Victor’s 100 Day Art Challenge: Illustration Studies

[Victor Caban]

It’s a bit intense and my original goal of one study a day already taught me my workflow is simply too slow right now. So I am sharing what I’ve finished so far for my study on an illustration by Djahal on Artstation, Capturing the values and slight variations in hue and saturation has been challenging but rewarding. I also found the that the artist really created a sense of immensity by extending the background into infinity in a spiral like manner. I noticed the leading lines of the picture lead into the spiral and that there were 3 real focal point in the illustration that form a triangle. It’s cool breaking it down seeing how some of the masters of visual language can control our eyes to tell a story. Anyways, here’s the progress for today.

[David Carter]

Hey Victor, That’s a great start well done!  I love the tones and the scale of it.  Here’s an honest thing to say – when I first looked at the image, I thought it was a pure landscape study – my eyes were pulled to the dark human figure in the valley, then I took in the colour scheme around – I completely missed the massive robot/alien in the distance.  A minute later I looked back at the image for a second time and spotted the form.  It’s like that human has the greatest value and the eye is drawn to that and the monster is part of the background.  To make this work I think the monster needs greater value. Otherwise, very nice work!  Welcome to the challenge. Looking forward to seeing more of your work.  Best wishes, David.

[Victor Caban]

Thank you for the constructive criticism, I actually found the answer to that! In the original painting the background mountains are actually a deeper and darker blue and so the robot really pops against that. I can definitely see how the little guy draws the eye because of the contrast in colors, I’ll have to fiddle around with the values there. Thanks again!

[Joshua Jacobo]

Look forward to following this challenge.

[Victor Caban]

Thanks! I hope you can offer some cc as I progress in this challenge.

I felt pretty good about most values but I must confess I began to render the robot a bit early since I felt really tired after work today and I needed to see some tangible progress. I can’t believe I wanted to do one a day haha, well I suppose it’s all acclimation. There’s always going to be growing pains when you push yourself past your comfort levels.

[Victor Caban]

Rendering process is a bit time consuming, but I’m learning a lot of valuable knowledge. For example, photobashing is a technique used by many artists in the industry to create textures or lay down templates quickly. That is to say that the difference between a master and a novice becomes evident when slapping down images off of google. Anyways, this piece is almost done, it’ll be done by tomorrow and  I’ll definitely implementing photobashing into my next study.

[Iliya Mirochnik]

Hi Victor,

The stuff you’re doing is really cool. I know I’m chiming in at probably not the best moment as you’re thinking of putting down the pencils on this one, but I did think that I would do a draw over to simplify the values and details a little bit. I think the main issue with this piece right now is that I don’t know where to look as this picture kind of doesn’t come together as a sum of it’s parts just yet. I spend more time looking at the minutants, the rocks, the little patches of light, than I do at either the lone warrior or the big robot. Also the background behind the robot just feels too busy. I tried, without changing the placement of anything or the format to just group some values and accent the important bits. Now this wouldn’t be the only way to do this, of course, that all depends on your intent and pictorial and narrative focus. But here’s one idea.

Keep up the awesome work, I really can’t wait to see your other digital paintings on this site.

Best,

Iliya 

[Victor Caban]

@Iliya, I appreciate the cc about the cohesiveness of the piece. It feel like it’s my fault that the piece doesn’t flow as well as the original illustration so that’s definitely something I have to work on. Do you recommend any courses for composition and value? It seems like those are my weak points right now for illustration. I finished the study but I really skimped out on the rendering for the rocks because I was desperate to finish today. I regret it and will take my time for the next study. Even now I’m feeling I could do more to improve the painting before I submit I think I’m getting too wrapped up in perfecting the piece instead of learning from it like a study should be.

[Iliya Mirochnik]

<!–more–>Hey Victor,

That’s totally fine. I’d actually advise you to move on. Take the notes into consideration and try to apply them to more pieces, no point in lingering and beating something to death. I am a firm believer in quantity over quality, or rather, the importance of achieving a certain critical mass that itself will lead to quality. Composition is a super important topic and I feel it isn’t stressed enough in art schools here. In the Academy of Fine Arts, in Russia, where I went to school, composition was literally everything. Even when doing some academic drawing, we were always told, that before your mark becomes a form, or even a shape, or even a line, it is first and foremost a compositional element. And this changes the way you think about the whole thing.  As for resources, I know 2 good ones. The first is right here on NMA, and it’s Bill Perkins’ course. He has a long history of teaching and working with compositional elements as an Art Director at Disney and his course is quite comprehensive. Another, in my opinion, absolutely fundamental resource is an old book from around 1900 called Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgement of Pictures by Henry Rankin Poore. They did a reprint recently but totally screwed it up by heavily shortening it as well as adding completely different examples, a lot of which don’t entirely correspond to the text. Luckily the original is in the public domain! Here it is: http://www.gutenberg.org/files/26638/26638-pdf.pdf.

I’m really excited about your progress and I’ll make sure to check in regularly to see what you’re doing.

Best,

Iliya

[Ian Coltman]

Hi Victor,

I love this challenge! I’ve been mulling something like this for my next 100 days… I’m interested to see where you take it!

If you don’t already own Framed Ink: Drawing and Composition for Visual Storytellers by Marcos Mateu-Mestre (around $20 last time I checked), I think it would provide a valuable and practical resource for your next 90 days.

Cheers!

 

[Victor Caban]

First of all thank you so much for providing that link Iliya, I think it’s so cool that you managed to track down the original edition! I found the course on composition by Bill Perkins and I am going to begin the series, and if the video goes as in depth as I think it will, I will apply what I learn from it into my value map tonight when I’m setting up my next study. I agree whole-heartedly  with what you are saying about composition, a strong composition = a strong piece. To add to that, I was listening to a podcast this morning from the Draftsmen and they went over the ‘three disciplines’ in art and among those were composition, in addition to draftsmanship and technique. It really adds to what you are saying about composition. You can be a strong draftsmen with fantastic technique but if you don’t know what creates a good composition it’s like having master instrumentalists with a good sheet music but no composer.

Before I get started for tonight, thanks Ian! It’s very tough, but I suggest if you have any hesitations to just dive in, if you do I’ll follow your progress as well and we can even share things that we’ve learned and try to give cc to eachother. I have heard of that book I just haven’t had the chance to really look into it. It’ll be interesting to see where all of these ideas about composition really intersect.

 

[Victor Caban]

I really liked what Bill Perkins was saying about how a strong matrix is what helps to develop a strong composition. I tried using a technique he was talking about in which you develop strong forms by only using black,white and grey. It was a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. I had to focus on making sure that the large forms that mattered actually came through. I feel like what I learned about the triad of design is a solid foundation for practice although some ideas, like the use of Notan and form in John Sargent’s paintings are still a little unclear.

[Victor Caban]

Colors, I’m pretty nervous for the stage where I apply texture, I feel like I will butcher it. If I’m applying what I learned yesterday to this piece I think out of the triad of design this piece is mostly notan and form heavy but I could be wrong. I slapped down some colors today trying to see if I could focus on the bigger picture than the details.

[Victor Caban]

I felt burnt out today, I could barely stay focus on the painting. So rather than push myself and risk quitting this challenge completely I’m allowing myself to forgo developing the painting as much as I thought I was going to today. 

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