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Marcus Aseth's 2d Diary.

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polycounter lvl 9
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Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
So,26 years old now and I still have this foolish idea of learning how to draw :/ I call it foolish because even if I where to learn "how to render properly by hand" as for now,I still have to prove to myself if I would be able to produce anything worth to be rendered - Creativity...I don't know if I have enough of it,if it can be trained and/or improved, and even if a pro 2D artist where to tell to me that this could definitely be done,no disrespect to him but then I would think "and what if my mind is the exception that can't learn it?!"...and so I would dismiss his knowledge and back to uncertainty.

So to put and end to this uncertainty that bothers me from like a decade and brought me to drop drawing altogether more than once,something like 5 days ago I decide to see it through this once and for all,if I fail then "too bad" but if I can succeed...I will see then where to bring it from there :)

Unfortunately I think I lack the passion (wich I know is the ultimate "booster" in order to learn anything) and my reason for wanting to learn to draw is for the most part "using it as a tool to aid me in the 3d..()",in fact I hate the feeling of having no idea how to translate some parts of a draw into 3d just because I can't perfectly see all the details I need from every perspective in order to model it,So...the plan here is to replace passion with constancy (is that the word?),was it drawing even only 1 hour a day,but the point here is to do it everyday no matter what.

For months now I'm also studying "Japanese everyday no matter what" so in this period I need to figure out things,fine tune stuff and basically build a balance amongs this things in order to keep studying japanese and drawing everyday and also figuring out a way to put some 3d in it...I know that this sounds kind of very "dispervise" (not to mention I plan to draw everything from environment to character without a real focus for now, so...) and everyone would advise me against it,but I think that some kind of productive balance among this things can be achieved

And this topic is a diary to track progress,so that title :)
Sorry for the long introduction,just in case someone wants to know what the hell I'm up to lol :)

That's it,I'll go back to draw and below some stuff from the previous 5 or something days :thumbup:
And if you think I'm doing this wrong,pls let me know :)

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Replies

  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Shading of Akuma in progress,I'm a snail in this xD no color picking,training to see value

    BqraOIw.png
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Attempting some environment creation inbetween akuma shading...damn,is so hard >_<

    D7KDyKK.png
  • Bonkahe
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    Bonkahe polycounter lvl 7
    Looking good man, on the enviroment did you use perspective lines for it? the pillars seem to have it but not the exterior, it seems like there is a grass cliff outside the cave.
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Thx Bonkahe :)

    Yes,for the pillars I attempted to draw some perspective lines,but
    for the exterior I didn't know how to apply perspective to it because I wanted some kind of irregular/tilted ground (like a raising portion of the floating island where the scene is placed in) therefore I think I've fucked up a lot in there :poly136:
  • Bonkahe
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    Bonkahe polycounter lvl 7
    Thx Bonkahe :)

    Yes,for the pillars I attempted to draw some perspective lines,but
    for the exterior I didn't know how to apply perspective to it because I wanted some kind of irregular/tilted ground (like a raising portion of the floating island where the scene is placed in) therefore I think I've fucked up a lot in there :poly136:

    No worries, learn and apply it to the next one, keep up the good work man.
  • ayoub44
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    ayoub44 polycounter lvl 10
    Great work Marcus , keep it up
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Thx ayoub,I will :)

    Kind of got tired of Akuma so I colored it and let's call it done :S

    DC0K2IH.png
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    A friendly looking turtle
    I was painting value while watching the color,trying to raise the bar lol
    I also had to tweak the contrast in the end because I always tend to work with a low contrast for some reason >_<

    4OuRTwv.png
  • ayoub44
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    ayoub44 polycounter lvl 10
    you have awesome painting skills , any plans on doing more studies like anatomy and stuff ?
    how the perspective studies are going ?
    keep it up
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Thx ayoub :)

    As for now every plan is accepted and changes every day based on my mood I think and also on what I feel I need to learn the most in that moment.For now the point is to NEVER get bored while drawing until it becomes a strong habit :)
    With the last one,the turtle,I was aiming to 1) see value through color 2) See simple shapes and start painting value without a sketch 3) build visual library 4) keep it quick (no more Akuma's xD)

    Today's idea is to draw twice the same thing,the first time only value watching the black and white image,the second time the colored subject as it is. In addintion to keep yesterday's 2,3 and 4 goals, with this one excercise I want to see if my brain can make some connections between how a given color corresponds to a certain value.

    And since my schedule change everyday,sooner or later I'll be doing more perspective and anatomy.
    For me the idea is that everything is linked together in some way and learning anything can help me doing better something else,is just like the "backtracking" in the Metroidvania game(where you need an item to open a path on the other side of the map where you find an item that opens a further path in the place where you picked up the first item),at least until I reach a "good enough place" for me to choose what to focus on :)
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Today's study,I draw the pen twice,first on value and then with color :P

    fOQ4Zq0.png
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Trying to copy a photo from 山寺 (Yamadera) temple,still in progress. I set some rules that I will follow during this piece and forward, like "no color picking","only 1 layer", "only the standard brush" and I also disabled the "Undo" function from my tablet,though I have to admit I used 3 time the lasso tool to quickly correct some stuff that was placed too off,to save some time.
    I'm kind of fighting the frustration of constantly see new stuff that is off (in position or proportion or direction or color) while I had thought it was 100% right just 10 minute before,and also it took more time than I would like to just get to that point...Well,I guess it is part of the learning and wouldn't be fair if I wasn't experiencing this xD

    w.i.p.
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  • Avanthera
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    Avanthera polycounter lvl 10
    Hey Marcus, your work looks great! The previous studies look spot on, did you color pick from these or did you paint these straight out?

    The latest one looks good, it's missing the detail that would make it super convincing but I think it's coming along really well. If you are having trouble with proportions and things out of alignment, then I'd suggest starting zoomed out, and to flip the canvas horizontally every once in a while. I don't stress it too much on my studies like this, I'm trying to study light and color, not trying to copy the reference exactly.

    Maybe I'm a bit wrong in that sense, but in trying to keep these as short as possible, I end up focusing purely on the thing I am studying at the moment.
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    @Avanthera: Thx :)
    Everything by eye as you do.Though sometimes (like in the last wip) I start painting in black an white,kind of like "sketching the volumes and shapes" and then I start putting colors on top,which doesn't seems productive at all since I'm doing the same job twice :poly141: So I need to get in the habit of start by dropping colors on the canvas,also flipping the canvas yes,I know how important it is but when I focus too much on drawing I simply forget about it...I need to write a note and put it on front of the monitor I guess :)
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Dropping this unfinished because I miserably failed in the "keep it quick" side of the study...I need to figure out a better way to do things I think :/

    jkVan3R.png
  • ayoub44
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    ayoub44 polycounter lvl 10
    Awesome study , do you have any advices on getting the painting look like the ref ? and getting things right .

    keep it up
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    ayoub44 wrote: »
    Awesome study , do you have any advices on getting the painting look like the ref ? and getting things right .

    keep it up

    Thx ayoub :) I think it's stuff you know already,but what I try to do is 1-catch the right angle of the lines 2-draw the negative spaces 3) try to measure by eye the best I can 4)lot of comparision,the easiest to do are the ones where you can immagine a horizontal or vertical line between two elements,so based on that you can see how much something is off 5)squeeze the eyes or zoom back to check values 6) Flip the canvas and repeat 1 trought 5,then amazement about how wrong I was on the first pass :poly136:
  • acapulco
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    acapulco polycounter lvl 9
    Hey Marcus!
    What are you trying to learn when making those studies? You are really staying very true to your reference. Whats your goal in all of this? Do you want to learn to see the right proportions or pick the right colour you see? Or do you want to get as close to the original photo as possible?
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    acapulco wrote: »
    Hey Marcus!
    What are you trying to learn when making those studies?

    That's a very big question! I would just like to be able to draw stuff from imagination that I could later go to create in 3d,from environments to creatures to vehicles...therefore since I don't have any kind of guidance/course or school,I'm just copying stuff in the hope to learn how to do...after all this can only bring me closer to the goal right?
    Though...today I spent quite a lot of time trying to draw a Mech from immagination,one like the ones from Armored Core, problem is I couldn't come up with anything decent,worst of all I was struggling like crazy just to get the perspective right so...I'm starting to thinking that even if my random studies are probably helping in some areas,aren't tackling my main problems with the draw at all...so...I don't know,I think I need to figure out some different way of study/training :/
    If you have anything in mind that could help me with this problem,please let me know :)
  • acapulco
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    acapulco polycounter lvl 9
    Thats the vibe that this thread kinda gives me.
    I think you should make studies on a more project oriented basis. Lets take this Mecha idea for example. Don't try to come up with something, because you don't know it yet. Get references, draw joints, see how robots in facilities work and look like. Learn where Mechs come from, look at references of that stuff and then combine what you've learned. Draw all of that. It makes a huge difference if you draw a robot arm because you want to understand it to drawing a robot arm because of drawing. Even look at other peoples designs of mechs. You build up your library by working with it. Doing just random stuff gives you a lot of stuff you tend to forget. But if you have a project alongside your studies that unifies all of that you'll remember much more!
    Theres another thing. Do you want to paint your own mech or do you want to paint? In case you want to paint, paint a mech that already exists so you don't have to worry about the design.
    Perspective wise - break it down into cubes and cylinders first, then get your detail in. Start with a huge box and then break it down into smaller boxes. This helps a lot!
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    acapulco wrote: »
    I think you should make studies on a more project oriented basis.

    That makes perfectly sense,problem is I tend to lose focus and I know already I would end up drawing something else probably in a matter of days,therefore I need some "encouragement" to stick withing a given project,that means I need to join a contest. The weekly challenge over to conceptart.org seems the perfect place for it,it would be studying a given subject for a week,so it would be a lot less random than now.:):thumbup:
    Though even before that,I believe I lack a proper understanding of this "fundamentals" everyone talks about and I also think I totally need those before attempting anything else.

    Can you guys recommend me some resource online that can teach me thoroughly this fundamentals?
  • acapulco
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    acapulco polycounter lvl 9
    [ame="http://www.amazon.com/How-Draw-sketching-environments-imagination/dp/1933492732/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421362097&sr=1-1&keywords=how+to+draw+scott+robertson"]How to Draw: drawing and sketching objects and environments from your imagination: Scott Robertson, Thomas Bertling: 9781933492735: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

    [ame="http://www.amazon.com/How-Render-fundamentals-shadow-reflectivity/dp/1933492961/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421362097&sr=1-2&keywords=how+to+draw+scott+robertson"]How to Render: the fundamentals of light, shadow and reflectivity: Scott Robertson, Thomas Bertling: 9781933492964: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

    [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Illustration-Andrew-Loomis/dp/1845769287/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421362128&sr=1-1&keywords=creative+illustration+andrew+loomis"]Creative Illustration: Andrew Loomis: 9781845769284: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

    [ame="http://www.amazon.com/Color-Light-Guide-Realist-Painter/dp/0740797719/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1421362154&sr=1-1&keywords=color+and+light"]Color and Light: A Guide for the Realist Painter: James Gurney: 9780740797712: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

    Fuck online!
  • Marcus_Aseth
  • Avanthera
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    Avanthera polycounter lvl 10
    I've been doing these daily spitpaints via the facebook group:
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/1402563099961950/

    I don't usually post the results, but like you I just need the direction, since I tend to feel lost when I try to create things from my mind. I almost feel dejected when I have a good idea and I ruin it with my bad 2d skills, I almost want to paint mundane things so I don't disappoint myself, haha.
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    @Avanthera: can't see it since I had deleted my facebook account :S

    Today just drawing boobs from immagination,because if you don't shade boobs in photoshop what's even the point of having it installed right?!

    KlqRZ6d.png
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Started this female anatomy study (w.i.p.),no undo,no multiple layers,no color picker,painter approach :)

    pflaVnO.png
  • Avanthera
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    Avanthera polycounter lvl 10
    Damn your spatial awareness is on point, everything seems to be overall in proportion and in the right place, just needs some refinement on the legs. The lighting looks great, but the colors could be more saturated.

    Good job so far! :)
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Thx Avanthera :)

    Today I was messing a bit between 3ds max and photoshop,but I give up,not ready for that throne challenge :poly122:

    3rgFGN2.jpg
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Hi guys,today I was attempting some environment stuff
    Forgive my color picks,hope doesn't burn your eyes xD

    oFuPP92.png
  • ayoub44
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    ayoub44 polycounter lvl 10
    great to see that you are doing personal work , good piece . i think there is something wrong with perspective in the bridge part .
    keep it up :)
  • Avanthera
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    Avanthera polycounter lvl 10
    Hey Marcus, other than the perspective issue, I think the lighting is very confusing right now. There is some atmospheric perspective, occluded areas, but there isn't a very strong light source. If it's overcast then there shouldn't be such strong shadows, but if it's lit then there needs a solid light direction suggested by the values.

    Also, that throne room looks good, like a good base to go from. I've thought of using 3d to base my work off of, but it's such a slowdown, haha.
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Thx for the feedback guys :)
    About the bridge perspective,I think you reffer to the structure going up wich is a stairway that connect to a flying tower off the scene,I had no idea about how to check the perspective for an inclined/tilted object :S
    About the lighting,I didn't tought where the sun was either, there was too much going on for me to manage and I also rushed it for some reason x_x
    Trying to do better next time :)
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Just continued a bit the girl, I'm truly sorry for how baddly I'm fucking up her face x_x
    Also,the original I'm painting has no swords and is still more desaturated,I just increased the saturation from photoshop and added swords quickly before closing the file,just for fun :S

    HjW4VBj.png
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Attempting stuff :)

    xUIfgBW.png
  • Avanthera
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    Avanthera polycounter lvl 10
    Good progress on the girl, and that Buddha statue is great! The exaggerated surface texture/stroke style is really convincing! Even if it doesn't look exactly like the ref, it has the correct feeling. Something I think I need to strive for more.

    That's a good study to paint something at a different angle, I should do the same sometime.
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Thx Avanthera :) Kind of "cheated" for the texture because I put a bunch of random filter on my painting,so I would like to achieve the same or a more cleaner resoult just by painting
  • ayoub44
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    ayoub44 polycounter lvl 10
    great job at the buddha study , it's really hard to paint something from different angle , maybe you should try it with more complex perspective angles . keep it up :)
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Thx ayoub :)

    Todays work in progress,basically I'm trying to do a concept myself for a place I would like to model,still lot of things to figure out and I'm experimenting along the way,probably putting the lights now was a really dumb idea since now I have to do the details and then put lights again lol xD

    ASDDjXW.png
  • Spearhafoc
    You're not fucking up the face at all. You're making great progress on that piece.
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Thx Spearhafoc :)

    Just a little update on the magic shop before going to dinner,I'm starting defining panneling,details and figuring out more stuff.
    Also just added the light's and tweaked the img before uploading only for experiment purpose, the file I'm working on is more "rough"

    9F87EFK.png
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Hi guys,while working on the colors of the panelling of the front of the house I noticed one thing : since I was constantly using brightness / hue /saturation adjustements and such to get colors that to me looked kind of right,I stopped to color pick what I had in place and better understand my color palette,what I noticed is that all the value I put in there are very dark...and yet,this thing is appearing to me lot brighter than what I would expected... so my question is,my eyes are messed up or I accidentally hit some color theory rule to get some "fake" brightness out of low values? Maybe is just because I have this with a black background and this will look way darker when I place the brightest spot on the scene? :poly141: I'm confused ,any bit of knowledge about is welcome :)

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  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    Looking good man :). Massive improvement here from your last enviro.
    brightness / hue /saturation adjustements

    Try and use these at the end only. You want to develop your natural sense of picking colours, so relying too heavily on colour adjustment tools can get in the way.


    As far as the darkness problem, In this, go down to colour relativity.

    http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Muzz wrote: »
    Looking good man :). Massive improvement here from your last enviro.



    Try and use these at the end only. You want to develop your natural sense of picking colours, so relying too heavily on colour adjustment tools can get in the way.


    As far as the darkness problem, In this, go down to colour relativity.

    http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm

    Thanks for the link Muzz,I'll read it when I woke up,since I was up all night :poly122:
    I'll also take the suggestion of no "cheats" until the end,which makes perfectly sense for me trying to learn :):thumbup:

    Last draw of the day,just fucking around in photoshop before going to sleep (color picking this time,not trying to copy in different position or anything,just fucking around :/) :poly124:

    UFMOXBp.png
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    So, I had to pause the magic shop drawing because I realized I was struggling to understand where that place was located inside the environment I want to do,so to better understand the situation I took a step back and decided to start by drawing big views of the whole area,and after that focusing on the single places,which seems like a lot more smart and planned out workflow

    Still in super early stage so I had to put text to show what I'm thinking to do,so let's see how this evolves :)

    dbsdhnS.png
  • Muzzoid
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    Muzzoid polycounter lvl 10
    Good idea! Drawing a map plan will always make your life easier.
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Just did another session on it,values are not well thought yet because I'm more focused on flashing out the general idea of the place :S
    I'm starting to suggest buildings all around the yggdrasil,roads are carved directly into the exposed parts of the huge roots,and by now you guys can tell I love Etrian Odissey games xD
    The lakes I tried to suggest didn't reads very well imo so I should probably take some photo with a lake view from the same distance and copy it to see how the specular light behave in there,but I leave it for the end,the idea first and the rendering last.
    The mountain village which is actually builted on a volcano leads (from the back) to a very dangerous place floating on top of the volcano,therefore is a notorious gathering place for the strongest and craziest adventurer,so I'm putting a dock for flying ships and the overall goal is to keep the village small but very lively :)
    Also I think should be time to learn those atmospheric push tricks I always see on the pro videos,you guys knows any good link that explain the proper way to do it? :poly122:

    lWJNPyo.png
  • Avanthera
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    Avanthera polycounter lvl 10
    Hey Marcus!

    That magic shop looks really good! Step 3 looks like a totally different piece, in a good way. :)

    One artist that really gets that big epic scale is James Paick. He has some tutorials for sale online, but here's an example of his workflow:

    http://youtu.be/AzL9ajlvumM?t=7m57s

    I think in one of his tutorials he mentioned wanting to have a stepping-type setup. So things overlap each other and are fainter and fainter as they go back, creating that depth, but what you have might be difficult to show that depth since nothing really overlaps, it will just be a gradient from high contrast up close to low contrast in the distance.


    At least that's what I gleaned from it. My environment painting skills are pretty sub-par, so I can't really give too much good advice, haha.
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    Thx for the link Avanthera,I had saw some of his works randomly but didn't know the name of him,awesome artist :)

    I think I'll have some faint clouds and maybe airships or something flyng for the overlapp and to show more depth,I'll experiment along the way :)
  • Marcus_Aseth
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    Marcus_Aseth polycounter lvl 9
    And I'm back here,always pushing a bit the 3d and a bit the 2d

    Now again I need to improve at drawing so that I can easily draw a lot of anatomy and understand that better too.
    So I'll be doing the 1 day Master study challenges from Conceptart.org alongside random anatomy I think. The point of this beign 1 day study is that I need to do the best that I can in that time,and deadlines are important,so I hope that in time I get at a point where each day I can say to have finished one of those.

    Here's the first two,plus random anatomy study(w.i.p.)

    kDACa6M.jpg
    a5Vj0VM.png
    xQ0cmqE.png
  • Marcus_Aseth
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