Ground to a halt on this

OH its definitely here. We never stopped. You came to the place....again. Thankfully we never stopped never stopping in this section.

Give me a moment and see what I can come up with. In the meanwhile, do you mean popping conceptually? Fundamentally with values or color or design?

I can derive that the mood is pathetic, or moot, or ironic? Like king of nothing, sort of thing?

So. Contrast is what makes things pop. Contrast of shape, value, edges, and color. Theoretically concept's can contrast. Like...Modern day samurai...sort of thing.

Your light source is strong enough to make a dark shadow. The stronger the light the darker the shadow typically. But you are in control of the areas that you want the viewer to pay attention.

But your values are going to do all of the heavy lifting when making something pop. All of the color and detail is just ornamental as long as you have a strong NOTAN to begin with. Your light source consistency and value consistency really needed some work. Simplify. Your busy brush strokes are making you do a lot of work. Use as big of a brush as possible to fit an area. That way you can focus on the edges effect between the different levels of shadow on a form, instead of noodling.

Typical practice is to make a darker subject on lighter background, or lighter subject in darker background. Or use simultaneous contrast that flips front and back values against easch other.

moirae3.gif2658x3958 2.85 MB

With color, typically compositions of today have a overall warm, or over all cool subject, on a background that has overall cool, or overall warm in contrast. Even if it is monochromatic.

My pleasure.

Okay good I was hoping that was what you meant. So he was a light value subject on a light value background. So I just changed that “overall” enough to create more contrast. You already had the warm subject on the cool background. Hue contrast of warm/cool felt right to you so I applaud you following that instinct.

I believe that in the case of shadows hiding the face there are always solutions. And that line of thinking really limits the way that you can make images and control the mood. I'm not saying it isn't useful in its own right. But following it for its sake of avoiding some pitfalls in the future can limit the way all of your images look in mood and style.

Atmospheric light or lights, or rim light, can lighten the shadow if you need to add information into the shaded areas. I did that with the sky color in the shadow shape above to illustrate that idea.

Take liberties for the sake of your picture to improve its appearance. I can’t tell you why Frazetta painted red next to his black occlusion shadows but it sure was impactful for color.

Your value structure, or construction of your composition value ranges will bolster the "pop" of your image focal points and mood before color.

If you have a full "wide shot" of the subject and background, the details are not so important except for the focal points. Always consider how people are going to view the image on what platform. Your thumbnail image for Deviant art, or Artation for example can have a focal point fill the frame. But if the image is going to be viewed in full, very few people are going to click on it to view the entire image at full resolution. That is why I suggest the largest brush you can use in an area, that way you can more quickly control the edges between colors and shadow shapes.

I look forward to the update.

Awesome work. Love your character's design. The change in values made an incredibly improvement.