These are basically environmental practice. Im using a fictional forest I created as subject matter, and its also helping me develop the forest and characters itself.
This first one is of the main character near a torii gate. I've been using them a lot in sketches, and I'm working out how they affect the world around them. I'm thinking of using them as portals to the spirit world within the forest, or as gateways to other "dimensions". This was also an experiment with lighting. The glowing orbs will appear a lot, they are remnants of the souls of the living that have passed on. They have little intelligence, but they congregate around areas like gates, and each other. They are like bits and pieces of a soul rather than one individual.
The lighting is similar in both of these color wise, one is night and one is day. Critique is VERY welcome
But remember these are not meant to be refined and detailed, they took me about two hours each.
The second one is by far superior to me. The lighting is beautiful. Really feels like morning or something.
In fact, I have a question about the process on it.
I'm just learning to paint forests. It's the first time I've moved away from characters and into backgrounds.
How do you go about blocking out a forest like this? Do you start with a base green, then establish a solid ground/horizon, then solid shapes for the trees?
There are so many colors in forest paintings, especially the more atmospheric ones. It disorients me when trying to paint them. Maybe you can give me some pointers.
Once again great job!
sunnybubblegum, on 27 January 2012 - 11:41 AM, said:
The second one is by far superior to me. The lighting is beautiful. Really feels like morning or something.
In fact, I have a question about the process on it.
I'm just learning to paint forests. It's the first time I've moved away from characters and into backgrounds.
How do you go about blocking out a forest like this? Do you start with a base green, then establish a solid ground/horizon, then solid shapes for the trees?
There are so many colors in forest paintings, especially the more atmospheric ones. It disorients me when trying to paint them. Maybe you can give me some pointers.
Once again great job!
To be honest, I'm learning myself ^^' Forests aren't really my strong suit, I think this was my first really successful image in one
BUT I did record my process, and theres a speed paint of it here
Where you can pretty much see my process.
i also recommend you look up noahbradley and fzdschool on youtube. They really helped me learn, and look at lots of reference photos of forests. I try to get in the colors and feel right away and then just build from there with details. And I myself usually end up adding some effect lighting in at some point but the base I try to get in from the start.
One method I've picked up recently from watching the pros is keeping the navigator open so I can see a thumbnail, and making sure that the image "reads" in the thumbnail, so that when I look at the little image i can tell what it is and it looks good, then I go into detail after that. Though, I've really only been watching work by CONCEPT artists lately so I don't know if that technique translates but its been working for me haha.
I'm no pro, so I don't really know if I'm in any position to give advice XD since I might be making mistakes I don't want to pass on. So I try to just direct people to to pros I learned from.
This guy is a professional concept artist, he even worked at skywalker ranch. He started and teaches at a design school in Singapore. He uses photoshop, but the techniques translate to gimp or any software http://www.youtube.c...OL?blend=1&ob=0
He also uses photoshop, but again, the techniques translate over to gimp, as the painting processes are similar on both.
(I've used both, I actually almost prefer gimp for this sort of thing sometimes)
I hope that wasn't too longwinded and I hope it helped ^^'
Just saw your reply today! Not long-winded at all to me. I'm looking for all the words of experience I can get.
You've left me with a lot of great resources, so I'll start diving into them right away. If it's alright, I'll let you know how it goes, or approach you again if I have more questions. Any further resources will be very much appreciated as well.
You're doing great for just learning forests yourself. Fare well!
This post has been edited by sunnybubblegum: 05 February 2012 - 02:37 AM
Help
