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[Sean Mirrsen]

I'll finish the one above later, this is an earlier sketch in an advanced stage, plus some coloring.

Spoiler: Huge image (click to show/hide)

Scaled down with forum software.

Can anyone recognize the character?

[Spreggo]

Omegastick: Tighten up the edges with some harder brushes. Part of that will be determining where your light source is so that the shadows are rendered realistically. The shadows will help you decide which edges are sharp and which are soft, or 'lost.'
Right now the composition is dead center. Maybe try moving the crosses up or down a bit to get a more interesting composition.

[Hippoman]

Nathan Fillion?
From Firefly?
Malcom Reynolds?

[Sean Mirrsen]

If you're trying to guess from the face, don't bother. Any similarities to real people, living or dead, are a miracle because my face-drawing experience has only really started like 48 hours ago.

You need to be visiting certain parts of the forums to know that character. As well as this character:

Spoiler: Equally huge image (click to show/hide)

He's rather more generic though, and some significant defining details will only be visible when fully colored.
(yes, I don't have much of an imagination for backgrounds - I really should think of something different)

[Jopax]

He looks nice, but there is something odd with his feet, try repositioning them to give him a more firm stance, a bit wider and maybe lower stance

[Heron TSG]

I think the feet need to be longer and less tall. They sorta look like hooves, right now.

[Red Fortune]

HARD. BRUSHES. DAMNIT.

And what is going on with those skin tones?

[Vertigon]

First time posting in this topic.

Starting with an Eagle. All hand drawn. I know he lacks feet, and his tail and head aren't the same color. I couldn't handle the feet, and I didn't notice the color problem until I didn't care anymore.



Next up, a silhouetted rocky area. All of this is hand drawn too, including the clouds. This one is a WIP, which explains why it sucks.







FAKEEDIT: I forgot that I abandoned the silhouette one. I'm discontinuing any work on it.

[Sean Mirrsen]

HARD. BRUSHES. DAMNIT.

And what is going on with those skin tones?

I don't like hard brushes. Also, when was the last time you saw a hard airbrush?

And skin tone is one of the keys to what the character is (I suppose you mean the second character - the first character wears armor).

And yes, the (character's) right foot seems like it could use lengthening. The left foot is alright. In case you're wondering, those are supposed to be iron plated low boots.

I've got an earlier "rendition" of the first character, which I'm now remaking due to my advisor's insistance that "the face expression looks odd", and because I've accidentally saved it in low resolution.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Red Fortune]

I don't like hard brushes.

By the way, I'm not pushing anything on you regardless of what it seems; I make the mistake often, sorry.

Anyway It's very difficult to render something with a soft brush straight up like that - or with form, anyways. It is best to block in the colours and values first before you get into detail, and airbrushes are for the purpose of being airbrushes, you don't have to use one to achieve a certain effect. Yes, figure out where the light is coming from,  use highlights sparingly and keep a gradient of light, with strength decreasing when at higher distance from the source direction.

Also, his cranium is quite short and flat and the ear is very high, and I'm having trouble distinguishing the planes of the face.

About the left foot: the foot itself seems fine, it's just the position of the calf (which is the only real indicator of the angle of the leg at the moment) makes it seem turned more to the front, which causes the foot to seem a bit twisted. And think of the perspective too! The position of the foot in space aligns it with the right foot, but the legs are not - try standing with your feet aligned and one turned 70 degrees outward, your legs tilted but still in horizontal alignment with your body... it feels unnatural and significantly hard to balance, no?

I could add more, but I should really get back to drawing; good luck!

[burningpet]

i think you are coloring it in a rather hard way. judging by the first picture you have shown atleast, what seems that you are doing is coloring each part by its own and not as a complete painting. this way you get distracted from the picture as a whole and that results in a very falt coloring. even if you do decide on a light source, that isnt being shown as you did not paint the casted shadows.

i have thrown a lined human figure, later this day i will color it and save the progress as i go along to show you a much better and easy way to color.

[Sean Mirrsen]

For the record, that fully-colored character image is my first serious attempt at coloring anything, like, ever. Oh, I did draw color things now and then, but this is the first time I purposefully set out to do a realistically colored picture. Only did pencil sketches before. And there's only color and light there at the moment, no shadows (except those on the sketch, of course) - I only started on shadows in the larger version.

And, uh, what do you mean by coloring "as a complete painting"? Barring similar colors everywhere, each part gets its own color, especially if you have such a dissimilar equipment set. Though I do agree that my "bronze" became too much like "gold" - should be a lot more brown in there.

[burningpet]

well, by coloring as a whole painting, i meant to actually color all of the elements, including the background before starting to shade anything.

this is how i sometimes work, i draw the lines, block the colors in using a multiply layer, paint the shadows using a desaturated purple color in a multiply layer, then the highlights with yellow in hard light mode. this way it is easier to control the shadows and highlights in seperate instances without hurting the colors or the underline. it also makes it much easier to draw the casted shadows and form shadows in a more harmonic way.

after the basic shading is done you could paint the small details and put textures on it.
if you put it underneath the shading layers, the details will retain the shading.

it is by no means a proffesional work, the lineart is not anatomically correct and the shadows could used better handling, but you can see the general idea.
it is also not the only way to color a picture, and i do not always use this method but i find that at least for the beginning it is the most efficient way of doing so.

[Sean Mirrsen]

Yeah, I see how that works. I'm thinking differently though. I find it hard to do highlights after the fact, and prefer to let unpainted areas be the highlights. I'm also working on a single layer+canvas, separating only the sketch and the coloring. And I'm not sure Corel Painter has the features you're describing (like "hard light mode"), I've recently started using it and was at a loss when I couldn't find a Shadows mode for the Burn tool.

I can try working with more layers though. Thanks for the advice. This little tablet sat unused in a box for 9 years till I remembered I had it a few days ago. My CA painting experience is virtually nonexistant.

[Red Fortune]

I would advise against leaving unpainted areas or using white as lighting in any way (digitally, I mean, watercolour relies on different aspects), and this would not happen if you blocked in colours and/or values in the first steps