Okay, so for those who don't know, I was anti-digital the first two years of art school. I hated it, it took forever, too many shortcuts to remember, and I felt like an elephant learning how to paint. Then I talked to some fantastic illustrators at Spectrum Fantastic Art Live, wrote an excessive amount of notes when my teachers would give demos, and interviewed and picked the brains of other illustrators and classmates. This card assignment has provided me with the perfect way to practice, so I've been dedicating about 6 to 12 hours each week working on these. I have 52 cards to design. I believe I have the first 10 paintings at a finished state. I can't afford to dwell on them for too too long. I'm almost finished with the next 10. What I really need to focus on right now is designing a border for the front, the suit signs along with the typography (I really love Garamond and Snicket uses it in his books), and the pattern for the backs. I also need to speed up production; I tend to dwell on detail. I'm going to change these backdrops below, mostly because the burned edge texture looks bad in my opinion. I want to actually burn paper and scan it in. But these are just to give you an idea of where I'm going.
Aunt Josephine Klaus reading
Uncle Monty Count Olaf
The Reptile Room Captain Sham
Sunny and the Incredibly Deadly Viper Stephano
Violet as bride Sunny in a cage
Very nice. I think the value could be pushed in the figures. Some of them have nice darks in their hair but most of them stay on the lighter range. If you do the little squinty trick you can lose the figure do to the light value. But i think if that's pushed a bit then they are great!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Rob that they are all about medium tones. Just tweaking the curves might help and be the easiest. I am on the fence on the decorative elements surrounding the illustrations, the illustrations are so good! So, I kind of enjoyed the oval, maybe I find distracting because it's really dark.
ReplyDeleteThanks! What do you think about making the lines more sketchy? Thinner lines? I'm going for a "discarded old, black and white photos that survived a fire" look, haha! Any ideas would be great!
DeleteLooks awesome terri, really just want to see these in color
ReplyDeleteO.k. This is going to be a weird comment but,... well first, I love the interior portion of the cards... but the 'frame' is killing me. Perhaps I do not know enough about LemmineSnikets-- or whatever the name is, but when I am looking at the images, I get the feeling I am in a monster's mouth looking out, and seeing his teeth! (Told you it was weird!) It may be just me? If it is supposed to be a decorative window, maybe it could be a little more regular in shape? Or maybe, just emphasizing the 'frame' element a little better so that it is more distinguishable from the dark background. ????? Just a thought. Otherwise, Great! A. Perkins
ReplyDeleteHahaha! It does! The frame is literally murderous! I was going for a stylized eye shape; the black lines are eyelashes. It's funny that I'm commenting on here when you're two rows behind me. But yes, I agree. A common symbol in the Lemony Snicket books is the eye. Also, it's supposed to look like old, black and white photos with burned edges (I failed at the burned edges). I'm a little stuck on the backdrop actually. What do you think about making the lines sketchier? Or lighter colored? Like a burn?
DeleteI do think getting rid of the burn-tool streaky texture could improve these tenfold; you'd really get a burned, smoky look and a less digital one. Also I'd watch out for Uncle Monty's arm- it seems a little short. However I'm adoring the concept for these (these books were so good) and I think you're really catching a lot of character in each portrait. Push your darks and lights more and these will be incredibly strong!
ReplyDeleteI actually really like them as black and white images, I immediately knew it was Lemony Snicket themed. I think the contrast could be bumped up a bit in The Reptile Room as well as Sunny and the Incredibly Deadly Viper. Count Olaf is the most successful in terms of light source.
ReplyDeleteThese are great and they feel like your traditional. I would push the contrast more. If you don't want to go in with a brush, I'd just play with the adjustment tools.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about digital and this is also new to me too. So my advise might be amateurish, but I know there is ways to change contrast without changing your original work too much.
I would concur with what's been said about the value ranges. I'm not entirely sure what's going on with the frame going out to the edges, but I think it's unfortunately distracting. Olaf is definitely the strongest out of these, with Klaus close behind with some lighting improvements. Though I wonder if you could push Olaf more by giving his clothes some different values?
ReplyDeleteThe values would be pretty easy to address. I would suggest using a curve to bring down the overall value a bit and then start picking out some highlights via painting on a layer above.
As far as the burned paper look goes, you can definitely do some tricks with PS as far as overlaying texture. Try googling some burned paper texture and playing around with it so you can see what you would need from a photo/scan of your own if you want to see some quicker results. Slap it on top of your image with some different blending modes - particularly overlay, soft light, and multiply to start out. Then try going in with a softer (gradated) eraser to blend things out a bit, see if that works for you.
Good stuff Terri!
Beautiful cards Terri! Once you push the value, the figure would pop and it would look more dramatic. Can't wait to see the rest of your cards!
ReplyDelete-Maysa