Quick-Crit 2008-2009

[Chainsy]

Posted this on another site on some useful tips with lighting n' such:
Its really about practice and a passion for your work, I spend at least 2 hours a day in TOTAL (does not mean to stare for 2 hours straight) at pictures of professional digital paintings, just to see the different styles and how they do it. To keep so sharp, I paint with a 76 percent, hard, round brush, start out large and get smaller and smaller, and start zoomed out and zoom in more and more as the brushes get smaller. Try to use more then one type of brush to give a sensation of different materials, and do not be lazy, find references and things for inspiration. I tend to use a 2500 by 2500, but most pros use 3200 by 3200.Normal sites scale down the painting by alot, so doing actual pixel setting you can make some pretty sketchy things, that will be so small on the full size it will look clean. (for example, on gray man, the lines on his torso are not perfectly attached lines, but a 2 px hard round brush at 80% with black being slowly sketched down. For shading, I will figure out the light source at the very beginning, and paint in lightest spots and darkest spots, very contrasted. You always want to work and blend from lighter to dark, or it will come looking washed out if done darker to lighter. You get a decent blend of the colors by using a 80% hardness on a regular circular brush using between colors, using opacity in accordance. Many people do not think that outlines are used in paintings, they are, just in the color of the piece, not in black, so it blends in well, yet gives a clear cut definition of everything. Now once everything is blended, I get a large, round brush at 50% hardness on the burn tool at about 10% 9note it can be adjusted or not if it burns too harshly) and go over the side and curves that are in shadow, making the soft part of the brush create a gradient to the other side, while making the very edge of the body in shadow darkest. It's great to add a little bit of improvising on the light to make it very contrasted, this makes the piece more dramatic and pop, now after the burn, I get the same size brush, same settings and do the other side with dodge at 8%.
You must realize you are setting up the lighting and not things like glare and material definition, so don't go crazy yet. Now go back to Bburn and get smaller, harder brushes, creating more defined shadows in areas that receive less light, also shading under out croppings in clothes, armor, ect. Now get smaller brushes for dodge, metal being shiny, but not ultra white, and a slight, dull shine for clothes and skin. I tend to paint in greyscale for volume and form since its easy to distinguish light and dark, then Imake a new layer and colorize different sections, stick to the color wheel to use complementary colors and contrasting colors to bring focus and make things pop, hope this helps.

~Chains

[Heathen]

some thoughts, your proportions and angles are right, but I think you need to work with your lines more.

those ribs need to finish their horizontal lines or they'll stay looking awkward

The way that the 45 degree pillar meets the ground is unsatisfying and looks incomplete

the top is a box and should probably come in at a 60 degree angle (as I drew it.)

The thing I put on top is definitely not necessary, but please let your lines finish themselves more gracefully.

Christ, thats EXACTLY what I thought was wrong with it.

[rossmum]

Having done some thinking, I'm not so sure about fiddling with the lighting. As I said, it's what I've seen on countless photos of the Spit in action; it might not be perfect artistically speaking, but I want a faithful portrayal of arguably the most beautiful plane ever produced, not something that ticks all the right boxes with artists but is an affront to Reginald Mitchell's memory. What I will do is take another look at the panelling, because I don't like the way the joints currently look. Other than that, I don't think I'll change much on the aircraft itself aside from minor details and the lighting that goes with those. Once the entire picture is assembled, then I'll look at the lighting colour and intensity.

If I do spot an area where the lighting could be better without ruining the accuracy, I'll adjust it (as I already have on the fuel tank, and as I need to do on the upper cowling where it bulges ever so slightly to cover the piston rows... I need to fix the rear fuselage lighting around the roundels, too).

I know this probably sounds like I'm trying to get out of actually changing it, but honestly, I have a very firm image planted in my head of what a Spitfire should and always will look like and I'm sticking to that before anything else. If there's one thing I do well, it's putting accuracy first and everything that anybody else would care about last

[Chainsy]

All I can say is then, make the wings brighter, as the small extrude at the base of the wing that is pointing at a slant backwards is lit, giving the light source to be high and back.Also where the exhaust things are (no idea what they're called) there's too much burn there and along with the smoke makes the whole thing look indistinguishable unless you squint. Be aware of things such as volume in the face that on the exhaust things, they are round, and some of the edges will be lighter if the light source is hitting them, same for edges are bumps on the wings.

[rossmum]

The wing's profile means the highlighted area is largely not visible on the left wing, but the right definitely needs a highlight boost - about two-thirds of the left wing is out of view from this angle. Dark area over the exhaust stubs is the slight bulge in the cowling made to cover the whole engine, as the V-12 arrangement necessitates it (if you look at the Bf109E and later which had an inverted V-12, you'll see the opposite shape - the top is curved, the bottom is squared off and bulged outwards). The dark stuff coming from the exhausts is not actually smoke but rather a stain, as the engine would often both send flames and a lot of smoke out in that direction on startup. I can distinguish it from the shadowing but as we've already established, my monitor is much better at displaying the contrast between darks than most peoples'. I'll go back and add some browns and greys into it though, to show where the flames have scorched the paint. The exhaust stubs themselves weren't actually round, either; they were either oblong, semicircular, or somewhat rectangular in section, depending on which Merlin version was installed and whether they had been locally modified for whatever purpose.

I'll fix all the necessary stuff up later on, as I've closed Photoshop for now... been alternating between it and forums all day, without leaving myself any time for gaming or whatever.

Thanks for helping out, by the way, even if not all of your suggestions end up getting used :F

[Chainsy]

No problem, glad I could help.

[Newbkilla]

Old shit is old.

http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/8760/hahacay.jpg

[Higuy]

Power lines under the glass look really ew, make them smaller and make more, and make them all one color..

[Newbkilla]

Might as well restart them. I shrunk them down considerably. They used to be much larger.

[rossmum]

They look like string. Cables that thick shouldn't bend anywhere near as much, and would probably be tied or otherwise secured neatly during construction of the hallway.