HAUS'S GENERAL ART THREAD

Focusing on that last pic you posted...

-start of a great composition, interesting scene, i'm interested and intrigued by the situation you got doing on here

- feels empty and like the detail is weirdly spaced

-posing on the dude in armor is a little ??? in concept; what is he doing? why is he doing it? it's unclear. Also not sure what his cape is doing...are they underwater? getting some rad underwater vibes from this pic, or just...airy?

I stopped writing bullet points and just went into detail so here you go:

It looks like you did some lovely detail work on the two main characters, but the rest of the piece does not have much detail...so it does just look unbalanced there



The contrast is very, very high and while this can look nice, it's kind of harsh here...

In your colors, you seem to use a lot of pure white/black for lighting, which is what makes that super high contrast look. Even if this is intentional, most Color Guides and whatnot advise not using pure of any color. If you use 100% saturated or 100% black/white colors, just be careful about it.

The main colors here are a blue/white/red/black scheme going on... I think having the background be predominately blue + the dude in armor being predominately blue, but then ghost lady being the white is jarring. The dude in armor blends with the background in terms of color (but I want to note that you do a good job making him distinct from the background with how you use highlights) and she stands out SUPER A LOT due to being primarily white.

I think if you want a ghostly effect, consider having some part of her be semi-transparent. And if she is not affected by the lighting of the scene, well, she'll stand out! no getting around it, and I think the "emitting light" idea is not bad at all, but it does contribute to making her stand out as well.

basically ghost lady looks as if she's the prime focus of the piece, and because of how bright she is in comparison to the environment, she looks like she SHOULD be the main subject...but then she's not?

which just makes me think that my eye isn't being led by the composition. Where do you want us to look? What is this picture about?

just a random note but i really love the upper part, with the fish and sky view? like that's just hella rad and I think you have a strong concept for this picture, overall. It's a cool idea.

And anyways, up top I mentioned that the picture felt "empty", and you mentioned being aware that the background felt it lacked definition. Don't be afraid of just using a hard brush with a bit of transparency so it! Work in color blocks, and if it helps you...then just line out the whole scene! no reason why you can't and you seem v patient with art.



I don't actually know what kind of background you want, but there's like 5 minutes of me jamming on random shapes in the bg + lowering the amount of pure black. The idea was just an example of creating visual interest/"hardening up" the background colors, feel free to ignore.



This is an edit focusing on lighting in particular...if you have these two light sources, and the dude is wearing metal, then his armor ought to reflect more light. Uh, please don't follow this exactly if you change anything since i did not look up references or anything and it's hella unrealistic, but i hope the idea gets across!

It's hard to put into words how I think about lighting. Consider how close someone is to a light source. Closer = brighter light. And try to think of things in 3d forms. And think about how reflective the material is!

really digging Zylverhia tho. She's rendered p nicely in this picture and idk, she looks nice!

Overall, like I mentioned, I think you have a great concept and it's not bad! But I do also think you can push it further and add detail/maybe fiddle with the contrast. I'm not focusing too much on composition since IDK what you're going for, so do whatever you want, man. I would advise adding some kind of interest in the foreground, since you have a great background + a midground with the characters, but not much going on in the foreground.

For improving yr colors at all...well you know. study color theory. It's huge and messy and a complicated topic, but that's how you improve yr color choices.

Maybe one of these links might help? I don't have one single thing I can point to and be all "this is it, this is the Guide to Color Theory".

I almost always blanket recommend these techniques for anyone trying to problem solve a picture. i mostly just flip things and do a value check and if something looks weird... problem solve! what looks off about it? what might fix it? usually the answer to the second one is "look up some sort of reference"

Trying to mimic artists you like is not a bad place to start, straight-up. See if they have process resources, like a gif of their workflow, and see what you can learn from it. I always stress the importance of using reference and drawing from life where you can... really, if you don't know what something looks like? Look it up, i know it sounds all "no shit, sherlock" but...yeah. Also try to find out if you're more comfortable starting from a dark background and painting on the light, or if you prefer to work light to dark.

I don't think I have any personal tips about how to choose shadow and highlight values... um I probably have links to someone writing Smart Words about it but not off the top of my head. If I think of something or go ferret out something nice i will probably edit this chunk or something.

idk, maybe this will have something helpful to you.

And if it seems a bit overwhelming, just pick one thing to focus on and go there! whether it's color choice, values, or lineart quality or whatever... So long as you practice and study, you will only grow stronger.

Good luck! i hope even some of that was helpful.

Those animations are crazyyyy!!

What kind of input you need?

Dude... This is great stuff! I love these designs!

Sorry I'm not experienced enough to give you any useful kind of feedback, but I had to go get a new jaw from the hospital because mine just fell to the floor and shattered. I think my favorite ones might be days 16, 2, and 7.

Although if I reeeeally stretched to give you feedback, I'd have to say that some of the characters seem a bit... overdesigned. Day 10 sorta jumps out at me that the woman is more of a walking fortress than a person. Which may have been the intention, from your description. Have you ever played Darksiders? I haven't, but looking at the main character, War, one of the biggest turnoffs to me was the fact that he barely even resembled a human being underneath all that equipment. It's fine if you want to give a character heavy armor, but I would have a serious issue with characterization if I doubted a person was even able to MOVE under all that armor.

Anyway, that's just my two cents. I still love all these designs. Keep it up!