Did I fix my art? March prompt

[Oana]

@Enni-Heikura I'm not a great colorist mysel (yet! :P) but I use the same method, even when working on the Ipad in Procreate (which is a great choice if you decide to buy an app) I mostly use the tools as if I was doing it traditionally, feels better to me like that. But I do use layers and I think Autodesk Sketchbook also has layers, so you could try coloring the different elements on different layers, using a plain sharp edge brush, that way you could do what Sarah suggests, like working with paper cutouts, and then each layer can be adjusted individually. On top you can add shadows, and highlights, also wih a clean sharp edge brush?

I also use Medibang on the PC, also a free software, it's ok

[Enni Heikura]

Thank you @Yiming-Wu and @Oana for your advices! That's a good point that I could blur the background a bit around the characters so they stand out better, and I could try to make the lighting clearer and sharper. My very first idea was to create daylight lighting for this, but for some reason, I drew that lamp, so then I thought it would be strange if there's a lamp that doesn't emit light , so I had to make it darker.

Most of the time, when I create darker lighting, I use the same color for most of it, like blue (as I did in January's assignment, for example). It somehow makes it clearer and works better for me... But I'll try to improve this with these instructions

[Yiming Wu]

@Enni-Heikura Keep exploring you got this!

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Enni-Heikura hi! Your art looks adorable and sweet. I like it. I think you can still push your values but I would not suggest using a soft brush over everything. In my opinion, it makes everything look too busy. Instead, I would suggest just adding flat shadows. It’s good that you have a light on the gryphin. We can use that as our main light source. I don’t have much time to explain but I’ve attached a suggested revised image below. I hope this helps.

[Enni Heikura]

@Nyrryl-Cadiz Thank you for this demonstration! I also just tried that myself, having flat light, and it seems to work quite well. I just need to refine it a bit more when I have time

[Enni Heikura]

@Yiming-Wu Thank you, I will!

[Tamzin]

It’s lovely!

[Fey Realme]

@Nyrryl-Cadiz wow that is suddenly a billion times more readable, although im still not sure if they are grooming a griffin or carving one out of stone

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@R-Fey-Realme true. This is definitely just a quick fix

[kayleenartlover]

It is still very hard to see what the kid is doing. I think he should stand out a bit more. One of his arms is blending in like a tangent with the leg of the statue, both arms actually. You have to kind of squint and ignore everything else to notice that an accident happened.
Maybe copy and past the canvas and drop the color completely to a black and white image. Then see where you can add more contrast so the kid is the first or second thing you notice happening.

[NessIllustration]

@Enni-Heikura I think the values should help you create contrast in important areas to bring the viewer's attention there. Your biggest problem with this image is the lamp pointing at the statue, making the entire middle area very bright. Since your statue is pale too, it doesn't stand out at all against the white, pale yellow background surrounding it.

While the second version does use more of a range of values, it's a bit intense and uses pure black shadows which feels too dark. At the same time, all the dark parts are concentrated in the borders and corners, leaving the center bright and not solving your core issue of lack of contrast on the statue.

You could remove the lamp to have the pale statue stand out against a darker background. OR you could have a pale background like in your old version, and simply make the statue a darker color (like dark wood, or a dark gold color for example).

[Enni Heikura]

@kayleenartlover Thank you for your feedback! I noticed the tangent now myself . I agree that the focus isn't clear enough on where to look. I've also done that, looking at the values in black and white It still needs some consideration...

[Enni Heikura]

@NessIllustration Thanks for your advice and feedback! I did consider that when working on this, that if I include a lamp, the room should be at least somewhat dim, and if the statue is light gray, it might be challenging to bring out the light in it. My initial idea was that the room would be in daylight; perhaps I could also try the approach of making the statue clearly darker and the lamp maybe broken. I have to find some time to refine this

[Sarah VanDam]

@Enni-Heikura Hi Enni! I took some time to try and figure out how I would solve this rendering puzzle. I’m curious—what’s your setup for drawing digitally? Do you have a stylus or tablet of some kind? I don’t know how Autodesk works. I’ve been working in Procreate. Here are some of the things I did:

-I knocked back the opacity of everything in the background (I cut out the background with the lasso tool and lowered the opacity to 40%)
-Using a soft watercolor brush as an eraser, I erased out some of the corners of the image to vignette it more.
-Redrew the lamp stand legs slightly.
-Added flat colors to everything mostly using a “multiply” layer and a hard inking brush (clearly, I decided to go with no dramatic lighting and even next to no shadow)
-Added watercolor texture on an “overlay” layer and then reduced the opacity to make it subtler.
-Bumped the character over to the left and tried to make it clearer that the leg got cracked (I’ll admit I think I drew the feet wrong. It should just be the toes on the ground. The way I drew it, it’s like the griffin has two ankles, haha).

[Enni Heikura]

@Sarah-VanDam Hi Sarah! I really appreciate your effort. Overall, I love how helpful everyone is and how they want to solve this puzzle.

I use a tablet and pen, which are connected to the computer (XP-Pen), some cheapest version of it . And on the computer, I have Autodesk Sketchbook free version.

You have some good suggestions for this. At first, I also considered having just a few colors or something similar in the background. But I wanted to challenge myself and try to make the figures in the center stand out even if there are other colors in the background. It still needs a lot of practice.

I like that the griffin's foot is broken on the left side, it stands out much better than the original.

Thank you again for all your help. When I find the time, I'll try to use all these useful tips and suggestions.