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[The Fool]

Hayoooooo!!!!

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Byooooo!!!!

It's a good train and the smoke is fantastic, but the person seems out of place because the platform that the train is riding on isn't well defined.

Oh and... who is John Galt?

[Jopax]

Yeah, there were supposed to be more people on the platform but I couldn't get them right and I needed something to show the scale of the thing, he seemed fine at the time

Also no idea on John there (Atlas Shrugged?), but there will be more of these, now I just need to find some train appropriate mythical stuff for continents other than Europe

[The Fool]

Also no idea on John there (Atlas Shrugged?), but there will be more of these, now I just need to find some train appropriate mythical stuff for continents other than Europe

Yeah. The train and the colour scheme reminded me of the statue on the cover of Atlas Shrugged. The book had a lot to do with trains, so I assumed it might be a reference to it. I guess not.

[Jopax]

Funny thing, one of the covers features that Atlas statue from somewhere, the one that appears in the Civilization V menu, which in turn served as an inspiration for this one, atleast initially, the idea of a big bronze statue (this one looks more like gold now) decorating an even bigger train came from there.

Since it seemed cool I decided to do more stuff in the same vein

[The Fool]

I decided to do a landscape to get back into the swing of drawing since it's been a while. The lava isn't well detailed, but I drew it in about an hour.

Spoiler: Lavaland (click to show/hide)

[lordnincompoop]

I decided to do a landscape to get back into the swing of drawing since it's been a while. The lava isn't well detailed, but I drew it in about an hour.

Spoiler: Lavaland (click to show/hide)

I think you need to work on composition. This picture, as-is, is rather bland and slightly uncomfortable to look at.

A few pointers:

The mountains and sky which encompass the majority of the picture are very blurry and undefined, whereas the grassy beach(?) which encompasses only about a fifth of the vertical space is very detailed and fine-grained; this makes it uncomfortable to look at because it seems like you've tried to make the mountains the focal point of the picture by having it occupy the centre-stage, but at the same time you've drawn it in such a way as to make it insignificant. Simply put - don't be sloppy; make up your mind on what's important and draw detail accordingly.

Pick a clear focal point, and "draw around" that; the subject should stand out and everything else should be subordinate to it. If you don't have a place for the eyes to "go", your picture becomes confused. Professional photographers are great at this stuff - If you look at this and this, they all have a clear, simple subject/focal point, and everything else is out-of-focus or very clearly not the point of interest (if they're even better, they probably have great bokeh too). Remembering this hierarchial view of composition will help you. Here's an album of photos from the same photographer that have very good composition and are for the most part clear examples of this.

Vary your palette.

Make use of the Rule of Thirds. There is much more to decent, artistic composition than that, but this will help you loads to begin with.

[Jopax]

Another thing that's kind of screwy is the sense of scale, the grass seems huge, which in turn makes the whole lake and mountain feel quite tiny.

When using custom brushes (or default ones in this case) it's always good to mask them up a bit or randomize them, to avoid problems like this where it looks very busy compared to the rest of the piece and it makes the whole thing look wrong in terms of size.

Also another thing to note is that the image itself seems too tall for this kind of composition, it would look more natural if you went for a wider or shorter canvas, making the whole thing look more cohesive so to speak.

[Muffindog]

I decided to do a landscape to get back into the swing of drawing since it's been a while. The lava isn't well detailed, but I drew it in about an hour.

Spoiler: Lavaland (click to show/hide)

That grass breaks all the laws of logic. It grows on the sand and suddenly stops when it's close to water, but grows just fine on the other side despite the heat of the lava. It looks like overlapping biomes gone wrong.

And avoid using that brush, especially for grass that's can be seen from such a short distance.


Here is a random coffee speedpaint. Mixed feelings on this one.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Why does using textures feel like cheating...?

[Svampapa]

Why does using textures feel like cheating...?

I had similar qualms about much of the toolbox made available through digital painting. Then I began watching CTRL+Paint and... I don't really have them anymore.

I guess it's all about the end result, how apparent it is that you have mixed in some photo or painted textures. If it works it works, if it doesn't It doesnt.

In the case of your coffee, I'd make an edumacated guess and say that the bubbles are photosource? In any event they look a bit too uniform/dense to sell it as coffee to me. Unless its espresso which has pretty dense crema floating on top, regular bog standard coffee usually just has a crescent island of bubbles floating around the edge.

Um... yes... now I want coffee. So I guess you didn't miss the sale completely

[Urist McScoopbeard]

'Ello haven't drawn in a while so I decided to draw a castle I was constructing in ye olde minceraft. To be honest it is possibly the laziest drawing ive ever done.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Things to be added:

-Proper shading
-more buildings
-middle ground

Things to fix:

-shading
-sloppy bricks
-river (Just not feelin' it)

Ofc, tell me what you guys think; if I've done anything wrong or the perspective is off, etc. etc.


CRITICISM EDIT: Muff-dawg, the left wrist looks like it's been broken/dislocated & the angle of the arms is too sharp I think (unless your elbows butt up against ur chest when you drink coffee.)

[lordnincompoop]

Here is a random coffee speedpaint. Mixed feelings on this one.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Here are the problems:

Seems like the elbows are attached under the picture.

Unnatural, uncomfortable posture.

Barely visible knuckles.

Thumb too small.

Adjoining wrist malformed (difficult to be specific here - look at a real wrist a few times from that position and you'll see).

Coffee doesn't look convincing.

Right hand looks crushed, too lean and malformed. Thumb joint dislocated.

Strange rendering of right forearm and wrist makes the arm look alien.

Visible details on left thumbnail but not right. Nails very shiny; unless this is nail-polish, I'd expect them to be more matte.

Strange speculars on skin make it look mottled and shiny.

Strange, blotchy shadows - try to make them smoother and more uniform.

To be honest it is possibly the laziest drawing ive ever done.

I'll give you one point of criticism: Please put more effort into things that you want others to examine; you will not improve if you don't put in any work in the first place. Thank you.

[Urist McScoopbeard]

To be honest it is possibly the laziest drawing ive ever done.

I'll give you one point of criticism: Please put more effort into things that you want others to examine; you will not improve if you don't put in any work in the first place. Thank you.

Sorry, I didn't actaully mean that, I say that alot actually. I put some hours of effort into that line drawing, ya there is some laziness but I put effort into it, sorry if my tongue has offended you

[The Fool]

-snip-

[freeformschooler]

I think you misquoted. It was Muffindog who had the speedpaint.

[The Fool]

*FACEPALM* I missed that entirely. Sorry for the confusion.