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UpsilonEexe — TFP Ratchet colors.
Published: 2014-03-19 02:40:31 +0000 UTC; Views: 1940; Favourites: 119; Downloads: 10
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Hrm.. .Not sure if lit by sunset, or just watching it all burn...I am extraordinarily pleased with how this turned out. Weee. I challenged myself with some tricky lighting, and I think I actually succeeded in getting what I wanted.
I used no pure white and no pure black in coloring this. Though some areas may read as black now just from layers falling together.
Comments are appreciated!
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Comments: 9
The first thing I thought of upon seeing this was Ratchet watching Team Prime's base burning to the ground after the Decepticon attack...
You did an excellent job on this. The coloring and shading are absolutely gorgeous! The orange glow standing out against the darker shades of Ratchet's armor, coupled with the faint white glow of what I'm guessing is moonlight on Ratchet's back really make this picture stand out. Not many people include those little details to their work, but it really gives the picture that little extra realistic effect. Another thing I like is the sky. The steady transition from evening to night looks great, and really adds to the lighting and shading of the character.
As I said before, you did an amazing job. I've attempted this sort of lighting with watercolor paints and I can vouch that it's very difficult and complex. Keep up the great work, and definitely continue to challenge yourself in future drawings.
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Thank you for the fantastic comment! The feedback is very much appreciated.
It wasn't what I intended, but given I started out with no intentions, I think the "watching it burn" interpretation works well enough. I've thought about going back in and putting in some glowing embers drifting by, but I may just leave it more vague and to viewer interpretation.
Working on this piece knocked a lot of rust off of my digital coloring skills. He's only the third serious digitally colored piece of artwork I've done in the majority of a decade, with Breakdown being the second, and the first one still just being color flats for a collaborative project. Even just between this piece and the Breakdown piece I can see where my skills are improving. I am hoping though that I didn't set the bar too high for myself with this one, and that I won't be able to replicate the quality on following pieces. We shall see.
It was fun choosing a lighting scheme, and from there figuring out how the light sources would interact with his coloring and how the two different light sources would coexist with each other. Visualizing where the shadows would fall was a great challenge. Every time I felt like I caught them all, I'd spot something else that would throw a shadow in another direction and I'd have to incorporate it. Then it was a case of "I know what I need to do, but how do I make it happen", and lo, I remembered layer styles in photoshop and they became my new minions. Soft light, overlay, and darken are glorious things.
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Ratcheeeeeeet! 
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Thank you! Something this ambitious and complex colors-wise really was a challenge for me. Given the theme of this series I know the poses won't be all that interesting sometimes. Only so much you can do with head/shoulders shots before things start to repeat. So I am trying to get creative with atmosphere and lighting to make up for that.
My favorite bit is the blue side of his helmet where all the shadows and light sources interact.
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