Totally random concept/sketch thread

    Quick sketch from a ref photo. When I say quick, it still took an hour or so. Trying to get used to painting workflow and find that I go over and over the same areas. Are there any particular brushes that are best suited? Could do with something to add a bit of texture too. Feedback is welcome as always!

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    You are just practicing on your own, are you following some tutorials or lessons?

    I sometime watch those posted in the FZDSchool channel by Feng Zhu, one of the best concept artist in the industry; on the brush argument he always says he uses only a couple of the default PS brushes (as well as no pressure sensitivity, every color value is set by him). But of course one uses the tools that work best for him/her.

    ot: lulz, you are from the town my brother-in-law is.

    heh, Reading is the place to be. I'm just going about it my own way currently but I'm gonna watch a few tutorials to see if I can get some better ideas how to use each brush. Setting every colour value manually sounds a bit counter-intuitive, but as you say, whatever works best for you. I'll check this artist out that you mention. Cheers BD!

    Feng Zhu is King! The most valuable stuff he´ll give you is the bunch of basic principles he follows and he repeats them all the time, just listen ^^

    and more iPad stuff:

    robot?

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    pigs in heaven

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    i never used pressure sensitivity in a digital painting and definitly don´t miss it,

    what i (and feng zhu too) do mostly, is to select my colour with the colourpicker from the image.

    You can also add photos and use those as your color palette, which i did in this painting:

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    in the painting process i had a bunch of peacock and beach images on a layer to get the colors from

    Do yourself a favour cardo, and watch some of Feng's lessons, they are very informative about all the basics, as Tschoppo says.

    On the sensitiviy, it's not that he uses 100% color values everywhere, he just sets manually the transparency of the brush. I don't remember if he keeps the pressure setting for making a bolder or thinner mark.

    As for textures, you will find several tutorials in where he illustrates how you can use a texture just to pick color values, or as a starting point for your work, and just have some work done to save time (in the end the painting will be completely done over) or simply to not fall in the "blank slate fear" (sometimes he takes a painting of his, flips it around and starts painting over, without the original having anything to do with what he will end up).

    Thanks for the replies. I've watched through Feng's fantasy landscape vid, albeit with no sound as I'm currently at work, but it was amazing to see the complete process. Already picked up on a couple of things that I should be doing and seeing how he lays some base colours and then colour picks from them and adjusts accordingly. That's my issue at the moment and find it difficult picking accompanying colours when trying to show highlights and shadows on an object, so hopefully colour picking is the solution!

    Love the robot btw Tschoppo!

    i like both of them cardo, that space building is nicely rendered and in general i like the lightning in those two.

    Only thing i dislike is the bluish fog in the desert.. besides the realistic issue of fog in the desert it doesn't match in.

    I'd recommend trying more detailed paintings, take your time and get yourself refs for every part of your painting.

    Todays blorange:

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    6-7 hours i think and it needs more contrast :/

    Thanks Tschoppo! Yeah the desert pic was just a doodle really. I started experimenting with how o use the flat brushes and just kinda threw some colours together and decided it would be a desert. Composition wise I think it's a bit crappy. The blue 'fog' was meant to be more of a heat haze in the distance but guess it didn't come across right I will try some more detailed images when I'm a little happier throwing the basic forms and colours around for sure. Hopefully will have some time this weekend to experiment a little more and will try and gather some refs as you mention.

    Loving the colours you've got going in your piece. I need to experiment with getting colours into a scene fairly early on before I get bogged down in greyscale. Your character feels a bit disjointed from the scene to me, but not sure how you could work him in more being with the contrast of him against the snow.

    this bugs me because there's too much going on composition wise. where is the focus supposed to be? on the wanderer or the volcano or the castle?

    Quote from cardo

    Tried to paint a scene with a bit more substance. Used a couple of references but should've planned the scene a bit better. Was still fun to mess around with the colours and trying to paint different materials.

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    nice, i especially like the reflections in the water

    Cheers Sentura. Think next time I'll use a few different brushes. Got a bit carried away with the one brush and it gave the image a nasty blur effect. Ok as a thumbnail though!

    Quote from cardo

    Cheers Sentura. Think next time I'll use a few different brushes. Got a bit carried away with the one brush and it gave the image a nasty blur effect. Ok as a thumbnail though!

    yeah, now that you mention it the blur definitely is too much. usually the first thing that catches me is the composition, which is pretty well established. for next time you could perhaps also try and use the classical dynamic for light and shadow where you have one diagonal line of light and one diagonal line of shadow stretching from corner to corner. IF you're into experimentation, anyway.

    Quote from Tschoppo

    great work cardo!

    Sentura, you're totally right, overworked it a bit to establish the volcano as main focus.

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    it's better, but the wanderer and the castle still stand too much out. the wanderer really needs to be a silhouette and at the very least the castle needs to be obscured by fog or smoke or something.

    on a minor note, stuff like skulls etc. - put them in piles or create more of them, then they also attract less attention. if you have a singular skull it's more likely people will take it as a symbol of something and allow it more attention, whereas if you have more of them they'll become an attribute of the setting of the image.

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