#I think I've figured out my rendering style but you never know might mess with it again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

psrj · 5 years

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do you have any advice for knowing when to stop with art? sketches I'm okay with, but recently I've been overpainting and adding too much, and ruining pieces

So I’ve been staring at this in my inbox for literal months now, because putting any kinda coherent thoughts together has proven to be a MAJOR pain in the ass. But I do have a lot of thoughts so I’m just gonna … spew some garbage under the cut.

So, how do you know when to stop with art?

I’m just gonna run down my own process when a piece just drives me completely insane, because to me, that’s what this boils down to. Because I personally just work on a piece until I’m content with the result. That’s all the wisdom I have to that.

This means that the problem is continually adding stuff that isn’t making you any happier with the piece you’re working on.

So, try to spot what you aren’t liking. Why is the piece ‘ruined’? Why haven’t you declared it done already? Here’s what I look for when I realise that I’m pretty damn mad at whatever I’m working on:

1. Imbalance in stylisation and rendered details -

this depends A LOT on artstyle, but for me this means there’s too much detail somewhere. For example, a big dissonance between the face and the rest of the body in both realism and rendering.

For me, this means zooming out, and whipping out the Big Brush. All parts of the piece needs to work together stylistically. Continuous rendering is basically never gonna fix it, do not be scared of redoing something entirely.

2. Just real fucked up anatomy and/or lighting -

whip out the references. no way around it. probably the simplest one, just difficult to realise sometimes. buuuut if you’ve already noticed something is off, you’re halfway there already.

3. The composition is fundamentally not working -

alright, personally, this is the real hard one to spot, but ruins a piece for me very easily. My instinct is to work on something until it feels right, but when the composition is unappealing, the whole concept works against me.

For me this is only really fixed by properly planning a piece conceptually. Which can be hard if you didn’t intend for something to be a piece to begin with. But zooming out, squinting, gray scaling, it all helps when it comes to figuring out why something about a piece might be driving you slowly insane.

What ultimately helps me is keeping an analytical mind through out a piece. Work big to small, start out by blocking things in two or three values, ALWAYS SAVE PREVIOUS VERSIONS. Go back and compare constantly, it’s THE best thing about digital art. Don’t be afraid to completely redo parts, if only to figure out what’s bothering you about it.

So to summarise this heaping mess, if you think that your overpainting has ruined a piece, you’re already halfway there. Your mission then is to figure out WHY. Figure out why you keep working on the parts you are, if you’re actually fixing something or if you’re just adding disconnected amounts of detail.

Know your goal, the aesthetic and/or style you’re going for, learn how to spot underlying technical mistakes throughout your process and ALWAYS be ready to completely redo parts of it. It’s the absolute best way to learn.

#advice #aaaaaalright #i finally answered this one #just as much of a mess as usual but lets not have it any other way #i have a lot of thoughts and they're a Big Mess #honestly guys #feel free to dm me if you want like #my art opinions but don't want a fucking essay #im very excited to talk about the art process in general #again im completely fucking unqualified #( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)#ask

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