HOME | DD

Description
This is a repaint of this old painting for my thesis:

I’m continuing to repaint some of my old thesis work to bring it up to my current level. The first thing I attacked with this piece was the color scheme. I’d picked an odd set of crimson and violet that honestly didn’t make much sense– fire is yellow and orange, not purple-red. So the first thing I did was attempt to harmonize and correct the color scheme to make it more believable. I worked on the direction of the light source, as well as pumping up the shadows closest to the fire. I looked at pictures of humans in firelight and their figures are very yellow/orange with dark, dark shadows. I know the shadows typically tend to be black, and that firelight doesn’t usually spread this far, but it’s meant to be a tad cartoony/stylized, like my characters.

I repainted the characters to match their new designs, and to improve the composition. Before, Gretel was pointing with her hand that was holding the torch, and that didn’t make any sense. Instead I changed her so that she was looking at the floating island, which I feel helps improve the movement of the composition. I also worked hard at rendering the cave rocks better. Before it was very simplistic, and I used a basic brush. This time around I tried to work to give the rocks more form and facets, and used a textured brush to help create interest. I moved Hansel closer to us and made him bigger. I worked on the shadows of the rocks according to the perspective that Stephen showed me. I added some blue underneath the floating island to bring up the interest and contrast. The cave they are in is a drop off, so we would not see the horizon. I repainted the waterfall after looking at some reference photos of waterfalls inside of caves. I found that one of my biggest problems was that the water was shooting out at an impossible angle. I also repainted the bull skull and bones to bring them up in realism.

Description
This is a repaint of this old painting for my thesis:

I’m continuing to repaint some of my old thesis work to bring it up to my current level. The first thing I attacked with this piece was the color scheme. I’d picked an odd set of crimson and violet that honestly didn’t make much sense– fire is yellow and orange, not purple-red. So the first thing I did was attempt to harmonize and correct the color scheme to make it more believable. I worked on the direction of the light source, as well as pumping up the shadows closest to the fire. I looked at pictures of humans in firelight and their figures are very yellow/orange with dark, dark shadows. I know the shadows typically tend to be black, and that firelight doesn’t usually spread this far, but it’s meant to be a tad cartoony/stylized, like my characters.

I repainted the characters to match their new designs, and to improve the composition. Before, Gretel was pointing with her hand that was holding the torch, and that didn’t make any sense. Instead I changed her so that she was looking at the floating island, which I feel helps improve the movement of the composition. I also worked hard at rendering the cave rocks better. Before it was very simplistic, and I used a basic brush. This time around I tried to work to give the rocks more form and facets, and used a textured brush to help create interest. I moved Hansel closer to us and made him bigger. I worked on the shadows of the rocks according to the perspective that Stephen showed me. I added some blue underneath the floating island to bring up the interest and contrast. The cave they are in is a drop off, so we would not see the horizon. I repainted the waterfall after looking at some reference photos of waterfalls inside of caves. I found that one of my biggest problems was that the water was shooting out at an impossible angle. I also repainted the bull skull and bones to bring them up in realism.