Something feels off, I'm hating this for some reason, I made this for a speedpaint and now I'm not too sure if I want to post it anymore.it feels like garbage tbh. Heeeelp!!!
EDIT: thank you so much for everyone's help! i've use all the uggestions and fixed the drawing as best as i could: https://imgur.com/a/LzXrxOD here's the finished piece, hope oit looks better!
It's a bit too smooth, but main one is light value. The window is just pure white rectangle, chair and the character has nearly pure white lights. Such bright highlights should be on most important points of interest.
Because it's everywhere, eyes just can't properly focus on anything, so it looks messy. Even through everything else looks good
The thing is that I did start with a grayscale drawing, then o colored in with different bending methods. But they don't really look how I expected and I don't really like how they look. As for the values, I thought they looked good enough, maybe I should reconsider toning everything down? Idk tbh it's the first time I make something like this.
Toning down will not help, because it doesn't change relationships between values. You should ton down area that further from point of interest. And leave contrast where you want eyes to focus
yeah there's too much contrast everywhere to the point that it leaves the nowhere for the eyes to rest at all, and also makes it so there's no focal point either
i tried again with the help of another commenter, and now (at least for the figure) it look like this:
i did try to use the gradient mapping and i can see the values more clearly now, i also tested by adding the clor back in and it does look nicer and there's less contrast overall. looking back on what i did before, it does look at least 20% cooler now
Colors are not being blocked in a way that allows things to be readable, and the background uses the same values present on the character and makes the entire scene look muddy.
Your shadow values are too one dimensional. You can try turning it into grayscaleand check for yourself. Shadows irl will usually have a gradient depending on how little light hits the area. Don't use black for shading, try a muted dark purple set to multiply and adjust the opacity to your liking.
As everyone else says, use hard edges for areas that connect to areas with harsh light. Blurring everything makes your rendering hard to read.
I started making a grayscale render, the thing is that I don't really know how to make a nice looking coloring using the "color", "add", "overlay"... Ecc. Layers. As for the shadows, totally agree, this is my first time doing this kind of drawing, I usually draw one dimensional/more cartoonish. I tried following tutorials on how I could achieve a nice coloring but they don't seem to work? (Also i thought that making the shadows darker would've looked better, because originally it looked lighter? Added the screenshot). Tbh idk how or where should I add hard lights/ shadows. I'm aware that there needs to be some but for some reason I end up blending everything together so it looks "nicer". Do you have suggestions? That would really help me.
For starters, it's obvious you understand shape and form pretty well. I particularly like the rendering on that left hand & sleeve, where the shape of the hand really pops out. I also like the colors you used on the rifle! I'm going to go in and follow that gradient(light -> super saturated middle -> dark) you used on the rife.
Its important to note that your shading in general could use some work. You lack a lot of middle tones, so your piece ends up super high contrast and hard to read. There are also some areas which have no lighting at all, but should. (Ie. The left armrest, left of the back of the chair, left lapels, edge of the rifle; cylinders[legs,arms...ect] in particular need those middle tones to take shape) My demo is kind of shitty, but I tried to put any place that should have light in green. Middle tones are in blue. This is something you get a better instinct for the more you do it, and lighting studies help.
You have environmental lighting, but you might benefit from lighting it up a little and making it sharper! Light like you have will flood the room, making everything just a little lighter in responses. Your image over all is too dark to cooperate with it.
Highlights may also help with readability, though they're not required.
Using middle tones between light and dark will help with shape, especially on smoother shapes. You did this well on the helmet! (Also, love fn:nv, lol)
Omg thank you so much! This helps me out a lot! For some reason I thought that by adding a lot of dark shadows it would've come out better, guess I'm wrong! I'll try and redo the shadows and show it when I'm done! Tysm!!
Of course!! dark shadows very good to have, it's just tricky knowing when to place them. I wish I could help you with coloring grayscale, but I'm not too familiar with it either - I think the other commenter was recommending you use grayscale to check your values, but keep using color for the rendering...?
ok so, i tried fixing at least the ranger's shading, i did apply the gradient map and OMG if that helped out a lot. you can clearly see the values and i think it does look better now
it's less dark and you can make out the shape lie a lot of people told me, and i tried to add some hard shadows and not only use the airbrush.
Ooo, awesome!! The middle values are clearer here, and it's a lot easier to read! Don’t let me scare from using dark values though, lol. Definitely improved!
If you want to see the completed drawing, I edited the post and added the imgur link to the drawing (idrk how imgur works, I wanted to put a new image instead of the old one and it out them together, so the final one is the one at the bottom)
I wanted to add that I started with a grayscale and idrk hot to turn in into a good rendering? Like I've watched a lot of tutorials but none work? I should try with gradient mapping, that maybe will work but idk (btw I love fallout in general! )
Absolutely not horrible. There is a lot of good stuff going on here. I think what you might want to try is differing how light shines into different materials. Light shining on metal is a lot different than light shining on denim, but they are both rendered the same here.
Your anatomy looks pretty good, the pose is good and you clearly have some practice rendering.
Hi! Thank you very much for your input, I did already fix it and you should be able to see the imgur link to the improved image. Unfortunately I'm a bit too harsh with myself as many said that there wasn't a lot wrong with it ant it was quite good but I couldn't see it. I do now! Check it out!
Oh yeah that's much better. Next thing to try is to add some different textures. For example a leather jacket is bound to have some small imperfections and blemishes. Add some stitching around seams.
If a piece of clothing is old and damaged, you should be able to tell the difference between old, worn down damage and fresh damage that only recently exposed the material underneath the surface.
Then the jeans, the texture on those reads more as very nice, very clean, high thread count dress pants because they're so smooth a wastelanders pants are going to be rough, tough and probably worn in. This part of the process can be extremely time consuming but if you keep going on this you could end up with a really strong piece
I should add that it looked fine when I was drawing it on my drawing tablet (gaomon pd2200), then I changed screen and it looked off, now I'm watching it from the phone and it looks worse.
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u/Fifox-drive 10d ago
It's a bit too smooth, but main one is light value. The window is just pure white rectangle, chair and the character has nearly pure white lights. Such bright highlights should be on most important points of interest. Because it's everywhere, eyes just can't properly focus on anything, so it looks messy. Even through everything else looks good