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Blondbraid [2019-03-04 10:05:06 +0000 UTC]

Nice, very touching!

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Seeeks [2019-02-17 09:56:03 +0000 UTC]

It's interesting comparing the old version and the new. I could tell that you added the pink underside to the "petals" of the dress. Those interact with the red wounds. I think the saturation on the dress is somehow out of balance, even though the shift towards yellow already made it better compared to the first version. You could either reduce the saturation in the highlighted area or alternatively increase it and give it a sort of a supernatural intensity. Right now it sort of falls between the two. I think I read somewhere that if people have vibrant shadows, the highlights should be less saturated, and vice versa. You seem to use pure black for shadows and while it's intense, it can get sort of heavy to look at because it eliminates the presence of bounced light in shadows, making it look like there's an excess of shadow occlusion instead, in areas that should be exposed to atmospheric light. I think brown reflected off the scales would hit the shadow side of the girl. The use of atmospheric perspective on Strohm's side might also be too high considering it's not all that far in the distance. The curvature of the area showing underneath the extended arm doesn't work as well as the rest of the dinosaur's form. The underside of the arm is so dark that it sort of pulls the curvature of the body part behind it to roll with it, creating a sharp edge almost like a pillow emboss.

I hope this isn't making you feel too frustrated. Looking at your thumbnails in the side panel, you seem to use cyan in lots of works. It might be useful to do some sort of color palette tests and check if you can find color combinations that are worth using in a painting. I know that the dominant red color in Charm's cloak often dictates using cyan to counter it, but there are other alternatives. I recently discovered new colors that I hadn't used in the past but make me wish I would have found them earlier. For example, I used to use greens leaning towards yellow all the time. Then I discovered that cool greens are a thing and I was like "where have you been all my life?" It's so easy to artificially restrict yourself to limited choices based on an assumption that "this is what they're supposed to be colored". I find it useful to pick a color from the image and slide around the various color sliders, looking for something that clicks. Since Photoshop allows locking any axis in HSL or RGB, I might look at the color spaces, be able to tell that ok, if I go in that direction, it will go towards that color, and it gives me some hint of which direction to try. Yet, rather than clicking on spots at random, I just slide the cursor around and observe how the preview looks next to the original color, then if it starts to harmonize, I become more cautious with my movements and only move in different directions by a few pixels to see if a subtle change in any direction makes it even more functional. If it turns out that it makes it worse, I just return to the original discovery and keep that. Sometimes I also mix colors by painting them lightly on top of each other and picking a color from some blended area that looks promising. Often there are cases where I never would have been able to find the right shadow or highlight color just by adjusting the hue and saturation manually, but if the right color pops up as a result of two semi-transparent colors overlapping, I know it when I see it. I don't know how you pick your colors but it's worth experimenting with. It's like going to an all you can eat buffet.

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Sketchman147 [2019-02-17 03:59:07 +0000 UTC]

Seeing the mysterious girl makes me feel like she's a young mother nature kind of character where she has experienced many things in her short life and has come to the aid of many creatures like Strohm.

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mysteriouskey [2019-02-17 02:58:50 +0000 UTC]

This looks mystical and dreamy, I love it! The soft, lovely colors compliments the peaceful fantasy setting  

👍: 0 ⏩: 1

Seeeks [2019-02-16 22:05:35 +0000 UTC]

The combination of bright green on the girl's dress and the cyan in the sky and the mint green skin tone are too far removed from any color harmony that the combination looks quite jarring. While the blades of grass, the background and Strohm's scales seem to work together, the girl looks like she's from another painting, even if there are similarities between her skin and the sky. The use of blue butterflies is an interesting choice and certainly stands out, but I feel that this picture would be stronger with a more limited color palette. It also took a while to notice the slab of stone with a face on it, so that is like an Easter egg.

I made this rough stream of consciousness blocky paintover:



While it changes the whole thing and it looks like a little Muslim girl commanding a fleet of butterflies to attack, I think it might demonstrate that sometimes less is more, and it can be useful to start with large blocks of color rather than grayscale (I'm guessing you start with grayscale and then color it once the value balance is to your liking?) It can be somewhat limiting if you tell yourself in advance that the girl has to be green, or that grass has to be green, then if it turns out you can't make it work, chance is you've already spent so many hours on it that you're too tired to make radical changes.

It's good to think about dialog between color surfaces, which elements are on the same side, which are opposing forces, which are neutral. If everything is highly saturated, it makes it hard for the audience to figure out what is central or what to focus on. As I was playing with color adjustments before I made my own blocking test, I noticed that the yellow in the trees has the potential to harmonize with Strohm's scales, so I tried introducing yellow in the sky, and it's in dialog with the blue butterflies. I initially colored the girl gray, then the color of the grass, then added a hint of blue taken from the butterflies to show their alliance and blended it in. The color of the grass doesn't quite work but overall, this is just a test.

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love--or--death [2019-02-16 21:21:52 +0000 UTC]

Aww love it  
I think your decisions were good, the composition is well balanced and the dino looks like sleeping (or unconscoius). Also the healing effect looks nice  

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