Selbys imagination station

[ENCHANTER]

looks like a fire salamander , found on anceint caves,.

[Selby]

yep-those are the ones Enchanter.....and its like ones in books who get bigger and more powerful from fire and are magical

Selby

[Fashmir]

That's a cool salamander Selby. Well... er... hot I guess. Anyway, I like it. I can almost hear magical music in the distance... is that a didjeridoo I hear? I thought I would give a hand on that shadow, I hope you don't mind as this is not the crits gallery.

I did a suggestion of what I might do with the shadow in pink on the ground and tried to show how I think about setting up shadows when I'm working. Hope it helps. Let me know if I can be of specific help.

[Selby]

thanks Fashmir-glad you liked the cool hot salamander as for advice i need all the help i can get particularly with shadows and its an honour to have your help.....tried putting the shadow near where you did but it kept looking like it was bent up in the air how do i stop that? is it cause i didnt do it dark enough?
<sigh..off to try more>

Selby

[bearblue1]

What a glorious salamander. *thumbs up!*

[Fashmir]

I think part of it is that you have a line of color for ground that seems to indicate the tree is on the crest of a rise. This suggests an edge as though the horizon where right there. If you allow a little grass, bushes etc. to exist behind and above the tree it creates a sense of the ground continuing into the distance.

[Selby]

thanks bearblue

Fashmir- ops: ermm yes i see now....i do do ground under trees like this a lot( a bad hangover from the fact i often do a single simple object and no backgound or ground at all ) .. no wonder i often get left looking silly now i will go practice what you've shown me and have no more bent shadows thankyou for taking the time to show me this..so silly it all makes sense once you've shown me but up till then it never occured why things looked odd.

Selby

[samIambic]

Selbyyy,

I feel a bit funny having opened this whole can of worms on you but you seem to be enjoying the help?!? Your tree was really quite nice as it was...

You've gotten some top notch advice already so I won't go there except to suggest perhaps setting up model on your table top with an object, a small table lamp with a lamp shade would sort of resemble a tree (turned off), but a coffee can or anything would do. and some sort of a light source behind your left shoulder, the more focused the better, like a clamp light or a goose neck to give a sharp shadow. You could change the angles of the light source as well as your view point and practice as much as you want on paper. It's hard as it's a perspective problem as well as a shading problem.

Or you could just take your sketchbook with you for a walk on a sunny day and check it out with a real tree which would probably be more fun.

Killer salamander, by the way. No shadow required here. It's very powerful, especially on that background. Heavy JuJu young lady.

sam

[Selby]

no Sam its great dont feel funny- not nearly silly enough to think i know everything so im glad to have the advice of all comers especially honoured to have the time of art-masters like Fashmir and yourself.

glad you liked my salamander he was fun

and im off to go practice tree shadows

Selby

[Selby]

Hi all,
its taken me a little bit to have a go at fixing my tree shadow and seeing as my brain is currently the texture of wet choclate pudding it didnt turn out quite how i wanted..... but its sure better than it was thanks to Sam and Fashmirs good advice so im closing the book on this tree for now and ill have a go a another one soon which will be better planned from the start

the other thing that is hurting my head is the huge colour shifts i keep getting between ArtRage and photoshop where i go to optimise for web- as you can see from my previous tree drawings which are the same painting i cant get anyconcistency and it makes my head hurt so i need to practice this more.


Selby