Thanks for your comments!
Ajit1 said:
how long have you been drawing?
how did you improve?
what kind of equipment do you use? (like what tablet or w/e)
thanks a ton for sharing :)
Let's see if I can answer ...
How long ... Been painting since I was a kid (mostly in oils, pencils and charcoal) and I found a few old images I did on the computer around 1997 or so, at the time using my trusty Amiga4000 with the great old program
Deluxe Paint V (limited in number of colours and no layers, but still a great program for pixel art). I didn't do much computer art at the time though, I did almost everything with pen and paper still. Started with GIMP (under Linux, when I finally switched from the Amiga) in 2003 or so, and these days I do everything on the computer.
Improvement ... is mostly from feedback and serioue critique I manage to squeeze out of people; from friends and family but most especially from here, on DeviantArt and a few other places. Some serious, rather clear (and in my opinion beneficial) changes in style has come out of me simply deciding to follow the advice of people giving constructive criticism. Critique is really the main reason I post my work on the net at all (that, and for using it in some online roleplaying games).
As for equipment, I've done a lot of work with a mouse, including some character portraits (several of my tutorials are made with a mouse just so people get over the misconception that you
have to have a tablet to get artistic results). The mouse is actually kinda neat for painting, it just requires a special technique (it's also generally slower to work with) and requires you to learn it, like any tool. The problem most people have is that they have a crap mouse; it's like trying to draw with a ink pen that leaks all over the place. I have a Logitech laser mouse and that does wonders. These days though, I do use a tablet, a Wacom Intuous 3. It's a joy to use, but I still fall back to the mouse when I'm marooned on my laptop or when I try to make a point in a tutorial (heck, I've even drawn a character with the laptop 'joystick' once, now THAT's tricky ...).
Hope that answers your questions. :-)
C0balt279 said:
You could make/use a set of leaves brushes to make your the work easier. It really looks like a well done hand painting! Only one suggestion though. The skinny light brown tree near the center (in front of the larger tree) looks slightly unnatural (too upright?). It's probably best to leave it like that since it could mess up the other aspects of the paining.
Thanks for the suggestions! I have tried with leave brushes (like
[here]), problem is that it's hard to not make it look repetitive and awkward. Maybe I've just not found a good method for using them efficiently. If you have any good suggestions, It'd be great to hear it.
As for the tree, it's possible you are right that it throws the composition a bit. I wanted some sort of diagonal in the image, for increased dynamics, but maybe it's too much -- not sure I'll change it, but it's worth thinking about. The tree itself is however a sort of birch (think it's called a "Downy birch") and they are
supposed to look like that. :-)
.
Griatch
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