Sep '16

Ok, first of all, as you may read in the title this is not a finished piece, but I struggle with this work for a long time. After all, I find out some problem areas and mistakes. And I'm asking you for help. Let me describe an idea: the girl is standing in the magical lake, probably, somewhere in the midnaight to finish a mystical ritual (mua ha ha).
First of all, how to paint this !@#$%^& water? Secondly, I think there is a problem with composition and leading viewer's eyes through the picture, any suggestions? And lastly, I know about issues with her hair and dress, I was not trying to render her a lot just a sketch, but I suppose that problem with wet cloth will occur.
I'll be waiting for any help and I'm deeply appreciate all your time and efforts for responding me!!! :heart_eyes:

moon-light.by-anna-roliak 029.jpg4960x7016 1.89 MB

Sep '16

Okay, I couldn't help myself.

So I first addressed the composition.

Consider cropping in and focusing on what you want the viewer to be looking at.
There is a lot of sketchy brush work here but that's okay cause you said it was a sketch.

Also if there is a ritual in the water of some kind and that's the story you want to tell: in the image provided with the magenta line (eye path) in it, in the number 2 circle, you could put anything. A clawed skeletal hand, sword, a fish transforming, whatever.

So it would go, 1, 2, for focal points, and the 3, is just shapes of the dress and the tree leading the eye back to the main focal point over and over again.

I did not over render it. I only used the tone swatches that I left there next to her. An overall shadow, a darker occlusion shadow, and the light source. Those hue variation brushes you used are fun but can muddle your values really quickly and distract you with cool mark making.

It seemed like the hair was hiding a lot of the body. You don't have to stick with this design I made, however remember it is a good opportunity to frame faces with hair, plus why hide that beautiful anatomy opportunity.

I painted the rest of her body shape with two tones,
then the dress over it on another layer.

The detail on the dress can be the lighter white color you use there. Using two to three tones (when I say that I mean values, but they have color here of course) is all I did to set up the painting, and color grabbing with the brush tool.

Remember take all critiques with a grain of salt as you are the artist on this, not me. And this has my aesthetics now.

Hope that makes sense and helps if you have any questions let me know.

Cheers

Sep '16

Wow, amazing painting speed! Thank you for reply. Your idea about dress shape and 2 focal point is AMAZING.
As for hair, I agree with you - I'll redraw it but I want it to be waist-length and wavy.
PS I can't understand, but in photoshop and desktop image viewer my picture looks much more lighter and desaturated. But here in browser the tree is almost black O_O and water has different hue (I didn't paint it green :scream:)!

Sep '16

For some reason I think JPG's do that sometimes.

When I look at a jpeg on my phone that I saved it looks green too. Something about the color bitrate changes in the JPG rendering, I'm not exactly a Photoshop tech guy so I dont know what happens. I switched to PNG.

Idea: You could also have the hair in the water behind her instead of the dress being the thing that leads the eye back upwards to make it ultra long and wavy.

Oct '16

I've seen your replies a couple of times: your art looks awesome it you seem pretty good at speed painting! Do you have an instagram or a tumblr or something?

Oct '16
1

Reply to

brohawx

@BroHawx I don't know why that weird colorshifting happens when you save to jpeg, but I do know how to get around it: save your jpegs using File > Save to Web in photoshop rather than the normal save feature. Just a fun fact :smile:

Love the artwork here, though! But the critique above is spot-on. My first thoughts upon seeing the picture was that the placement of the hair was not flattering (and the hairstyle looked like the pokemon Jynx) and the dress floating in the water acted like a big STOP sign in the middle of the piece. But with a few minor tweaks, this will be amazing! I love the color choices here!

Oct '16

Her shoulders and chest seem a little broad. As for the hair being waist length, I suggest that having is wave in the wind behind her. I think that would make it look nice and also prevent it from covering the body. As for the water, it looks really good especially with the lighting.