HELP! he's made of plastic :'(

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Velithen wrote on 2013-08-05 22:18

just got my first tablet and trying to make my first digital art :cheer: , but now after spending a few hour to understand how this thing work and starting my draw, i now realized that its look like... plastic :imdead: .

i've seen a lot of talented people on this forum and they look quite good ( at least better thant me) so if they could give me a few hint to make things not look like plastic, or just the good way to start off with a tablette, i would really appreciate

ps: again sorry for the english but its not my first language.

[Image: http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/261529Sanstitre1.jpg]
Elleanior wrote on 2013-08-05 22:27

If you add more layers of shadowing (not shine; shadowing), and add some texturing, then that'll help a fair bit.
The effect of "looking like plastic" is with how your shadowing is done. I am very bad at explaining things, so I can't really help much, but I'd recommend fiddling with your shading a bit. Asides from that, it's turning out quite lovely for your first time doing digital art. :D

I hope to see more from you! :cheer:
Baku wrote on 2013-08-05 22:41

You just have to practice and study, no short-cuts =D

Look for references for the material you are trying to paint. And learn color theory and how light works around it.
And some still lifes too.

Here's some starting points, but also look around those sites, there's lot of knowledge and reference material around those.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=76955 <--- (Peer Project) This thread is awesomecakes in every aspect.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=53517 <--- Peer Project addendum
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=51913 <-- Image on second post is cool.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=247591

[Image: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v13/Ragnarok27/PeerProject%20V2/attachment.jpg]

[Image: http://i92.photobucket.com/albums/l7/_lieblos_/ducks.jpg]

(These are from the first thread linked above)

Take a look at these videos
http://ctrlpaint.com/library/

Rendering an ear: http://ctrlpaint.com/videos/form-value-and-light
(You might want to look at the previous videos too and start from the top, which is super-duper-highly-uber-recommended)

__

In short:
It looks like plastic because you don't know how lighting works around an object depending on the material of the surface.

So you have to build your mental library of materials, and how to render them.
Velithen wrote on 2013-08-06 01:38

thank you both of you.

Baku, those videos are amazing, im going to look them all and do the exercise, i really feel like this is going to help me alot
Murasaki wrote on 2013-08-06 02:25

The quickest I can sum up your issues are:

1. Not enough variation in value. Be more daring with the lights and darks! Even white will have darker shading than what you have now, with the exception of some special circumstances.
2. Not enough hue variation. It's not enough to shade an area of color with a darker version of that color.

I'll use something I'm working on as an example..

[Image: http://puu.sh/3PG7g]

The hair is "silver" I guess you could say, but my shadows have blue, green, and some red in it.
The skin actually started as bright red and then I painted skin tones on top of it, adding some purple shadows and yellow highlights to make things pop more.
The colors don't need to be super saturated or super opaque to help you make your stuff stand out. I'm still a long way from when I need to be, but I know that noticing how colors are very often different than what we expect really really helps my work. If you're going for more stylized work, a bit of exaggeration in color can really make things stand out, and not feel like plastic.