Vonschlippe - Art School Journey

haight_nicholas 2020-10-23 03:52:58 UTC #163

Woah this is really really good! I love it, and I can't wait to see that Raven when it's done, and as I'm sure you know, the woman is beautiful haha

Vonschlippe 2020-10-24 03:31:18 UTC #164

Thanks man!

I just finished this character, gonna keep tweaking small things here and there, possibly add a background, but here's a somewhat final rendering of her.

haight_nicholas 2020-10-24 16:44:36 UTC #165

WOW, she is awesome, and I love those boots/pants, super cool design!

Ascent 2020-10-25 06:41:01 UTC #166

Hey so I just went through this whole thread. Wow you do some beautiful work. I really like your gates piece, actually looking forward to you rendering it as a night scene now. High contrast would make it quite glorious. The latest woman is awesome too, I love those heels she's rocking and the raven's all "come at us bro." Great stuff

Vonschlippe 2020-10-25 22:48:41 UTC #167

Hey, thank you so much for the kind words!! It means a lot to me, and I appreciate it a ton.

I'm done with this character design. As sad as I was to let all that boob-rendering time go hidden under a sports bra, the idea is that there was a need for a black shape up there to bring balance to the composition. If you wanna free the nipple, you can always scroll up and check out the earlier iteration

I photobashed the bike out of various sources like real superbikes and toys, and then painted over it and modified it so much that it's my design now. No shame!

Cheers everyone, hope you like the final version too! ^^

Julia_J 2020-10-26 11:21:58 UTC #168

I thought it can't get better... but you proved me wrong

Paulda 2020-10-26 14:38:10 UTC #169

Hey Von, I enjoyed looking through your studies, course work and personal projects; it's a lovely body of work. when I get to this stage, I would love to pick your brains on enviroments and composition.

The image of the lady on the bike with the raven is well rendered, and it's a nice composition. A few things come to mind when looking at it; firstly, be careful when drawing a dark line and dotting both sides rendering the parting of the lip, it will look more natural if you keep in mind the cylindrical form of the lips and gradate from light to dark.

Similar thing with the nose, often, people will go very dark within the nostril, keep in mind not to go too dark.

The details on the bike are great, and the understanding and use of hard and soft edges is spot on. I think the exhaust pipe, again, could use gradual value change to show the volume of the cylinder.

Lastly, this is more of a question rather than critique as I don't fully understand lighting yet; what are the light sources in the background? and would there be any rim lighting on the side of the raven, the back of the figure, and the side of the bike facing away from us? and would those lightsources hit the floor in the background?

All in all, great work, you very much have a style in mind, a great eye for composition and detail. Lovely progress on the course so far

Vonschlippe 2020-10-26 16:58:44 UTC #170

Hey Paul,

Thank you for the detailed critique.

I'm not sure I understand what you mean you would change in my line-art on the lips. The rendering is very loose, with attention to overall values rather than photo-realism. I can't afford to zoom in too much and render everything on a more elaborate piece like this, too, for the purpose of my sanity. In this case I'm pretty happy with the dynamic range achieved and that the face has enough contrast to keep the attention there - which is why I think going with dark reddish brown nostrils and lip lines works fine!

The face is loose and blurry, as you can see :).

As for the lighting in the back, in photography it's called bokeh! Pin lights, out of focus, far in the background that meld into the ambient, and affect the scene lighting very minimally. The same way you could take a picture in front of a city at night and not worry about every single window light creating rim light around your head - but the bokeh would be there!

This is an example to illustrate my point - the bokeh does not have any effect on her lighting because the sky (ambient light) is hundreds of times more impactful.

In my case I chose to add bokeh because of the yellowish counter-point to the purples on her outfit, the same tone you also see here and there on the bike.

Just my two cents Glad you like my work!!

Paulda 2020-10-26 19:22:01 UTC #171

Thanks for the comprehensive response to my observations; I harken back to what I said "be careful when drawing a dark line and dotting both sides". I was simply pointing out that, to me, the line stands out and does not look part of the form of the lips. Had you not told me it was line art, I honestly wouldn't have known; due to not knowing prior, what, exactly, that line was trying to communicate to me was unclear.

My line of thinking doesn't just apply to photo-realism; believeable stylized artworks still rely on the principles of realism.

Ah I see, I genuinely did not know, so I appreciate you explaining that to me and how it works.

Thanks for taking the time to consider my critique; I genuinely enjoy bouncing ideas around with others and diving into a dialogue regarding each others work and journeys.

Whether the critique is of use to you or not is by the by, that's the beauty of being able to select what you want to use and what you will disregard. As long as I engage with the community and offer constructive thoughts and encouragement where I can, I'll feel like I am doing my bit.

That said, keep up the good work, looking forward to seeing more

Vonschlippe 2020-11-04 21:09:44 UTC #172

Dumping some landscape value studies. I need to do a lot more of this!

Vonschlippe 2020-11-22 22:18:16 UTC #173

I'm back! I spent the last 18 days working on a single piece for an art exchange - I just finished it, posting it here at long last. I really hope you like it.

WeirdOwl 2020-11-23 01:20:03 UTC #174

My new desktop background for inspiration.

Ascent 2020-11-23 01:39:02 UTC #175

Dude I love it! Fantastic work, keep em coming!

Frygidal 2020-11-24 00:12:57 UTC #176

It is already very high level but it always cean be higher so a few things that grabbed my attention:

the shadow on the bottom of the tigh looks very hard, almost like it is hard surface not a nice round human leg

underwear looks very flat, it especially shows where the blue light iluminates stomach

I think it could gain even more depth with some AO, you have very nice cast shadows but they are pretty "flat" in terms of AO, and in ambient lit rooms cast shadows go really dark

rest is fantastic, good job

Paulda 2020-11-27 05:56:50 UTC #177

Hey @Frygidal,

In regards to the shadows, can't the hardness of a shadow alter depending on the distance of the light from the subject? So, the closer the light to the subject the harder the edge and the further away the light source is the softer the shadow?

Also, doesn't the shadow softness or hardness of a shadow depend on the surface? So, if the figure is slim, and athletic in build the shadow would also be enveloping muscle and bone which would have hard edges.

So in my opinion, as the back of her pony tail, her thigh and glute are the closest parts of her to the light source and the shadow under the muscle of her thigh is indicating a turning plane, would it not be a hard shadow?

Please feel free to correct me if my current understanding is incorrect; I am here to learn

Vonschlippe 2020-11-27 14:16:37 UTC #178

Hey @Paul_A

I'm not Frygidal, but I can answer some things. The distance of a source of light alone, strictly speaking, has no impact on the hardness of the shadows it casts. For example, the sun casts pretty hard shadows for a source of light millions of kilometers away.

It's the relative size of a light source that determines the hardness. A very bright but small light, such a direct photography flash, will cast hard shadows when compared to a wide, diffuse source such as a window. This is why photographers tend to use wide reflectors or diffuse "softbox" extensions on their flash heads to avoid the harsh, sometimes unflattering shadows.

The hardness of a shadow shape can also depend on how sharp is the edge of a plane change. A ball has fairly soft gradient shadows compared to a cube, right? I tend to agree with Frygidal that the shadow I painted under her thigh is a bit too sharp, especially compared to the other gradients around.

Paulda 2020-11-27 14:20:01 UTC #179

Ah, I see; this has been helpful, thanks for clarifying, it's much appreciated

Frygidal 2020-11-27 20:02:15 UTC #180

Most of the matter was explained, I would add as well that hard shadow can happen easily when there is sharp turn in the plane thats why there are mostly hard shadows on mechanical stuff but tighs, hands are pretty round and they usually have softer shadows even in strong sunlight because planes change softly, hard shadows on the body are usually casted by some other thing in environment in strong light

Paulda 2020-11-28 05:26:42 UTC #181

I am beginning to understand; thanks for explaining this further, I haven't covered light yet so it is uncharted territory for me

Ausirias 2020-11-28 18:57:49 UTC #182

Just wanted to actually put on the Forums as well how much Von has actually contributed to helping people the fact you give out so much advice and help and don't get anything in return really sets a high standard for other artists here, I know you get mushy with compliments but trust me man I've took notice of how much you help others.