I've been working on anatomy ever since I started trying to paint rather than draw, and never really invested much time into scenes beforehand. I'm at least personally really happy to have pumped this out in under an hour, but I'd like to know if anyone has some good thoughts on what desperately needs improving in future attempts.

Cheers.

For under an hour thats really impressive (I have done the same as you, and am also only recently having a look into backgrounds, my attempts digitally aren't 1/10th as good)

It is a little hard to distinguish what is going on but i can clearly tell that there are either large rocks or the remains of a spaceship/metallic-y building with a person atop of the centre formation.

However, You have very clearly set a mood/atmosphere with the colours and forms you have picked. I really like how the light beams look and the general colour scheme. More detail would be good, but that will probably come with more time & experience.

Thanks! I honestly can't put in much more detail because I don't have a clue how to design and paint buildings (it's on my list of things to learn), so for now I'm getting away with block shapes that can be interpreted as rocks or buildings.

I'm very glad the person standing atop is clearly understood. My biggest fear was that the tiny spec of a person would be lost among the rest of what's going on, especially since the dark silhouette is't all that different from the darker colours nearby. Thus the red cape and heavy light for constrast.

As for the clarity of thr scene as a whole, a friend of mine really loved the look of it and wanted it extended so that the image could fit across both his monitors. I figured it would be fun, since then it could fit across both of mine as well, so now I'll be able to add the context for the pink colours in the other half. Showing that should tie it all together a little better.

Thanks for your commentary!

One thing I have to say is, it's not so much about speed. I am not sure what the intention for one hour drawing is, but speed will come on its own as you continue to progress.

Right I do see the little guy, on top of maybe a rock, but some things in the scenes aren't really constructed that well.

A suggestion I can offer is this video that talks more in-depth about Notan by Amit Dutta, and he also has a small course about environment design :

The reason it was a speed paint was just to keep me from continuing work on it. I just wanted to get some sort of release, making brush strokes until I started to see shapes in them and then trying to portray some kind of moment in it. After 50 minutes, I just felt finished, like I didn't want to make it anything more, and so I stopped.

It was a freeing experience after so much studying of anatomy, where the rules are pretty hard and fast.

Thank you for the video though! You practice Notan, right? I really like your stuff in your art blog, and was wondering just what it was. I'll definitely start practicing making those :smiley: