Dec '18

Hello guys! even though I've followed Marc Brunet for a very long time I didn't know of this amazing forum where artists can show their work and receive good critique, sooo....here I am!

My goal is to be a professional digital Illustrator. I love those styles which make an image look stunning even if you can see the brush strokes.

I'm new to digital illustration, and most of the time I struggle when it comes to getting the right values while using colors (and this makes me "waste" soo much time). I see many artists who get already a nice composition or a nice structure/building/environment with just a few brush strokes. is it just experience or there's something I am missing?

This is the first acceptable work I can show you, and by far the best digital illustration I've ever done, completed in about 4/5 hours. I would love to hear your opinion and your criticism (you can be ruthless, tell me everything that's wrong with my current skills!)

Thanks for your patience reading this! I'll embrace everything you've got to say!

astronave e sole.png1920x1206 2.06 MB

malcomModerator
Dec '18
1

As far as people getting nice shapes and structure with very few brush strokes, that's mainly experience there. As you see things more an more clearly in your head, it'll make it easier to put things on the canvas. Another tip would be to start with a big brush first and then work your way down to the details.

Now if you struggle with getting the right values when starting in color, do value paintings first. I recommend doing a line art first. that way your only focusing on your composition and story. Values come second to help reinforce the composition and storytelling but it's the lighting step. You make sure things are lighting up alright before the final pass with colors. When going into the color stage there are a few ways you can approach it. One way is to use gradient maps. If you feel you need more color then you can use adjustment layers.

So long story short break things into simple steps so your not tackling to much at one time like you are with jumping into colors. In time you'll get there, but, in the beginning keep things simple.

As far as this piece goes, it seems really saturated. I'm not exactly sure what the story is here. Is it someone just looking at a sun set? Because of the colors and brush strokes, I wasn't sure if what the character is under is a space ship or some rock structure. Something that needs to be defined for the viewer. The image also feels flat because the depth in the image isn't there. The sun feels really really close to the point I think the character would die. Maybe that's what you were going for. I don't know.

Other things I think are important to mention is that feel you should practice perspective. Understanding this fundamental would vastly help you. Other than that, you can actually go back and watch Marc's tutorials on shading. Here's one on improving color shading. It's old but still great.

Now this is not a failure. I know I recommend a lot of things and hopefully didn't come off as ruthless because that can be counter productive. One important thing you did was keep me in the piece. You had points of interest which is great.

Welcome to :cb: Happy to have you here. I'm sorry if my post was to long. Keep up the good work. I look forward to seeing how you improve.

Jan '19

Thank you so much for these useful tips!! I'll immediately apply them to my next work and then show it in the forum, maybe in the wip section so people can see my steps and progress.

I don't mind if it the post is long, as long as it's full with useful tips! (which it is!)

I'll be back with a new (and better done) image and again get an opinion of all of you guys :smiley:
Thank you again for your help!