[rdgraffix]

This is my latest pic, 'The King Without A Country', based on an idea I picked up from a Michael Moorcock (sp?) novel.
It was done in Photoshop 5.5, so I'm not thrilled with it compared to the finish Painter 6 (which I just got) can give to this sort of 'painting'. I kind of dig the harsh feel it has though, and it was definately an interesting exercise. The orig is about 3500 x 2500 pxls. Let me know what you think.

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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix

[This message has been edited by rdgraffix (edited October 30, 2000).]

[Lukias]

No spelling mistake there and MY GOD MAN, what a beautiful picture, love the clouds...and...well all of it.
Is he dying or simpley weary?
Have you read any of his books?, I read a book he wrote at age 18.....he's very good.
Actually heaps of people should have read the Elric series.

[Frost]

Hey Rowan.

That is VERY very nice! The image came in slow and the top clouds and lighting on the guy was magnificent... although the bottom of the pic somewhat ruins it a bit in my oppinion as it is perhaps a bit too bright and unsaturated compared to the rest. The ambiant on the guy is very low while the ground is of almost mid-grey...

Anyway, lovely pic. Very nice work!

[opticillusion]

very, very nice!

looks like a lazy fog down there on the ground. I like it a lot! kinda windy, foggy morning blues type thing.

nice colors as well....sweet job!

[Icannon]

beautiful. is it just me or is the king a little bit large compared to the horse?

[Tinusch]

WOW.

That's Photoshop??? Looks like Painter. Awesome job. The colors, the pose, the setting, the atmosphere, the loose strokes... Man, that's incredible.

Poor Michael Moorcock... I bet the kids at school had a field day with that one.

[Francis]

Yes, the sky is superb. Like Icannon said, I think either the horse is a little small or the guy is very large. The ground could use some of the nice depth cues and rendering you have used in the sky (in particular, it would be nice to see the horse's feet planted more definitely in the ground - would add some weight that's sort of missing right now), but overall it's a pretty nice piece.

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Francis Tsai
TeamGT Studios

[Visigoth]

I gotta hand it to you man...That pic has alot of feeling to it...Good job!

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Your car is a fiberglass penis extension.

[Cos]

Woah... Rowan that is class mate! The whole atmosphere to the pic
is terrific, I love them clouds man...

I think the guy does look a little big to the horse, also something
is looking awkward about the horse, maybe its twisting around
too much, or maybe its just his head twisting too much...

But fkk that perfectionist bullsheet, It's a beautiful pic none the less..

[Zenzuke]

How did you do THAT!!!
Whoa, it has became one of my instant classics. I really like both the atmosphere and the pose. The technique you've used is something I can't even imagine. That's really photoshop?
Great work man!

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Look! There's a three headed monkey behind you!

[Sergenth]

Seriously, I should get PS 5 upgrade JUST for the custom brushes... Yowzas!!

[Liquid!]

Great job on the pic! I agree with the others that the horse might be a bit too small for the figure. Since I liked the pic so much I tried tweaking with the sizes and ended up going way overboard. I guess I had a bit too much fun. Hope didn't take too many liberties, no offense was intended. I hope there's something useful in there for you...

I was really amazed with the brush strokes in the sky - amazing. How did you get Photoshop to do that?

Keep up the great work.

-c





[This message has been edited by Liquid! (edited October 11, 2000).]

[Rinaldo]

Fantastic!





[This message has been edited by Rinaldo (edited October 11, 2000).]

[BooMSticK]

Rowan, that is very nice. I agree with frost statement on you should lighten up the ambient light on the fellow. He is indeed to big for that horse, but that's pretty easy to correct..(thats why we're doing digital imagry, isn't it?). Additionally I see some wierdness with the tail. Looks like it's fastened a little bit too low. You could find better swing to the tail as well, I believe...

liquid - Great touching up, but the horse do not look like a horse anymore. The head is too big, and the body is very misshapen...

;B

[rdgraffix]

Wow, thanks for your replies everyone!

In response to those who've asked how I got the textured feel out of photoshop: I basically set up some custom brushes to simulate brush strokes at various sizes, from huge to fairly fine. I started laying down basic shapes and colours loosely with the largest brush, occasionally smudging a bit to get a blending effect. I worked my way down to the finer brushes refining and detailing, but trying not to overwork the strokes that worked out well from the first few coats. As a last step, I ran a lighting effect over a very loose layer of unassociated strokes and overlayed it over the whole image to get the effect of an uneven, painted base.

- well, that's a bit of a simplified explanation, but I hope you get the idea. This was my first shot actual digital painting - inspired my what I've seen here at the forum. I'm not that happy with it, but every pic you do is a learning experience, right? I try to use a different style for almost every pic I do to keep myself interested and challenged, and - most importantly - so I keep learning more about what I can and can't do, and how to go about it.

I've gotten sick of photoshop's generic over-smooth look lately and wanted to experiment with some expressive texture. Man, I've moved further and further away from my GFX origins - looks like I'll have to change the name of my site soon

Lukias: Thanks, I wasn't sure about the name, the only book I've read of his is Corum, and I have no idea where I got it from. I've got to remember to track down some more of his work when I get some spare time.
Oh, he's weary to the point of falling asleep in his sadle, BTW

Frost: Thanks for your comments. I think you're right about the bottom half being to light, I'll have to try to fix it without losing the definition of the strokes. - I only wish this one had colours nearly as fantastic as your recent sunset image.

As for the comments about the figure being too big for the horse, I deliberately chose to use a smaller quarter horse, rather than the traditional draught horse of most fantasy images to help portray how inequipped and vulnerable he is. I did get some reference for size, but I agree that he probably is still too big for the horse. I'll try to fix it up - hopefully I'll be able to retouch a larger horse in to save me repainting too much.

Francis: good points, I had trouble defining depth with the mist - which sounds silly, mist is usually a great tool for defining depth itself. I think you're right about the fact seeing the horse's feet would help, right now it has a floating, static feel to it that shouldn't be there. I might see if I can give a feeling of where they're planted.

Liquid!: Thanks for the reworking, you've given me some great ideas that I only hope I have the time and patience to implement the reflection you've put on the sword looks *awesome* - it really looks like metal now. Thanks.

BooMSticK: I'll definately have to do something to unify the figure with the mist, the minimal reflected light I've got now just doesn't ring true. I'll probably try to bring them closer in value without losing the definition, maybe they contrast a bit much right now. I'll try to fix up the tail too.

Thankyou, everyone, for your comments - it's so fantastic to have a forum of such great artists to bounce your work off. If anyone has any more comments or ideas to improve the pic, I'd love to hear them.


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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix

[Liquid!]

quote:

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Originally posted by BooMSticK:
liquid - Great touching up, but the horse do not look like a horse anymore. The head is too big, and the body is very misshapen...

;B

---

I didn't alter the horse at all... All I did was make it bigger and put a highlight on the backside, and a little on the front legs...

I plead complete innocence.

-c

[Andromeda]

LOVELY PIECE OF WORK ! .. Fabulous colors ! ...

Only problem i have with it is the horse's Butt area.. maybe its just me .. but yeah.. his butt area looks weird...

and the whole anotomy of the horse is a bit too small... like a donkey ? ...
i think the horse's mouth area is too large cos the poor thing looks like a donkey..

But hey... you paint better than me man .. so salut' to you for a fabulous job well done.

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IsCuxcAr

[rdgraffix]

Thanks Andromedia,
You're right - he is a bit more donkey size than horse. I'll have to try resising him to somewhere between where he is now, and Liquid's re-draw. Thanks for pointing out the problems with the mouth area, I was trying to have his mouth open so he looked a bit weary and exausted, like his rider, but I might have overdone it.

Liquid, I think what is bothering BooMSticK is the lack of the horse's stomach, which should bow way beneneath the rider's feet at that scale. I'm definately not trying to pick on your reworking though, I know it was merely a quick visualisation and I really appreciate the time you spent on it - I'm just trying to explain what I think BooMSticK was talking about.

Now I look at the pic again, I'm thinking the colours in the clouds, and reflected on the figure could be a bit more saturated and bright, as right now it's pretty dull. - at least that's easy fixed

Is anyone else ever irritateded be a painting by the time you've finished with it? Not even because you're sick of it, but because you're dissapointed. You want to do better.
I think a lot of the problems with this one were caused right back at the start, with the sketch. I know that for my next piece (probably the angel you might have seen elsewhere on the forum) I'm going to make damn sure I get the rough as good as I can before rushing into painting it.

Oh well, live and learn.

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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix

[rdgraffix]

Ok, here's what I've come up with:



This is pretty close to being the final, but I was wondering if there was anything else that you thought could do with improvement?

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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix

[This message has been edited by rdgraffix (edited October 30, 2000).]

[CapnPyro]

It's lacking depth, have a looksee at Liquid!s, see how he ends the hill after the horses feet, then fades in another hill? Looks like you can see it go out to the distance more. Also maybe make the sword highlight brighter. Anyway you could maybe rework the horse a little bigger I also liked the higher contrast sky in Liquids..

Looks fantastic though, I'm just picking nits I've been wanting to do some paintings out of The Wheel of Time, Im not good enough with the tablet yet to start though..

[Edit: After staring long and hard and trying to figure out what that bump is hes leaning i figured out its a crown! Man, play that thing up! The purpose of your painting is a King who's lost his country (i presume). Unless your intent is to have the whole figure matte, I'd add some highlights to his crown and sword, play it up a bit. Maybe a bit to his face too.. I suppose it has some mystery about it as it is, though]

-Capn

[This message has been edited by CapnPyro (edited October 25, 2000).]

[rdgraffix]

Thanks for the crits CapnPyro,
I see what you mean about the depth in Liquid's foreground. I might try to work a bit of that into my own.
The lack of highlights, esp. on the crown and sword are deliberate, to keep the atmosphere and mystery of the original, I might try to make the highlight along the sword smoother, but I doubt it'll get too much brighter. The objects and meaning of the painting are not meant to be over-obvious, in fact I was debating weither the title gave away too much in itself, but I went for it in the end.

I've already beefed the size of the horse up from the original, judging the comparitive size by eye. Do you think it should still be bigger?

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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix

[Trance-R]

Yeah make it bigger my man. It looks like a donkey (no offense) if the size is not large enough. You might wonna look at some horse reference... I think you should try making the horse body longer, and the head not so round... somehow roundness resemble donkey IMHO.

WOW.. I really like your painting... could you share your technique on the cloud and the fog in the bottom?!

[Rinaldo]

This is looking mighty fine.

The space between the horses front and back legs is very small. although he/she/it is sort of jack knifed a bit it still comes across a bit strange. It doesn't look way too small to me tho.

I would play with the crown a bit more. I didn't notice it at first. it's also a bit of a paper crown (don't know how else to explain it), how I would have imagined a crown when I was a lot younger. I would say play it up a bit more. I'm a bit to slow most of the time to get stuff unless it's shoved right in my face (must be all the TV ).

[rdgraffix]

Thanks guys.

The technique is basically a lot of custom brushes and a load of messing around. I pretty much worked out what I was after before I started the painting though, so at least I was heading towards the right goal from the beginning.

I know what you're talking about Rinaldo - TV ... rotting my brain ...
aargh,
*drool*

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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix

[Trance-R]

Aaah. I see, custom brushes... maybe I should start making brushes too. Never had to make them before.
Thanks for the tip.

[This message has been edited by Trance-R (edited October 27, 2000).]

[kardis]

i want some of your custom brushes hehe oh yeah, did i mention it kicks ass?

-kardis

[rdgraffix]

Thanks Kardis,

If anyone is interested in picking up the custom brushes I used to make this one, I've posted them in another topic, Custom Brush Set - Rough Oil Brushes.

I hope that helps

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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix

[rdgraffix]

Thankyou, everyone, for all of your helpful advice and crits. I've made some more adjustments, including a bit of depth in the mist, adjusting how the light falls on the figures, and some small tweaks to the sword and crown. I think the image balances more as a whole now - It's amazing to see how far it's come from what I started the thread with.

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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix

[This message has been edited by rdgraffix (edited November 01, 2000).]

[im]

i loved the sky
very very very good work