ART WAR 4 | 2D | War of the Elements | Audrey Wallenstein, The Yuragan Hunter | CanvasEngineer

[CanvasEngineer]

Most of the effort was spent figuring out how much of the central character I wanted to take up the page, and whether or not I could continue using value to pull the viewers' attention towards her. It's all about information vs simplicity and the balance between the two.

[nesokaiyoh]

Really love the way you manipulate colour in your paintings. So fluid and natural, I'd love to be able to paint like that! It's looking really beautiful so far, but I agree it needs the focal point to be stronger, there's a lot of distracting highlights going on around the piece but honestly it is looking so pretty so far

[CanvasEngineer]

Did some more work and it's starting to come together. Notice I haven't really focused on details of the figure like eyes and a nose. I'm sort of feeling the forms out as I go to keep the process more intuitive. Also, a bit more harmonizing of the colors and values as I double-check my phone to see what's maybe too dark or too saturated. It's a very delicate process that you sort of ease into overtime -- constantly trying to get closer to what you imagined. I'll have to see how this looks and make further adjustments. I'm trying to save the rendering stage for last lol.

[CanvasEngineer]

Hey, thanks a ton nesokaiyoh! I'm glad you liked the colors, I was unsure what people would think lol. And yah definitely trying to tone certain areas down always seems to be the most difficult part of the process. It's a lot easier in photoshop but I'm using csp rn which I'm still new to.

[nesokaiyoh]

Ahh I tried using CSP to paint, I personally find the tools not to my liking at all lmao but then I have been painting in Photoshop now for night on a decade so I'm probably just a salty PS user xD

Honestly your painting is so stunning though, love the brush marks and the colours like I said, so fluid and just so natural. Really enjoying the process of this!

[CanvasEngineer]

Just a quick update. I lost about 3 hours worth of progress after finishing when I tried to save. I'll try again but pretty bum'ed out atm.

[nesokaiyoh]

That's unfortunate, I know how it feels. Best way to avoid that for the future is just to save more often, waiting 3 hours to save is a bit irresponsible with a big piece like this xD It's happened to me before, with just as many and more hours - I've learned to save frequently, like every few minutes or so

I know you can do it though! You've gotten this far already, maybe relax a bit and come back to it tomorrow?

[CanvasEngineer]

Oh yah for sure, 5 minutes is like optimal honestly. I'm working on it rn and will try to make it better than what I had when I finished. I'll then work on it some more tomorrow.

[nesokaiyoh]

I know for certain you will make it better, each and every update of this so far has been better than the last!

[CanvasEngineer]

Took a bit of a break but here's an update of the piece. I'm going to go into photoshop now to see if I can improve upon it. If not, I'll do some final adjustments on the values so it doesn't look too dark and saturated. If anyone here has a good monitor it would be awesome if you could tell me what's too dark or saturated and I'll try to adjust when I'm done.

[CanvasEngineer]

Guess I'll stop here for now

[nesokaiyoh]

Are you using ref for the teeth? I love your painting but they look a bit clunky and cartoony - they're so big and oversized for those jaws. Unfortunately lol my monitor is pretty terrible so I can't help you there

[CanvasEngineer]

Hey sorry, I just saw your message! I'm probably going to redo this piece since I worked in CSP for most of it. I may recycle it, however. And I agree, the teeth do look big and clunky it reminds me of a Mario kart character XD. I don't like that and didn't use ref because my laptop is really slow so the more stuff I have open, the slower my brushes work. I looked at what I could beforehand and started to paint. I'll be rearranging the composition to focus more on the character and less on the giant Draconian Eel attacking. If I can get it done in time I'll post, if not I'll submit what I have Wish me luck!

[CanvasEngineer]

been off-grid, I think I've found a good composition to work with. I had a few backup ideas in case the first one failed and it was really a matter of figuring out how I wanted to compose the scene within the given constraints. The idea is essentially the same as the last one with a bunch of Yuragan's converging on Audrey. I'll have one more stab at a thumbnail and then pick between the two.

[CanvasEngineer]

2nd comp. If you think one is better lmk and I can take it into consideration

[CanvasEngineer]

The bottom comp felt unbalanced and I realized it was because I hadn't expanded out to the other side of her sword to weigh against the empty space on the right side.

[CanvasEngineer]

I was going to go with the first one but I think this one has potential.

[CanvasEngineer]

Here's a WIP. I've established the mood I at least imagined like before. Painting in ps allows me a lot of flexibility with my brush set that I wouldn't have been able to utilize within csp. csp, on the other hand, offered me a much faster sketching capacity because it didn't really lag. The strengths and weaknesses of each program lend themselves to the different stages pretty well. note: this is a screenshot so the values are a bit more intense

[CanvasEngineer]

Here's another WIP. I'm saving the face for last just because I'm unsure what expression to give Audrey and I still need to work on the Yuraganians.

[CanvasEngineer]

I think at this stage I'm going to up the res to 2048 x 2048.