Digital painting tips?

[cherrylimeade]

Hello! I'm a young artist and I still have a lot to learn. I just recently got into digital painting and backgrounds but I'm not satasfied in the quality of my work. I appreciate constructive criticism of all kinds! Anything would help.

Heres an example of my work but there's more on my art blog here!

[shiv0r]

I would suggest to use a bunch of reference for a complex scene like that. Also to save time you can use simple 3D blockouts that you can create easy in sketchup, modo, etc

Anyway it makes in my opinion no sense to try such a complex scene if you still not have a good understanding on the fundamentals.
For examble the perspective from your character dosen't really match with the perspective on the ground where she stands. That's why it looks very odd.

So I would generally suggest to try to breakdown your biggest mistakes and than to practise this a lot with studies and try from time to time to apply it on your own pictures but with a way more simple scene.

I hope it is helpful for you.
Cheers!

[crowbit]

Your colours work well in this piece and I can defiantly see that this was an ambitious piece for you ^_^

For the critique I would say that your proportions and perspective need alot of work, As her arm left arm is in a different perspective to the rest of her body. What I would recommend is going and practising more on your anatomy. But if your looking to continue this piece I highly recommend finding or taking photos of someone in a similar pose for reference.

[unilluminated]

The other comments hit the nail on the head with perspective.

But one thing I would add to their critique is this:

The eyes of the viewer will be drawn to areas of high contrast. In this piece, the windows of the buildings are very light and the "walls" of the buildings are very dark, so the two right next to each other have a lot of contrast. Therefore, when I look at your artwork, my eyes get stuck there. The central focus of the piece is on the windows rather than the character, where it probably should be.

In this little tweak I made here, I blurred and darkened the background a bit, making the windows less of a focal point. Then I highlighted the character and foreground with the dodge tool. I feel this makes the character stand out more and really makes the details you put into her outfit pop. My fix is pretty messy, but I bet if you took these ideas and made them your own, it would improve the piece a bit! Anyway, great work! Hope I could be helpful in some way

[thunderdumpling]

You should try implementing 1 point perspective into the drawing to give it more depth.

[beauviarts]

Some really awesome critiques! I want to thank you guys for taking time to paintover for this artist. I also checked out the other pieces in your blog (since everyone is 100% on this thread). Some of your colors are really nice. Playing with "special" brushes is nice, but I would focus on implementing the basics before you get fancy! Great effort and vision.

[cherrylimeade]

I have never been part of such a supportive community. Id like to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for putting in the time to help a young, inexperienced artist. Thank you so much!

@shiv0r Thank you so much for your help! Im absolutely using what you taught me in later pieces. The way that your sketched out the character using blocks and basic shapes was also incredibly helpful. I'll start working on understanding perspective in humans more. I think I have a basic understanding of proportion but I need to learn how to put people into pictures with background. This will definitly be a big help!

@tree_head Yes! Thank you for your help! I need to learn how to put people into scenes. Do you have any tips for that? Should I start learning how to draw backgrounds?

@unilluminated Thank you so much! Youre absolutely right! I will try to focus my contrast toward the focal point from now on.

@thunderdumpling Ahaha! All those years I ignored perspective are really coming back to haunt me, huh? Do you have any tips on how to set up perspective lines digitally? I cant exactly use a ruler with my tablet.

@beauviarts Yes yes yes!!! If I havent said it enough I'm so incredibly thankful to find a group of such talented artists! I want to get better, but no one ever points them out!!! Thats put me in a slump, so all this feedback is re lighting the fire inside me! And yes! I really need to focus more on the basics, you are absolutely right! Ive been trying to follow in the footsteps of amazing artists without even setting a solid foundation for myself. I need to take some time and really focus on perspective.

[thunderdumpling]

Yeah I have the same issue with not being able to use a ruler on my tablet. My biggest issue with using a tablet is that it takes time. What I do before making a digital painting, is that I loosely draft on paper and then recreate it. It really helps having a draft as a reference. As for making perspective lines, I just try to make them as strait as possible.

[JesterSeraph]

I mean, you could use a ruler with your tablet. A tablet and stylus are still physical objects that interact with a physical ruler. If yohr tablet is a screen, this is made even easier.

In terms of purely digital solutions though, some applications let you draw perfectly straight lights with the brush tool by clicking to make a mark, then holding shift down and clicking elsewhere (point A to point B). Paintstorm has rulers and perspective built into it, and if you want a solution for every application, then Lazy Nezumi Pro works. It's a bit pricey (like 65 USD or something), but it is a program which can be used with theoretically any drawing/painting software (it has specific integration focus on photoshop, but is marketed to work elsewhere and I've used it with Paint Tool SAI). It has a robust set of stabilizers, rulers, patterns, etc. And is worth Googling.

If you want to get really low tech though, Google something like "perspective grid" or "perspective grid template" and then copy the image, paste it into your art app, and resize it to suit your needs.