Preserved Topic: help silence paint... ;)

Well, this is nowhere near the talent of weedah or DG, but I would love if they came and gave me some input.

As per twitch's request, I'm putting this image up criticism and comments.

I'm looking for things on use of colors to better simulate shadows, better use of PS tools (i used the brush and the smudge, if it's not obvious), and other things along those lines.

original.jpg

I posted a link because the file is rather large, about 100k.

Enjoy...

What is your goal with this image?

I wanted to paint a picture that reminded me of home. So, it's supposed to be a lone coconut tree on a bluff overlooking an ocean bay.

Actually... it's a pretty good start.
One thing that's very apparent is that you went too bright, too quick. Save the brightest for the end. There's alot of mid-range colors that you never touched on as you tried to make transitions. Also, when making the transitions, you're using the smudge tool too much. (I'm guilty as hell for doing that too.. f*ck it, I'm a hypocrite)
Use a smaller smudge tool as well.

Like I said... good start... but the image is going to come out completely flat with all those bright colors and no transitions into the shadows. Use more colors that define the transitions into darkness and lighter areas... that will create the depth.

- Michael -

All right. Let's start with what looks good
The lighting on the tree trunk, and the idea of natural light is great. I love the colours, as well as the palm tree scene itself. You went with high saturations for colours, and that's not a bad thing. The problems comes in where you used your colour blocking without any real transitions.

Wead discussed the importance of subtle tone changes, and they apply heavily here. I did a five minute repaint to try and show you some shadow/lighting techniques to bring your piece to the next step.


Now, you can see that I toned down the sats a bit, and worked in some higher highlights on the tree trunk, as well as giving some differentiation from the colour of the water, and the colour of the sky. This is by NO means finished, but this should give you a few ideas about the shadow and light blocking with the colours. Your use of yellow for highlight was nice, but since you didn't have yellow hues through the rest of the picture for your highlights, you'll either want to tone down the yellow, or use it all over. I know I said that the colour of the light source is important....and it is...but it NEEDS to be consistent.

All in all, it's a good start...keep working on it, and refining your brushes, smaller and harder as you get into the details. Also, remember a good rule of foreground and background "Always make one stronger than the other" That means that your foreground should seem somewhat seperate (in this case the tree and the bluff should look like they stand out against the backdrop of the sky and water)

I really liked the clouds, but they seemed A) Too white B) Too dense C) Too sparse

Read up on Cumulus, CumuloNimbus, and Cirrus clouds to see what type of sky work it is that you want to show.

Keep it coming silence, this could be a great learning piece for a lot of people

Peter

Wow, a reply from DG himself. I'm honored.

I can definitely see what you mean now. When I first painted, I figured paint something green then the highlights would be light green and the shadows dark green. But the highlights on the coconuts especially are really helpful.

Also, I tended to use only the colors of the original object, for example green. Now I can see that that's not the case.

For the trunk, I noticed you used lots of shades of brown and even green. The transitions definitely look a lot better now and I can see what you mean.

All in all, the visual aid really helped DG and thanks for taking the time to help. I'll work on it some more and get back to you guys.

Okay, so here's version 2.

I cleaned up the trunk of the tree and toned down the saturation. I also redid the ocean and used a smaller blur tool and brush. FYI, the first version was done with a mouse and the second one I used a Wacom tablet. It's still a work in progress, but I was wondering if I could get some feedback on the second version.

Both taxon and weadah were very helpful and thank you again.

original_edit.jpg

Yeah, that's a lot better than the first one, you've done the colours better this time, a bit darkes and less saturated. Looking good. Do you plan on working more detail into this do you just want to keep it looking like an oid painting.

Actualy, (this is me going off topic again) I just go thinking, it's easy to make an image look like it was done on canvas, or apply x brush strokes to make it look more like a painting. But many artists get really thick with their paints. Sometimes even mixing in fillers to thicken them up. Simulating one of those yummy and thick oil painting using PS would be quite a task, as you'd have to make it look like the brush strokes were 3D, painted with layers and layers of a really thick medium. I'll have to give that a try sometime, sound's like fun

Dracusis

My sig's comming, honest...

silence:
Now we're cooking with gas!

Coconuts look good, and the ocean seems more torrential now. You've got some much better tones going on as well. Great step up from the previous version.

The trunk of the tree is gaining a lot of form now, and the grass seems to be blowing in waves...love it.

Let's cut to where it could be improved now, though.

I'm still a little unclear as to your use of the yellow on the highlights of the fronds....it seems really out of place since nothing else is lit with that intense, or shaded of a highlight. If you keep wanting to use the yellow (it's a bold choice, but workable) then you have to establish a consistent lighting with the rest of the objects in the painting.

Since it seems that you're heading for more of a stormy look though, I'd cut the yellow, shade it out to a light brown-green and fade it into the fronds like that as highlighting.

Keep shaping the grass up, it's unclear right now (blurred) but the small, hard brush smudging is working great..keep detailing it, and it's going to be wicked.

the clouds in the sky are still a bit flat...time to get out a couple pictures of storms or carribean cloudy skies, and do some reference review. Watch for how the clouds seem to be on layers of depth, falling further and further "down" and "into" the painting....

I still love these colours, and you're gaining leaps and bounds over the first version.

Keep Going!

Can't wait to see v 3.0

Peter

Once again, Peter and everyone else, thanks for your help.

I've taken all your comments into consideration and I've gotten version 3 done. I'm really having trouble with the sky. I've looked at dozens of photos and I know what I want but I can't seem to get there.

Basically, the sky should have a few large clouds dominating the foreground and then a sparse canopy fading into the background. These are clouds that form around islands due to the huge expanse of sea, but I can't get them to look right. I'm also having trouble with the underside. They should be dark but there's also a bit of reflection from the sea.

Here is the reference image I have:
sky.jpg

Here's the image:
original_edit.jpg

I like your tree.

Macromedia Suck!