[geoman2k]

Hey guys. I posted a sketch of this a while back, and I've gone ahead and painted it. I need a little help tho...
1. Is the yellow-blue background the right colors? Should I replace the blue, or make it darker? i want the lighting to be just right.
2. What should I do with the background? I think i want to make a few really big mushrooms, but i'm not sure... Maybe some mountains or clouds? or maybe a big ol rock? i dunno...
3. I need some help with textures... I want the dirt to be a little more rocky, but i'm not sure how to go about it.
4. Last, I think i want the mushroom to look a little more moist... Like with little beeds of water or dew on it, maybe a few little drops coming off. anyone know an easy way to do this?
I'd really apretiate the help... I'm relatively new with Photoshop, and Digital Art in general, and I could really use some help getting myself moving. Thanks

[Hippie]

ok here goes,

1st: your painting looks good right now but I think you are moving a little too fast with your shading.(I have the same problem)
Seems like the image you want is somewhere in your head, you can see it when you close your eyes but you can't get it in to the illustration. Do some more work on lighting and values before you work on the details.

2nd: As for the background I think the colors are a little to smooth. Try painitng the gradiation instead of letting the gradient tool do it for you. You may be able to get the background that is already in your head that way. Color looks ok but from the way the shading is in your image it looks like your light source is coming from behind your character. This would mean that the character would have more of a silluhette.(spelling?)

#rd: As for you textures, again don't worry about them until you have the lighting and values working the way you want. As for an easy way to do the water, the only thing I can say is zoom in, zoom out, zoom in, zoom out. Repeat until you get the look you want. Keep working up slowly it takes time and there is no good way to rush detail. At least not that I have found.

well I think that is long enough hope it helps.
And I like the character reminds me of the catapiller from Alice in wonderland. All he needs is a hooka.

If you don't mind I will try to do a piantover to illustrate my points.

[geoman2k]

Hey, thanks a ton for the help. You are completely right about how i have a picture of it in my head, and agree that I might be rushing it a bit. I'm going to go over the painting and try to get a better feel for where the light sources are and such.
About the gradeint tool, I should have mentioned this befor but I was not planning on useing it for the finished background. I just used it as a way to quickly illistrate the colors I was thinking about useing for the background. The question is, if i use that bright of yellow/blue values, will it not be comsistant with the shadding on the charactors/setting?
I would love to see you do a paintover... i feel it would really help me out here. This is one of my first full-photoshop paintings (with charactors, a setting, and lighting effects), and I need all the help I can get to make it look as good as possible.

Thanks a ton for the help, really.

[Hippie]

here ya go geoman, this was really fast maybe 2 minutes sorry i couldn't spend anymore time on it.

I converted to graysacle so you could get an idea of the values.

I also noticed you are working at around 150rez bump that up to about 300 or hihger if your machine will allow.

If I were oging ot finish this my next step would be to alpha channel off the background sky and work out the clouds, sky and then the atmospheric perspictive on the hills in the back.

Next, move to the character and begin to flesh out the detail working from midtones first until all the tones are good then begin to add in the dark and minor highlight.

After that your foreground workk out the detail on the shrooms the ground and rock and stuff.

Then take a break get a coke throw some darts anything for about 30 mins then come back and look at it again.

Fix anything you see wrong, step back and look at it again. At this poiint if you still see major problems file it under your goof up folder and start from scratch.

If you like what you have at that point then start adding in the color on a seperate layer.

Once color is in then go back and add your deepest shadows and your brightest higlights.

Hope this helps.
Again sorry I didn't have more time to really work the pic up some.

Keep posting I want to see what you do with this.

[Hippie]

whoops, here is the image
(smack self on forehead)
DOH!!!

[geoman2k]

Thanks again for the help.
Once I have more time, I'll work on it somemore and try to come up with some better lighting and junk. I'm thinkging now that maybe i should get rid of the yellow lighting (make it just uncolored, like daylight) to make it lok like its outdoors on a sunny day. then i could get some high-contrast shading/shadows in, without washing out the charactor's faces with yellow light.

I'll keep working on it tonight, and I'll post my progress so to make sure I'm going in the right dirction.

One question tho- I'm relatively new to Photoshop- how do I go about moving the rez up from 150 to 300? Keep in mind that the pic i postes is about 55% of the size of the one i'm actually painting on.

[Vgta]

Can't wait to see the finished product, now as for moving up the resolution...are you planning on printing this or do you just want to get more detail in?
Now, anyone correct me if I am wrong; but the thing about any digital art is that you can downgrade the resolution fine but upgrading it won't really have any effect except increasing the file size.

[Hippie]

actually Vgta, upgrading the rez does two things.

It allows more pixels per inch which helps not only with getting a smoother looking print, but also allows you to zoom in very close and still have precise control.

Give it a try it really helps to be able to zomm in and still work rough and loose. Then when you zoom out the tiny lines flow together and look blended. Since I like to work very loose this really helps me. I guess everyone has there own way of doing things. I would love to hear from anyone else on this, but maybe we should move it from geoman's thread to digital discussion.

Can't wait until you do some more woke on this piece geoman.

[geoman2k]

Been working on it off and on all day. I actually scraped the lighting that i had on it in the first version, and redid it at a slightly different angle, using only grean values, no yellows. i thought snow capped mountains would look good in the background, and i put in some big ol' clouds. i've never really done clouds before, so i looked at Steven's "Hichhiker", and tried to do what he did. Oh yea, and I added some yellow dots on the dark side of the mushroom... like little bugs that hide from teh sun or somethin. Tell me what you think of it so far.



[ June 07, 2001: Message edited by: geoman2k ]