Creative Environment Design
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Thank you all for the feedback, I'll continue to work on it! Since it's less effort for practice, I'll be going with the line drawing.
Here is my next practice piece and I'm curious to know what you all think of the color scheme. The lines aren't done fully, and there will be more contrast as I render it out.
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I think both of your layouts are really interesting. I would suggest you take some time and do more value studies. Limit yourself to 5 tones ranging from white, 25%, 50%, 75%, and black. You will get so much further that way.
I took your image and converted it to greyscale and added a 5 value posterization to show you what I mean. It almost all goes to middle grey. I'd say that is your problem in the first one as well. Your drawing and color are fine. If you get your value under control these will be rockin'!
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Thanks Lee! I'll work on it!
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Super quick/messy, but is this better?
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Your line drawings are beautiful, thank you for sharing
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I really like your dessert painting. I think that the top with the line is stronger as it makes everything more clear visually. You could use the art without line but it would require more refining and as Lee mentioned more contrast would help parts pop and be more defined.
As for composition, I like it. I read it like we're getting closer to a grander yet smaller scene. Almost as if there was a small mouse town just around the next cacti.
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That's getting there. The problem is that you are thinking in terms of lighting before thinking in terms of local value (local color). A dark green cactus, even when lit wont go nearly as bright as a light flower. And a lighter flower will never go to black in terms of the shadow tone. Of course, saturation plays a part in all this, so it's not totally cut and dry. But for ease of teaching, just think of each thing as a flat tone and as yourself "Is this local value light or dark". Then add the lighting on top of that, but try to keep the items separate and make sure they still read when the image is small.
Does that make sense? Here's a quick way to check that idea. Notice that if you make the image very small or squint at it, the cactus shapes stay intact and then there is the darker rocks, and then the flowers and lighter background items. They all stay separate. That's the easy way to remember this and it will really make image making a lot easier. To put it another way, most people over light the scene and then the values are really hard to control.
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Here's some wonderful examples of controlling value (dreamworks artist Luc Desmarchelier) :
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Lee, the way you put it makes sense. I see your draw over is a lot better, I just have a difficult time determining how much to think about the lighting when doing a value study. Is it better to start with everything in in local value and then figure out the lighting/shadow situation?
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Unless the lighting is really exaggerated in some way, I'd think about local tones first and add the light on top of that.
