Freya's Digital Painting Thread - Painting is Haaaard

I'm trying to learn how to paint, Digitally. I have an art tablet. I'm wanting to work on my skills more, analyze what I've done and reflect on how I can improve (with suggestions too!)


So here's my first attempt in what I hope is a weekly art thing. (I'm aiming for weekly time to it.) I have an issue when I draw. I tend to get too realistic for myself. This is okay as a sketch mostly, but I have a hard time coloring and figuring out proper lighting. (Also hair is stupid.) I haven’t quite nailed it yet and I get frustrated with my skills when it doesn’t come out how I imagined it would when I sketched it. Then because of that, I don’t come back to it enough to really learn how to improve. I know my issue so now I’m trying to work on it, hence this thread.

https://secondrewrite.files.wordpres...nbua.jpg?w=663

I attempted to paint mercy from Overwatch. I sketched her out, it was good. But I seemed to have failed a bit in the coloring.

I am pretty confident I know my issue here. I merely tried to use a gray, light tan, and yellow pallet. My thoughts were, “she’s a healer that uses lots of yellow spells and yellow/gold accessories!” But I can see now that it didn’t give me enough depth. I need to add in more reds and browns. I also haven’t quite figured out how to create shapes without an outline like I would in sketches. It's a big work in progress obviously.


I also drew this way tooooo close. It was actually pretty small, I had to blow this picture up some to even post it here. So that’s a lesson learned. It’s just one week down in this art skill attempt!

This piece is obviously not finished but I have an issue of giving up on things and picking them up waaay later. So here’s what I’ve got and I probably won’t revisit this, whoops.

Any suggestions or tips, I'm open too. I'm trying to learn and get better at realistically painting humans so anyone with any tips is much appreciated. I plan on updating this thread as I go so I'll probably have something new each week!

I like it! I do see where you're coming from, though. If I have a critique, I'm not a massive fan of the mouth. I find the lips to be... very pouty.

But you're working in the right direction, though, so I'm looking forward to seeing it all finished!

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Originally Posted by Formalhaut

I like it! I do see where you're coming from, though. If I have a critique, I'm not a massive fan of the mouth. I find the lips to be... very pouty.

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Agreed! It's kind of contrasting to the nose, isn't it? I feel I need to work on depth of the eyes too. Hmm. I may scrap this one and attempt it again.

I appreciate the honest critique! It's what I'm looking for haha. Normally i'm really resistant to critique of things I feel I'm good at but I know i'm not that great here. So any tips are very, very appreciated and reflected on for sure.

Not necessarily. If the hair is properly drawn out and coloured, it can look good!

I think the most interesting thing you've done is taken a cartoonish video-game aesthetic and attempt to bring it towards a more realistic look. It's a decent challenge!

I wanted to do that with more characters actually! I thought about tackling some disney characters first, then maybe some FF characters. But I've been playing overwatch the past few days haha so I was a bit obsessed.

From what I've seen, isn't Overwatch a bit like Team Fortress 2? I mean, I've played neither, so I could be way off the mark.

Very impressive! I'm no artist but I think it's a great first effort. The eyes look spot on to me and I think the shading has been done really well. I agree with Formy about the lips and the hair doesn't look finished but it still looks great. Looking forward to seeing your next one!

Oh yes digital painting is hard! Luckily we got the Undo function though ; ) I'm looking forward to the next episode! Have you tried searching for tutorials on DeviantArt or Youtube? As a tip I would recommend breaking down the steps as much as you can! As in; focus learning how to paint one specific part of the face before trying to do a whole face in one go. Look up an eye or a nose tutorial, follow those, and practice! After a while those smaller parts will come natural and the whole will become easier to achieve afterwards.

It took me a while to figure out that method and it has worked out heaps for me! I have done several tutorials of smaller pieces that would make up a landscape; one for clouds, one for trees, one for water etcetera.

Hope it helps, keep it up ;D

That does help a lot actually! I may do that for this week's try. Just try to do all noses or whatever. I looked up some but even then it overwhelms me. Maybe breaking them down would be better. I eventually want to be able to do landscapes like you do pete! But I have never been very good at those so that's a bit down the way for me. I'd love to see some of your tutorials though if you have a link to them! I'll look into some other tutorials tonight and see if there's some small parts to work on this week.

I can't believe I'm replying to this only now, but that's some great work!I've told you something to this effect already when we discussed the portrait coloring, but I think this digital painting is something you have a great knack for and I can't wait to see more and how much progress you'll be making!