For one thing, there's no real focal point defined - right now, there's no place for the eye to rest as it zips over the canvas, and no way I'm directing it. If there *is* a focal point, it's her chest where the light blue tones* are, because that's the largest, most eye-catching area of light in the picture, and that throws the picture off because there's no reason for that to be the point which draws the eye. Might be different if I put a tattoo there, for instance, and wanted that to be the focal point and hence the major reason for the picture.
* Might not be obviously blue to you, but I painted them in with a pale baby blue. There's a lot of blue in skin, especially the lighter-colored varieties.
Wow, very pretty! And it really does look like paint! (Something slightly odd with the neck, though? But that'll probably be all fixed when you add the details.)
Thank you! Yeah, I hadn't looked too hard at the neck, and you're right - it's got a solid column feel to it, instead of being modeled like a neck is. I'll make sure to pay attention to that as I finish it. :)
Thank you! :) It took a while to get the brush strokes *in* to the skin - it was way too blended for way too long a time, and I can't pull off the extremely-subtle-blending thing very well yet. (Which means that what I really long to do is the Chinese-novel-cover painting style like feimo (http://feimo.deviantart.com/) and shuangwen (http://shuangwen.deviantart.com/). XD)
I find it difficult to get that super-subtle blending without losing color saturation and luminosity :/ It's beautiful if you can achieve the effect, but I also find tremendous beauty in individual brush strokes. You can learn quite a bit about an artist by either technique. Like how one may seem to have UNENDING PATIENCE!
Yup. And I end up overworking it and it turns into a muddy mess.
One of the best things about the Advanced Painter Techniques book is that Seegmiller says things like "Take my special blending brush and go over the painting. Blend sharply where you want edges and softly where you don't. When you're finished, it's going to look horrible. All paintings do at this stage."
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Why is this obviously not done? That is, it is obvious that more details could be added. But why should that be expected?
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* Might not be obviously blue to you, but I painted them in with a pale baby blue. There's a lot of blue in skin, especially the lighter-colored varieties.
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Wow, very pretty! And it really does look like paint! (Something slightly odd with the neck, though? But that'll probably be all fixed when you add the details.)
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I certainly don't have that XD
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One of the best things about the Advanced Painter Techniques book is that Seegmiller says things like "Take my special blending brush and go over the painting. Blend sharply where you want edges and softly where you don't. When you're finished, it's going to look horrible. All paintings do at this stage."
That's incredibly reassuring. XD
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