Discuss with the Dragon
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SO, after the previous "Confront the Dragon", I continue my research.
This time, I wanted to study a more cinematographic shot, with depth of field and again, multiple light sources (obviously a contrast of a cold and warm one).
I think I improve a bit in the way I'm letting more and more expressive brush stroke visible but in place where they are not an issue for reading the picture. Firm edges and sharpening are ok, but I need to find a better solution because I used here the "clipping mask" workaround in Krita, and it was really unbearable how many layers where necessary and buttons to press to just shade a shape and then merge back. I start to really wish if Krita had real clipping mask.
On the downside, I spent a bit too much time at the drawing and the flat color. I saw later on the artwork I could really solve most of the sketch at the flat color step, and I could also do a less precise flat color because the shading sort of broke a lot of its precision. So, I have two rooms for optimization in my next test.
My goal is to find a way to crunch the time and optimize it until I can do something like that in 2 or 3h max. Right now, I still spent the double on it.
The drawing
The color flat
The quick shading pass
my desk and setup: Intuos Pro Large, Fedora KDE Linux 36, Philipps 245E monitor
4 comments
Amazing painting. I especially love the lighting/shading (something I constantly struggle with). I also love the attention to detail, especially the clothes design, including all the creases, accessories, colouring, etc.
Some small nits: the right forearm seems too foreshortened considering the angle and the right wrist seems strangely stretched. While you don't notice it visually, as I am currently sitting in a similar pose with my legs crossed, the right calf should rest above the left knee, not below it. That would be uncomfortable (not fully supported). Finally, I don't think the legs are joined correctly to the torso - the femurs should point toward / end at the hips, but they end up at a point some 20 cm in front of them, a fact that is partially obscured by the cloak.
Yeah, the proportions of the hand and arm and also the orientation of the legs struck me as off. Doesn't make the drawing bad, but considering you put so much effort into realistic body anatomy, you'd probably want to know. Other than that, I think you could have done more with the light coming from the fire. The lighting and shadows on the girl make it appear as if there is another light source (probably from the exit of the cave) dominant. Which is perfectly possible, it is just that in the previous drawing it appeared as if it was very dark outside. Plus of course, I've seen you do pretty cool and dramatic stuff with fire. Pleroma Tan comes to mind, but you've done a lot more. I think in this scene it would have been fitting to use the fire as the primary light source. It is by no means absent. It is definitely noticeable in the reflections in the lower parts and of course in the eye of the dragon, but maybe you could consider to do more with it.
I totally agree! Thanks for showing all these anatomy issues, I have a lot of room for improvement. I'm working on it 👍
Actually, I tried and managed to hold the similar pose steadily: the right leg can, in practice, be leant on the left below the knee, supported by friction, if they are in suitable pants (didn't try this in boots :-)). This is more or less comfortable. What I struggled to do is to hold the right foot that high (so that the calf is almost horisontal), while keeping the thighs together. But the warrior witch should have better stretch than me :-).
Anyway from that we see that the picture is quite experimentation-provoking, and as such looks realistic enough to think to try, to a good side. Good job overall :-)
Just in case you feel like sharing the experience: what kind of researcher are you more? Are you more excited by trying this and that possibility and all the maybe-opportunities; or you are more prone to feeling down after not doing as good as you'd like to; or you are mostly "business"-oriented towards systematically exploring all the variants and get the process established, well-tuned and well-optimized?
Good luck with your aspirations anyway!
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