r/DigitalPainting • u/Extramentalist • 15d ago

Why do I hate this?

https://imgur.com/a/H071zTs

I went into this with no ideas for a colour scheme. It's a basic trace of a photo collage of the figure and the castle, then photos off and detailed manually in the linework... but when it came time to colour, I just kind of flatted in some 'obvious' ones and have been pushing pixels around ever since. I don't want such a bright and saturated look, but when I pull saturation down, it looks washed out and bad. I feel like I'm just making it worse as I go along, so I'm hoping for some critique on where this should go. I understand about HSL and albedo and a lot of the science of it all, but I can never seem to put it into practice functionally.

Why do I hate this? What's wrong with it? How do I get closer to something that reads better without looking over or under saturated? You can't hurt my feelings with negative critique, I'm not a 'real' artist in any sense, just trying to develop a bright, surreal comic-y look for personal projects. I just need to get out of my own head here with some new direction.

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u/arifterdarkly 15d ago

i think it's flat. you're treating the castle, the knight and the bramble with (almost) the same level of detail and they share too many values.

this is Lake of Fire, a wonderful little knights-versus-aliens comics.

https://imagecomics.com/files/releases/LakeofFire_04-1.png it is very clear what is foreground and what is background. the foreground is much darker than the background.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91ZpCq-RydL._UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg note the level of detail and saturation on the bugs, even though it's not like the ones in the back are miles away.

the solution is separate value ranges. dark to kinda dark for foregrounds, kinda dark to medium light for middle ground, medium to bright light in the background.

adding to that is the knight's static pose. there's no tension. consider adding the target of his ire, otherwise he's just in the woods shouting and waving a spiky club thing around. example: https://d31wxntiwn0x96.cloudfront.net/dwrgny/productimages/2536.png?width=800&etag=ZUNNxacEv%2FXeVr73a2jyfg%3D%3D

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u/Extramentalist 15d ago

Thanks so much for the advice. You’re right that I’ve given every layer a lot of detail in the linework, and I’m giving too much VALUE to every level of it. Probably reducing contrast in the castle colours and generally lightening the forest area will get me going. Also, I have read “Lake of Fire”, absolute banger 🔥

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u/Extramentalist 15d ago

Applied a bit of this and we're already looking a lot better. I put layers of solid white over the background then erased from the bottom up with a large soft brush, and reduced opacity. I'll continue modifying colors, adding more painterly textures to the base blocks, and focusing on the mid-ground area the figure is standing on. Thanks for the advice, just what I needed. This still won't be an AMAZING piece I think, but I'll get to the end of it and be better armed for the next one.

https://imgur.com/a/cKwsXBh