Spring 2018 Composition, eclairage et illustration // Composition, lighting and illustration

Gonna try to do atleast one shot for each theme.  Here are some of the shots I worked on this past week.

Hi Donald. Here’s an update. I’m in the rendering stage now but as you can see haven’t tackled everything yet . I’ve used a picture for the water for now to get a feel of what I’m going for but might just end up painting over it. Wondering what your take is on the rendering as well as the lighting scheme so far? Thanks.

Update: Working on shape design for the turtle. Any feedback would help! Value version:

J'ai mieu précisé mes éléments un peu et suis en train de regarder différentes options pour les sources de lumiere et tout. C'est encore qu'une ébauche au niveau de l'éclairage mais je pense continuer dans cette direction. Les couleurs sont définitivement pas finales par contres. Tout conseil serrait apprécié.

Thank you for the comment Donald. It gives me a little more confidence that I'm starting to "see" what feels right or wrong with composition :P p.s. I also have a question, that can be answered in class, about texture. For this project for example, I have a castle, with brick/stone walls, tiles for the roofs... They are very small and secondary. I would like to know how you would deal with this kind of rendering. It feels insane to paint this brick by brick, tile by tile, each is so small and too many. But I can't do "nothing" either, right? The same would apply with the trees/foliage in the scene. Other teacher would say "photo-bash it! find a texture photo of what you want and integrate it", but as an illustrator, I'd really like to hear what"s YOUR answer :P Here's the new sketch :

So, correcting the griffin's paws and body perspective, I got this: While I was back to finding photo refs for "jumping cats", I thought I could give a re-re-re-re-new try at better owl wings refs, and it paid off, I found one that could do what was missing. I gave it a real-quick try.  Though the image is perhaps more striking this way, I think it might unbalance my composition this way.  In the "old" version, the wing draw a line directly bringing the eye to the dragon, and then the dragon is pointing to the other wing and it turns in circle (with an uneasy feeling of "can't get out of it", while this "new" composition, the wing is pointing out of the frame, there kinda nothing bringing the eyes back in the scene/drame... (Ok, that's why I don't like doing many sketches, I'm so bad at choosing which one is better...)

Désolé de pas être venu en cour, je pouvais pas me déplacer  (à cause de problèmes/maux de dos et de cou). J'upload quand même un update de mon projet. J'ai essayé  d'égaliser les ombres, d'enlever un peu de corail et retravaillé le sable pour qu'il  soit plus présent dans l'image (avec les motifs de lumières dessus qui rendent bien). J'ai retravaillé la colonne de droite et les ombres sur le monstre (je les ai éclairci un peu,  mais il a fallu que je les ré-assombrisse et que je remette du  contraste sur l'image du coup je crois qu'il est un peu trop contrasté maintenant).

Ok, so neglicting everything else, here's where I'm at now. Far from finished, but I took a long moment to properly find photo-refs for the dragon, redraw it, and another long moment to find refs for Mrs Q and toddler princess... So this week, I was aiming to get the "drawing" set and done, and to go real quick on the colors and the values. I still have LOTS to do for the rendering and remove all the outlines, but overall, I'm giving ALL my "school time" for this, I couldn't be more satisfied with how it goes. (I also have to redo the back leg of the dragon; I have changed and resized my wing so many things, I didn't see that I have stretched the leg that much until it was in color and all; a quick fix) :P

Here is the creature with some lights on it. I put a warm light coming from the left and a blue cold light coming from the right. I also changed the position and anatomy of one of the legs, that were strange. The next one will be with a better background.

They have different size, male, female, kids size. Every parts are movable, down to the fingers! They also have bird's shapes, quadruped shapes, that can be customized into creatures as dragons/griffins, satyrs, etc. They are expansive though (I'm crying like a baby 'cuz o'that), but wow! I thought it was worth sharing! :P Here's the link: https://www.armaturenine.com

I tried to sort out the head anatomy in Zbrush and reduced neck length so it's closer to real turtle. This is the composition so far before moving to detailing the characters.

What about this pose? Perhaps the head in his hand I could make it with hair and he holding it by the hair.

If this is too shortly before class to still get feedback I understand. Cheers, Peter.

Hello dear Donald Here's my daily post ^_^ It's true that I have (a very bad habit) of sketching "too far" for one particular object/character and not doing "enough posing studies". It's a major flaw that has been pointed out to me maybe a year ago and I'm still struggling to get out of this bad habit of "patch work" instead of real composition. So thank you to mentioning / reminding me this, I guess the more I hear it, better I'll get into it. Next time, I should start with less details, more ruff sketches and I'll keep in mind to try more different poses / angles. So here, I've tried to flip the dragon in the right side, throwing fire to the left as suggested (6h). I'm keeping 6d and 6g for better comparison. And while I was posting here, I remembered that we've talked about how to improve 6d, so I went giving it a shot. First, I have corrected the ratio of the frame. Then I have scaled up the m...

I came back to the first thumbnail and used one of the creatures design, but respecting the same mood I did. The head I put it down looking ahead. The feet I put it in a way that indicates attack, or that was the ideia. The background is very simple and poor now. I tried to put the side light we talked too. What do you think?

Like this? Edited : Oh Shoot! I've just realized that the proportions of the frame is wrong v_v  I'll come back soon with the right ratio, Doh! v_v (Ok, now I feel really silly to have missed that out until now v_v ) Re-edited: here, this one (6g) (Wrong framing ratio)(6e): For the reminder, last time was like this: I'm not as convinced with "6g" as I was with the previous one (the bigger one above, "6d"). In 6g, the dragon is so high and big, though the drama is more there, I feel the narrative is more "silly", cuz the dragon would see them slip away and just follow, whereas in "6d", the "snicking run away through the night" felt more... hopeful and it made more sense that they fly away instead of "run away" by horses, so what I mean? Maybe I'm putting the "logic of the narrative" above the needs of dramatic composition?  Is it a bad thing (to put the narrative before the...

I came up with some ideas about how my creature will look like. Considering the feedback from last class I was focusing on putting the monster in a strong position, solid on the ground. Tell me please if some of these designs are good and if the poses are strong. I thought about mixing different parts from different poses. Ex: The hands of the first one but with the body of the second pose. I didn't choose the colors yet because I was focusing in these positions. Thank you!  

I've tried 2 different shadings/lighting to see which one works best. I think the first one is the best one. I've also modified the fish's pose, I though it looked very static... I also moved the pillar on the right, like we said and lowered most of the elements so that they would be a bit closer to the center.

Ok, here's where I'm at. The first is the one "chosen" in class (but needed some tweaking). The second, I tried to place the dragon some place else... really didn't like it (it's unfinished, I've stop the "blue" layer) The third is about what we talked would work better...  But then I though I might give it a try with the griffin being higher and the dragon lower, so I gave it a try in the fourth picture. I think it's the one I prefer, because the silhouette of the griffin + Mrs Q + baby is clear and half detached of the background, bringing here upfront like she should. So, my main palet of 2 colors, would be the complementary of blue/violet and orange/yellow. Mrs Q's griffin is a mix of snow owl and snow leopard (so mainly white, but back-lighted and mostly in the bluish light of the moon).

This thumbnail I used some photo mixed with the drawing just to have the visual I wanted quicker, but for the final project I'll do it by hand

I have to stop now, and it's about certain I will have time before tomorrow afternoon to push them a little further, but here's where I'm at the moment (and probably won't have time tonight to work on it)... So the first 2 on this one, the horses, Mrs Q and Mr K are not painted yet... The changes in the 2 painted griffins's scene are very tiny, but ruffly, Mrs Q is more "in the shot" (more wings inside the frame), the castle is one bit smaller/further and the dragon's position has changed: