Need help to improve my art
Shjak Monde
Posts: 30
Recently deviantART held a Contest "Tomb Raider Reborn".
All Mediums were allowed to enter.
Believe me that deviantART has some viciously great artists in every Medium.
This should not matter however because any individual should be able to improve their craft to the point where they are also great.
Here are a couple of my Entries.
You may see the contest semi finalists here:
http://ayame-kenoshi.deviantart.com/journal/Tomb-Raider-Reborn-Semi-Finalists-360303299?utm_source=elnino&utm_medium=messagecenter&utm;_campaign= 032013_ADV_TombRaiderSemis&utm_term=title
As you can see all the semi finalists have used digital painting except 1 which is a photo or cosplay.
Although I am certain I am not the best 3d digital artist, there are many that are much better then I, However none of them were chosen ether.
Does this mean that 3d digital art has a limit? Perhaps the Commercial Industry prefers digital painting over 3d digital art.
I am setting on the edge of spending 225 dollars on the Corel Painter 12. (not that I can actually afford it). But I am wanting to know if the last 6 years I have spent in 3d digital art has been a waste or is there room to improve to the point I can out preform digital painters.
Any directives that you can offer would be very appreciated.
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Comments
Even if you do go with a more painterly look, you can still use 3D as a reference or the base. No telling whether some of those final entries really steered clear of 3D.
Yes I do understand that I would probably never totally give up the 3d digital art. I have already spent to much time in it and it is part of me now.
And if some of the Semi Finalists have used a 3d Model or even a Photo to paint over, they are not admitting it. LoL if you read that forum with the Semi Finalists, there are a lot of accusations being thrown around. But that is a whole other subject.
If they did Paint over a 3d model, why? Did they feel digital painting would be better then the 3d Model?
I would cetainly recommend honing your digital painting skills to blend this with your 3D results to give you the ultimate in creative flexibility. Many a good render gets elevated to the next level by skilled postwork.... having said that I do see a lot of really great 3D work and it is getting more credibility but I still do see a lot of groups preoccupied with process over result and this always annoys me as we are talking about art and process should not matter if the art speaks to you.
I have seen very average art pieces get selected for publication in high quality CG coffee table books because the modelling work was done by the artist in a high end modelling package and some great art pieces done in lower end packages were overlooked and I believe that this is related to some peoples bias towards the craft and process of 3D over the aesthetic of the final result.
anyway I like your images above and they certainly look to me like the work of someone who has a good eye for composition and someone who uses their tools at hand well. I do not paint overly well (either digitally or IRL) but one thing that has overtaken my art in recent times is that I now try to create 'Art for your walls' rather than just technically well rendered and composed 3D images and having that as my end goal has given me a different perspective on things.
just my two cents for what that is worth :)
I wouldn't take it personally. It's probably just that they disagreed with your interpretation of Laura Croft. That's an artistic judgement having nothing what so ever to do with your skill or the quality of your work.
There is still a perception among some groups that 'manual' digital painting is of more value then 3D generated because of the perceived work and skill required. However, this is more and more a misnomer as post production pretty much obscures the origins as you pointed out. Eventually, groups will have to come to terms with that or sit in their own little corner complaining about how the world doesn't appreciate 'true art' anymore, many of the group cheating and joining in mostly to try to elevate the appearances of what they can do rather then what they can actually do. The reason I say this is it's a pattern I've seen repeated over and over. I would focus on results and not worry about irrelevant details.
I agree with Mangy that honing digital painting for postwork is a valuable skill to raise the overall level of one's artwork. Just running an image through some filters can totally change the look and fool most people, but manually touching up after will give a more polished look often, and there are things that are just easier/faster to do in post. 3D, Filters, manual postwork... there are a lot of stupid ideas about all of them imo.. they are just tools to an end.
Final thought.... I've come to realize, the less said about how a piece of artwork was done the better for general use. It kind of falls along the line of knowing how a magic trick is done, revealing the punch line of the joke at the wrong time, etc... In forums, tutorials and other places where people are exchanging ideas it is perfectly appropriate to talk about what one did to achieve a result, but other then that, my take is, figure out the look a particular group is looking for, use the method that works for you, and beyond that... f* em if they can't take a joke ;p Slap a filter and a couple strokes on it and call it a digital painting if they are that hung up on it.
[Edit] Forgot to say, great images :)
[Second Edit] I should put a caveat to this. I wouldn't lie about how I did something, just no reason to lay out more then necessary, let the work speak for itself. And, if a competition lays out a particular workflow, it's disingenuous to not follow it. It's the individual perceptions that I don't believe in getting bogged down by.
I do believe there are valid reasons for having competitions for 'no postwork' or 'manual digital painting' etc... and anyone not playing by the rules in those should be roasted. But people tend to have a preferred method for themselves and project that to being the only valid method into general competitions and the world at large where it isn't appropriate imo.
[Last Edit, Promise] In the end, I think the marketplace will reward those that can create good images in the most efficient manner, which means using all of the techniques at one's disposal, and all of these arguments will get forgotten.
Digital painting is something I am interested in as well. I paint in traditional media, so it seems only natural to expand into digital techniques to explore possible compositions before committing to the time and expense of paint, brush and canvas.
I have no clue when it comes to commercial paint programs, though. I have watched video tutorials by David Revoy. He uses Gimp, MyPaint, and Krita. His DVDs are available at Blender.org for a reasonable cost. Chaos and Evolutions is digital painting from scratch, no 3d CG involved at all. It includes open source software that he uses to complete his projects. Blend and Paint is digital painting using CG as a base for images. The software, once again, is all open source. I've got nothing against commercial software, which is usually very much worth the asking price, but why not "try before you buy" using free programs at first?
The DVDs by David Revoy are licensed CC3, so I believe you can legally find a free download and review them at your leisure. Personally, I like to support the Blender Foundation as much as I can afford to.
http://www.davidrevoy.com/4-tutorials.html
Just looked at David Revoy's work. It is a very nice example of digital painting. I have a lot of respect for anyone who hones their skills to that level. :)
There are some looks hard to achieve in any other medium, and people will at times 'really like' that look. People who get good like this example do deserve accolades for their work.
Let THEM try to do this!
I'll never forget this as long as I live. A few days ago, some lady saw my render of Belle that I did... she asked if I did it, and she said, "Very nice... I do photoshop too, and I can really help you out there..." It wasn't so much what she said, but how she said it that turned me off completely. As luck would have it I happened to have the file open in DS, I rotated the scene and told her: "When you're ready to graduate from your crayons, come see me..."
Well that's the point. Each method takes skill, and discounting one over another is just bad form. Using filters on and image and getting good results takes skills... We have a wonderful full kit of digital tools to play with, so why not get efficient at as many of them we can, layer and combine techniques, not be embarrassed by finding a more efficient way of doing things... or, if one prefers, stick to one technique and get as good as we can at it. Just don't get confused by method over results as Mangey pointed out.
Thank you MangyDesigner
I feel you are correct in that digital painting would be my next logical step to improving my Craft. I now feel that limiting myself to only 3d digital would make my craft a bit rigid.
Thank you very much in helping me to make up my mind to spend the 225 dollars for Corel Painter 12.
Thank you for responding wancow
There is always that possibility that the judges did not agree with my interpretation of Lara Croft.
However as I had mentioned before that deviantART has a lot of great Artists in every medium and no two are alike. It would be enough to say each Artist had a different interpretation of Lara Croft, yet not one 3d digital artist made it to one of the 25 semi finalist positions.
Although I am privileged to have seen the other 3d digital artists entries, and you are only able to see the 25 semi finalists, be it that they were every bit equal to mine if not better in quality.
What was required for the Contest was that they wanted our Interpretation. Being that the Contest started on the first of February and closing was on March 15 and the Game did not come out until March 5th, there was little to go on, except perhaps previous Tomb Raider games/movies. Also that the winners Render would be used by Crystal Dynamics (creator of the Game) as an Iconic for their merchandise
and also Poster representing "Tomb Raider Reborn".
For this reason I chose a more Iconic design in a Boris Vallejo or Frank Frazetta style.
However I did see several Semi Finalists entries that were entered on March the 14th. They may have had a chance to purchase the Game and got a better Interpretation.
Thank you Gedd for responding.
I feel you are correct. Though it is Sad. I hate feeling I am that unwanted stepchild, hidden away under the Staircase. (Harry Potter).
The Judges took less time to Judge over 5000 entries then it took me to do one of my entries. Unless they have some automated filtering system to use to judge all the entries. Which it would have been nice to know what those filters were before I started my work.
However I believe Art is subjective and therefore would require a Human eye to ascertain if the image was appealing.
I am truly Guilty of bragging about DAZ Studio and 3d digital art in general. But for one artist to complain that (yes you drew a straighter line then I, but you cheated because you used a ruler), just boggles my brain.
I am going to take everything you have advised me on, to heart. I feel its all good information. I am also going to purchase Corel Painter 12, and widen my education. But I will never give up my 3d digital art.
Thank all of you for complimenting my art and thank your for all your advice.
I use the Corel Painter Essentials that came with my Wacom tablet. It isn't nearly as full featured as the full Corel Painter, and I hope to graduate to that eventually, but the Essentials version is actually pretty nice. I would also recommend looking at Filter Forge as it gives a good starting point with converting photos/digital painting to a painted/drawn effect. It also allows one to apply a number of different looks to an image, or part of an image quickly to help flesh out which way to go with a particular art piece, even if totally redoing it manually.
Also, gimp and a good collection of brushes can go a long way.
Good luck, onward and upward :)
Btw, even if some of the 'painted' entries that made the finals were done using filters with no or only some manual retouch, that doesn't invalidate them imo. Layering effects on after the render and getting good results is another skill set that deserves recognition in itself.
Thanks Gedd,
Well I just made the big jump.
I purchased Corel Painter 12. Unfortunately the price jumped from 225 to 299. The story of my life.
I also purchased the Filter Forge 3 with Preorder to Filter Forge 4.
There goes my income tax return.
But I feel its a move that I will enjoy for a long while.
Thanks for all your help.
You've got some cool concepts and layout in these images. I think the lighting could be more dramatic. This is possibly the most important detail in fantasy art. Go back and look at the finalists again and pay attention to the side and back lighting they have used. I've learned a lot from the Dreamlight tutorials and I think any 3D artist could benefit from them as well.