Art: Dappled Woods

[rowyn]

I spent a lot of time on this two weeks ago, and scanned it in then, but didn't post it. Not particularly happy with how it turned out and didn't feel like hearing a bunch of people say "The shadows on the figure look all wrong, she looks dirty instead of shaded" and "her proportions are off" and "her eyes are too small" (I decided to go for too small instead of too large this time, for variety) and "the lower half of her face narrows too much", etc. Yes. Yes, I know. Mostly this piece was practice at doing backgrounds. I like detailed backgrounds in other people's art but most of my drawing practice has been on figures, so I'm even worse at backgrounds than I am at figures, in general.

This time I had a photo reference for the background, which certainly helped and perhaps someday I shall be able to do woodsy scenes, which would be nice. One oddity that resulted from the reference: the photograph is of a stand of trees in front of a small lake, with a grassy slope rising behind it. Because of the way the leaves on the trees rise, it's almost impossible to make out the grassy slope or to distinguish the lake from the sky above; at first glance, the photo looks as though the horizon begins right behind the farther tree trunks. This effect is even more pronounced in my picture, with the result that "the horizon line looks too low" can be added to the litany of problems with it.

The figure was always iffy, even in the original sketch; I don't know why I couldn't be bothered to put in a decent foreground figure after I put all that effort into the background. The thing that bothers me most is that I couldn't get the shadows to look right. The dappled effect looks okay in the background but doesn't work on her, partly because I don't have a photo to work from and partly because my art skillz are !leet. Even with a photo reference I don't think I could pull it off.

Comments

[krud42.livejournal.com]

I think it looks great. (Way better than I could ever do, at least. Which I realize technically is not necessarily the same as "great", but still...)

At a glance, I thought it was a doctored photo. (And I mean that as a compliment.)

[rowyn]

Thank you -- that is quite a compliment. (Both of them. =)

[krud42.livejournal.com]

Oh, and RYN: George RR Martin definitely counts as a celebrity. Especially if I'm counting Gallagher.

[krud42.livejournal.com]

RYN about the story problem: I was mainly just frustrated by the sloppiness of the editing/fact-checking/proofreading. I've since come across many other examples of incorrect or just poorly-worded problems in that book, but I've resigned myself to the realization that there's a reason it was in the Bargain Section of B&N.

[ladyperegrine.livejournal.com]

I really like it--the lighting works for me (though admittedly I'm not a stickler for realism in lighting) and I like both the pensive expression on her face and her clothing choices. :-)

[rowyn]

Thank you! I liked drawing the little cat on her underbust corset. =)

[jimmy-hollaman.livejournal.com]

hey what a great picture of a car, tho i do admit it looks a lot like a person walking amoung the trees. 8^) No seriously i think it looks great and i wished you would start getting stuff in to some art shows...

[tuftears.livejournal.com]

Hey, that's pretty darn good! It looked appropriately shadowed to me.