt feelings, as you might not realize how discouraging unsolicited opinions or corrections can be to the artist. Thank you, and please keep critique friendly and objective!

Note - this isn't a tutorial thread! If that's what you're looking for, it's right here.

[Ana Nymus]

Oh, this is a really good idea! I'll be sure to come here with some of my WIP's soon, and I'll help out with constructive criticism if I can

[Guardian G.I.]

Posting to watch and post something later on.

[AquaAurion]

I tried using watercolors and found a nice tutorial. I'm rather pleased with how it turned out, but does anyone have any feedback on the use of watercolors (except for me using too much water)?

[Smirty]

The only advice I'd have would be to use watercolor paper. It's thicker so it doesn't curl.
Other than that I can only point to Nathan Fowkes for inspiration. He has the most... Mind blowing watercolors I've ever seen.  Like him, you can use the light of the paper to peek through to create light (by darkening everything else with rich pigment). I hope that helps!

[AquaAurion]

The only advice I'd have would be to use watercolor paper. It's thicker so it doesn't curl.
Other than that I can only point to Nathan Fowkes for inspiration. He has the most... Mind blowing watercolors I've ever seen.  Like him, you can use the light of the paper to peek through to create light (by darkening everything else with rich pigment). I hope that helps!

I actually used watercolor paper, so I must have used way too much water
Wow! How does he do that with watercolors? Thank you, I'll check out his gallery!

[Curry]

You've got lovely color theory going on there! I'm a big fan of the purple and red tones in the skin. I'd say to not be afraid to darken the shadows more (using too much water would keep the colors pretty light) but other than that it looks really pretty!!

[AquaAurion]

You've got lovely color theory going on there! I'm a big fan of the purple and red tones in the skin. I'd say to not be afraid to darken the shadows more (using too much water would keep the colors pretty light) but other than that it looks really pretty!!

Thank you!
I've started to do darker shading, which is really hard, but I'll try to go outside my safety zone some more!

[Guardian G.I.]

Experimenting with Photoshop's "airbrush build-up effect" function of brushes.

Spoiler: Very very WIP • show

First impressions: very good for blending colours and early work, but very, very messy. Fixing those edges is going to be so painful. I'm also not sure about my composition.

P.S. I wonder if anyone can recognize that eyeball thing and what it's destroying.

[Ana Nymus]

I have a thing which needs critiquing!

Spoiler: show

Specifically, I'm looking for advice on the lighting and the light-dog and stuff. I'm just not entirely happy with it and could use some advice to improve it.

[Rabbit]

Specifically, I'm looking for advice on the lighting and the light-dog and stuff. I'm just not entirely happy with it and could use some advice to improve it.

I'll write a better reply with some examples when I'm not on the go, but for the dog: when you want something to appear to glow don't be afraid to use more saturate colours and some pure white. It'll stand out even better since the rest of your image has no bright highlights. Maybe try out a near-white shade of purple for the dog, "shaded" and outlined with a brighter one? Add contrast, basically.

For the shading on the character it's the same idea, basically: you've got the placement of the highlights down pretty well, so now's the time to start playing with contrast. If there's a bright light source behind the character, the parts that get the light will be very bright and the shadow on the other side correspondingly dark. And if your light source is purple, try some bright purple highlights!

[JoB]

Specifically, I'm looking for advice on the lighting and the light-dog and stuff. I'm just not entirely happy with it and could use some advice to improve it.

Do you aim for artistic effect, or realism?

If the latter, anything standing in front of the only light source should essentially be a pitch black cutout with only a bit of highlighting around the edges (which would provide a pretty menacing look).

Actual glowing surfaces have the same brightness all over (glow sticks) or get a bit brighter towards the center (Cherenkov Radiation); it's also related to whether they do or don't make the surrounding air(?) glow as well (if so, there will be a visible gradient to that). Needless to say, that doesn't bode well for recognizable features on the dog; the fact that I currently can't tell which way it's even looking is quite realistic.

[Ana Nymus]

Thank you both for the advice! I'm going for artistic effect over realism, but I think I'm going to go ahead and up the contrast of the shading dramatically, like you both suggested. Doggie will be brighter, and Ana will be in a deeper shadow. Thank goodness for layers: I'll be able to mess around with that pretty easily. Thank you again!

[AquaAurion]

I have a thing which needs critiquing!

Spoiler: show

Specifically, I'm looking for advice on the lighting and the light-dog and stuff. I'm just not entirely happy with it and could use some advice to improve it.

I agree with the others that you should put some more heavy shading on the girl. For the glow itself I'd try making the outside glow a little softer Here's a tutorial I found on dA: http://griffsnuff.deviantart.com/art/glow-effect-tutorial-206717406. There's one I like in my favorites as well, but I won't link it since it contains very lightly dressed people at the end. If you want to see it just klick on my dA profile and then favorites

[John Candlebury]

I have a thing which needs critiquing!

Spoiler: show

Specifically, I'm looking for advice on the lighting and the light-dog and stuff. I'm just not entirely happy with it and could use some advice to improve it.

Adding to  what the others said, I noticed  that her eyes fight a lot against the dog to be the center of attention. That sort of stuff can make light/darkness contrast look ever so slightly off.   

Would suggest to make the eyes a bit darker or to make the dog even more eye catching.