(first off, i’m sorry if this is the 3rd time this comes in, i...

(first off, i’m sorry if this is the 3rd time this comes in, i hope it’s not but tumblr glitched the other 2 times i tried to submit so i have no idea D:`

Hello! I would love to receive some help with this painting. My main issue is composition. I don’t know if this looks okay, or just weird. I haven’t drawn much environments and certainly not cityscapes. I basically just copy-pasted my character from his ref sheet that I was working on into this painting, and I feel that’s one of the reasons the composition is hard to figure out: the character wasn’t made for this painting but for a stand-alone kinda ref. His wings used to be more open but I changed them a bit because I felt they clashed with the composition somehow, but I’m still not quite sure if this is the best I can do with the painting.

The idea for the environment was that the character is lurking somewhere in the city, just outside of an industrial part of the town or something. I wanted there to be that kind of red night light giving the piece some dramatic lighting (since the dude is a villain ’n all), but I ended up cropping the light and the door it’s above out of the picture. Not sure but I think it’s better this way. Originally he was just going to stand in an alley all leery, but then I thought that showing some night sky and building silhouettes would be more interesting. I just don’t know where to place the silhouettes and the character to optimize the composition. I even tried to flip the whole canvas, but I couldn’t decide if it looks better that way or this way. The atmosphere is supposed to be kind of ominous and dark, but have some sorta feel of freedom (thought showing the sky and stars would bring that in). The picture used to be way darker but when I opened the file just now Irealized it was unclear and I cranked the brightness and contrast way up so it would be easier for you guys to see. So yes! I’d wish for help with the composition! And if you think changing the pose is necessary, I’d love to have advice on that too.

Somehow this submission did not glitch, and we only recieved it once :) 

By copying and pasting a character directly from another piece, you run into the issue of working with two different contexts. The contexts of which you have drafted your background ( if you happen to do that before pasting in the character ), and the context of your character and where they were pasted in from. 

This doesn’t make it impossible to integrate the two into one piece, it just means you may have to allow one of the two to alter and warp around to fit with the other. 

In this case, i’ll be warping the context of the background to fit with the character. 

First; let me pull out the good old Rule of thirds grid. 

There we are, as you can see- i have flipped the character around so that they are now facing away from the camera. I did this so that i could allow them to interact with the horizonline, and guide the audience’s eye to the moon, to where the character is staring as well. 

To naturally lead the eye from the character to the moon, i have placed both on each their focal point in the grid. Which will mean that our eyes will draw to both naturally, and if we include enough contrast on the character - we can ensure that they are the first thing our eyes land on. 

You may have noticed that i’ve changed the format of the canvas a little bit to give the character more space to breathe. That is, pulling the character further down in the composition, and adding more space for the environment to take center stage. This of course challenges your skill with drawing backgrounds, but sometimes,  letting the environment simply speak for itself will make a piece seem more coherent, and also integrate your character a lot more with the world you’ve put them in. 

As you can see, i have changed the composition of the buildings just a little bit, to add a kind of “ tunnel” leading from the character and to the moon, which is framed through the use of the negative space left behind the buildings. This naturally guides the eye of the audience through the picture, and connects the moon to the character seamlessly. 

Now this reads a lot more like a scene.

- Mod Wackart ( ko-fi ) 

from The Redline Station https://ift.tt/31PYuHr
via IFTTT