― Artistic Expression Critique ⇒ creating a battle scene

[PietFrancke]

One guy on a horse does not a battle make.

Over the next couple of weeks I want to keep building onto this image until we've got something that could almost be called Epic. So I took another shot of a couple of guys under similar lighting as the horseman was. And I used Nic to make it grey scale, so that it can be colored in a scheme that will make sense for the scene. I will color and complete them and then I will take another shot - it might take 20 or 30, though I figure one new integration per day is a fair target.

Please help me figure things out. When you can't paint, when you can't draw, You Got To Cheat Like Hell!

[Psjunkie]

looking forward to seeing this develop...

[PietFrancke]

looking forward to seeing this develop...

thanks Frank... Already I am faced with a big choice -- What color?! I am thinking green for the people that will have their backs to us. I was kind of thinking about keeping the colors complementary (redish/yellowish vs bluish). But the sky has some cool spooky green in it, so perhaps using green will be ok...

[Psjunkie]

I see that spooky green and think you should give it a try....if it's a bust jut pick another

[PietFrancke]

I see that spooky green and think you should give it a try....if it's a bust jut pick another

thanks - I will add in a hint of that, but ended up playing it safer. Going with a mustard yellow, it is standing out pretty good in the foreground

[Psjunkie]

seems you don't have a big variety of colors in the scene, but using color samples from the image I have found is usually a good idea rather than introducing new ones...at least starting with a sample and then adjusting saturation and luminosity to taste.

[minniev]

One guy on a horse does not a battle make.

Over the next couple of weeks I want to keep building onto this image until we've got something that could almost be called Epic. So I took another shot of a couple of guys under similar lighting as the horseman was. And I used Nic to make it grey scale, so that it can be colored in a scheme that will make sense for the scene. I will color and complete them and then I will take another shot - it might take 20 or 30, though I figure one new integration per day is a fair target.

Please help me figure things out. When you can't paint, when you can't draw, You Got To Cheat Like Hell!

temp.jpg

Thank you for showing us this as ou go. I learn from your journey even if I don’t know how to do most of it yet. I agree with your quote about when you can’t paint, etc. Me too!

[PietFrancke]

thank you Frank and Min, I am not entirely satisfied (perhaps their helmets need something). But it ain't all bad... Here is my cartoon book for today!

[Psjunkie]

Possibly some sparsely added blood to the weapons...I think you did great with the color choice...you are getting that gradient painting down..because of you I started looking at gradient mapping and what not, mainly for my b/w work so I want to thank you for pushing me to start learning something new..seems to be a very slight bit of haloing horses right side

[PietFrancke]

Possibly some sparsely added blood to the weapons...I think you did great with the color choice...you are getting that gradient painting down..because of you I started looking at gradient mapping and what not, mainly for my b/w work so I want to thank you for pushing me to start learning something new..seems to be a very slight bit of haloing horses right side

thanks Frank, good ideas, I will work them in. I'm already better at blending, you didn't see halos on the men on the ground! I will need to fix the halos on the original, probably not right away since parts of that might end up behind the next victim. The gradient painting for me is now:
1 the grey
2 the gradient map
3 the base colors applied
4 an overlay layer for highlights
5 a multiply layer for shadows
6 a screen layer to add in atmosphere colors
7 a normal layer to paint lines and fix problems
8 a blending layer to smudge up the outside edges that are too hard - which also fixes halos. I use a mixer brush for that.