Sharing Some Digital Art *critique please*

Some art I've done in my spare time.
All drawn in Adobe Photoshop using a Wacom Graphire 4 Tablet.

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http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...ino2copy-1.png

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...nino31copy.png


I'm not exactly finished w/ this. But I was getting very tired of working on it. It's taken me about a week to do just this. *sigh*

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9.../realismpv.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...realismpv2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...y_Jidai_SK.jpg


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This one is old:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v9...0tvlines-1.jpg

Looks very good! I need to get a Wacom.

Amazing art!! And Arashi? As in the band? :D:gj:

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Originally Posted by dragonsong93

Amazing art!! And Arashi? As in the band? :D:gj:

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Thank you!

Yes. Arashi. As in the Japanese boy band. Haha.
The first piece is one of their members.

When I was in high school, I used to be a huge fan.

wow thats good i have a Wacom tablet but cant make do anything like that lol.

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Originally Posted by jinx667

Looks very good! I need to get a Wacom.

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Thank you!
They're great tablets.

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Originally Posted by satomi325

Thank you!

Yes. Arashi. As in the Japanese boy band. Haha.
The first piece is one of their members.

When I was in high school, I used to be a huge fan.

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I have some of their songs on my Ipod :) I mostly listen to visual kei tho and not jpop stuff :yes:

Very nice. You definitely have that painting technique down for sure. I'd be curious to toss you into CorelPAINT and see what you can come up with, given the larger variety of textures you can work with. Photoshop is great, but I find unless you import a variety of brushes, you can tend to lack a bit of texture here and there. These look very clean and smooth, which is great for portraits. Other subjects might lose a bit of that 'edge' they'd need.

If you're looking for a critique, I can provide a bit of one. No worries, though, I'm not a harsh one ;)

The only thing I'm feeling as I browse through these is they feel like they lack a bit of contrast. By appearences it looks like you went off photographs for the facial building, which is great. Photos, especially portraits, can really lack contrast sometimes or intentionally are lit to create different 'feelings'. I personally would have loved to see you sneak a bit of contrast color into the shadows, built a bit more highlight/dark along the edges (especially near the 'back' of the photo where you start to get into shadows). Even just cooling off the tone a bit on the face in certain shadowed areas would have been enough to break up a bit of that one-sided color palette.

I can see the variety of skin tones you used, which is great. That's not what I'm critiquing. I just mean I'd love to see the red and flesh tones pop a bit by adding some more 'green' to the shadows. Not straight green, obviously, haha. But a greyed out green instead of just a darker skin tone. It doesn't make sense when you first start playing with it, I know. But shadows are typically the color across from the highlight color on the color wheel. So for red/yellow hues, their shadows would tone into some greens and purples.

Haha. I had to play with making shapes and shadows for a while before I understood what someone was talking about with that. But once you get it, you can really take your work to that next level. We tend to focus so much on color with digital programs that we sometimes can forget a bit about color theory.

Like I said, this isn't a harsh critique. More like something to play around with later if you feel like you want to change it up and try a different style. Nothing wrong with these portraits. You have a beautiful bokah background, very nice levels of depth, softness fading away from the focal points... Nothing I'd tweak here. I'd just love to see how you would approach a more saturated and varied color palette if given the chance, especially with the soft painting style you have here :gj:

ARASHI & M.M.! Haha.

Really nice. Love them both, but, the first more so. Haha. The shading is really nice, and so is the texture. I really like how the first one blends in with the background more so. They're both really, really nice! Keep up the good work!

P.S.: Asian Kung Fu Generation is better. Even though it's in a totally different genre :P

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vasiliki

Very nice. You definitely have that painting technique down for sure. I'd be curious to toss you into CorelPAINT and see what you can come up with, given the larger variety of textures you can work with. Photoshop is great, but I find unless you import a variety of brushes, you can tend to lack a bit of texture here and there. These look very clean and smooth, which is great for portraits. Other subjects might lose a bit of that 'edge' they'd need.

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I agree with you 100%. I tried using Coral Painter a few times, but came out unsuccessful. I just couldn't figure out how to really use painter to it's full potential. Even basic stuff was difficult for me to use. (But this was years ago. I may give it a try again....)
Painter is much more complex imo. PS is more "dummy" status... heh...

Quote:

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If you're looking for a critique, I can provide a bit of one. No worries, though, I'm not a harsh one ;)

The only thing I'm feeling as I browse through these is they feel like they lack a bit of contrast. By appearences it looks like you went off photographs for the facial building, which is great. Photos, especially portraits, can really lack contrast sometimes or intentionally are lit to create different 'feelings'. I personally would have loved to see you sneak a bit of contrast color into the shadows, built a bit more highlight/dark along the edges (especially near the 'back' of the photo where you start to get into shadows). Even just cooling off the tone a bit on the face in certain shadowed areas would have been enough to break up a bit of that one-sided color palette.

I can see the variety of skin tones you used, which is great. That's not what I'm critiquing. I just mean I'd love to see the red and flesh tones pop a bit by adding some more 'green' to the shadows. Not straight green, obviously, haha. But a greyed out green instead of just a darker skin tone. It doesn't make sense when you first start playing with it, I know. But shadows are typically the color across from the highlight color on the color wheel. So for red/yellow hues, their shadows would tone into some greens and purples.

Haha. I had to play with making shapes and shadows for a while before I understood what someone was talking about with that. But once you get it, you can really take your work to that next level. We tend to focus so much on color with digital programs that we sometimes can forget a bit about color theory.

Like I said, this isn't a harsh critique. More like something to play around with later if you feel like you want to change it up and try a different style. Nothing wrong with these portraits. You have a beautiful bokah background, very nice levels of depth, softness fading away from the focal points... Nothing I'd tweak here. I'd just love to see how you would approach a more saturated and varied color palette if given the chance, especially with the soft painting style you have here :gj:

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Thank you for the advice. I really appreciate it. I'll be sure to try out your suggestions.

The first and last piece were based on photographs. The middle unfinished one was scratch. I feel like that one came out the best even though it's not done. I can definitely see what you mean by contrast.
I think I somewhat did that in the unfinished piece.

I've never had formal art lessons. Everything has been self taught over the years. So I probably lack a lot of basic color theory. (Perhaps I should take a class). I have difficulty choosing colors for contrast because it just looks strange to me in the "work in progress" stages. It comes together in the end, but I guess I lack the "eye" for it?? Haha

I'll start playing around w/ colors more.

Again, thank you. :)

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Originally Posted by theReptileGuy

ARASHI & M.M.! Haha.

Really nice. Love them both, but, the first more so. Haha. The shading is really nice, and so is the texture. I really like how the first one blends in with the background more so. They're both really, really nice! Keep up the good work!

P.S.: Asian Kung Fu Generation is better. Even though it's in a totally different genre :P

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I really liked the older gen of MM. I'm not sure what's going on w/ any Jpop group these days because I fell out of the fandoms a while back.
I still like them. Just haven't kept up.

And AKFG is awesome too. I have a few albums.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by satomi325

I agree with you 100%. I tried using Coral Painter a few times, but came out unsuccessful. I just couldn't figure out how to really use painter to it's full potential. Even basic stuff was difficult for me to use. (But this was years ago. I may give it a try again....)
Painter is much more complex imo. PS is more "dummy" status... heh...

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It is very difficult! I can't tell you how many times I got frustrated with it and had to close it, haha. Then I started working larger and my computer wouldn't have enough RAM to handle the larger processes. Again, very frustrating.

You could definitely check out Deviantart for some CorelPAINT tutorials. Just like Photoshop, it takes time to get the hang of, and for the first while you'll spend equal time painting as you do trying to find your next tool, haha. It gets easier the more you do it. I like both programs for various reasons, and sometimes will cross import files back and forth between them. Build texture in CorelDRAW, finalize and tweak color in Photoshop. Both have their pros and cons for sure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by satomi325

Thank you for the advice. I really appreciate it. I'll be sure to try out your suggestions.

The first and last piece were based on photographs. The middle unfinished one was scratch. I feel like that one came out the best even though it's not done. I can definitely see what you mean by contrast.
I think I somewhat did that in the unfinished piece.

I've never had formal art lessons. Everything has been self taught over the years. So I probably lack a lot of basic color theory. (Perhaps I should take a class). I have difficulty choosing colors for contrast because it just looks strange to me in the "work in progress" stages. It comes together in the end, but I guess I lack the "eye" for it?? Haha

I'll start playing around w/ colors more.

Again, thank you. :)

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I'm self taught as well, so I can understand that for sure. I spent many years asking questions of various artists. A good number of 'professionals' are more than happy to answer an e-mail if you're asking about technique or clarification about things. Todd Lockwood and I spoke back and forth for about a year. Fabulous person. Donato was helpful, if a little stern, haha. The more you ask, the more you learn. Just like you asking for critique here.

Color theory is tricky, and I admit, I'm still learning the various tricks of the trade. But each time I pick up a new piece of information, I'll go and try it out for a while with simple drawings of shapes and textures. For instance, shadows are the opposite color of the object on the color wheel. So a RED ball will cast a GREEN shadow. Pull up Photoshop, create a ball. Mask off just the ball. Paint the ball various reds. Highlights only. Brighten it. Then, start throwing in some green based grey in the same 'tone' as the red. Then start to darken it up and blend it in. The ball should 'pop' a bit more than if you'd used just straight black as your shadowing. Yellow's shadow are Purple. Orange's shadows are Blue....

It gets interesting.

Another way to 'learn' color is to take an 8" x 8" peice of paper and cut about a 0.5" square in the center. Hold this in front of your face and use it to isolate colors. When we see the whole thing, our brain will 'shortcut' colors and we won't see the true color. We see the color as a whole. By looking at just certain areas (highlights, shadows, etc) through a single hole, we can isolate the true colors that are there. A shadow that once looked black can now have a blue tone that we didn't notice before.

But I won't ramble too much, haha. It's basically always a learning process!

Search tutorials, and if you find an artist that does something you're curious about, e-mail them. What's the worst that will happen? They might not e-mail you back. I doubt they'd scold you for e-mailing them. Most are more than happy to chat with a fan for a bit. Honestly, art classes can be good, but I find they aren't great. I took a few and, once we started drawing/applying, I often found that the teacher and I would be on-par and I'd somehow end up helping with the class, haha! Fine art is a little different, and you do learn a lot, but those are typically more expensive and hard to find a really good teacher. Or, at least, one that isn't slightly crazy or stuck in their own genre :rolleyes:

You have a great style going on. Really appealing. Definitely stick with it. You got something good going here :gj:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by satomi325

I really liked the older gen of MM. I'm not sure what's going on w/ any Jpop group these days because I fell out of the fandoms a while back.
I still like them. Just haven't kept up.

And AKFG is awesome too. I have a few albums.

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I've only listened to MM songs when I was with my friend, but, that was a while back. I don't really listen to J-Pop groups anymore either, but, I still listen to other J-Music: The Gazette, Gackt, AK69, One Ok Rock, etc. Have you ever heard of BIGBANG? They're a Korean group, but, they sing in Japanese too, and have topped charts in both.