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Aliciane [2013-02-22 11:43:13 +0000 UTC]

This is really good. I mean, for someone who has never done any background/landscape before, you've captured all the most important basics in this piece. You may not realize it, but you've avoided all the most common beginner mistakes and you possess all the elements to create a good background

So what are the good points in this study that you must reuse again and again :
- Your colour scheme is good. You haven't painted ugly brown trees and flashy green leaves. You've chosen a cold blue-green colour scheme and have kept it consistent.
- Your background has depth ! This is so remarkable for a first try. The background trees are thinner, and lighter, and bluer, and with less contrast, everything that is needed to suggest atmospheric perspective.
- The shapes and position of the trees are random. Not all your trees are straightly vertical like electric posts, some are bending to the left, some to the right. Their spacing is variable. This is something you must do in purpose and use at your advantage to create an interesting composition.
- Your colours have variety, your ground is not of a uniform colour, neither are your leaves.

If you want to do quick environment thumbnails, you don't really need to push it further. However, if you want later to be able to add finished background to your illustrations, here are some tips :
- A stronger and more defined light can help you to show the shapes of the objects. The objects close to the viewer will have a high contrast, with bright highlights and dark shadows. The trick would be to add details such as textures and so mainly in the light. Do not detail the parts in the shadow, it will save you time and make the result more believable.
- Push the details mainly in the foreground, it will attract the viewer's attention, and it will increase the depth illusion.
- Avoid square composition as they are rarely interesting. For a background, use a wide panoramic composition
- When adding details on top on something, such as a small branch, use a hard brush with 100% opacity. When painting blurry, undefined things such as background trees or ground, you can use lower opacity like you did.

These were generic tips, now more specifically, about forests and so on :
- Give branches to your trees. You're not forced to add a lot of them, but just one to three per tree. Otherwise you'll have too much vertical lines and your trees will look like posts.
- About foliage, I don't really master painting leaves AT ALL, that's something I'm working on a lot those days. But mainly, remember that leaves are attached to branches, so don't paint them as big blobs floating in nowhere. I wish I could be more helpful, once I'll have a good technique, I'll make a tutorial to explain this

I've made a quick paint over to show you some things, like how to suggest shape of trunks, or add light on the rocks. Do not use my leaves as an example, they are awful ! Here it is [link]

This is not in a finished state, but it's just pushed a little bit further than you. Doesn't mean your study is wrong, as I said, it's very good for a quick study, and you'll always start a landscape by painting something like that. So remember what you've done, 'cause it's the right way to begin painting a landscape. But you asked how you could improve it, so I assumed you wanted to go a bit further

Last thing, about references. I agree with your choice, I find photographs of landscapes VERY HARD to work with, because they are full of tiny details everywhere, and it's nearly impossible to focus on what's important and to simplify it
What you can do is looking at paintings/drawings of artists you like in order to see how they paint trees, foliage and so, how they simplify things. Once you'll be able to understand a painting of a forest, then it should be easier to understand a photograph of a forest.

Pfou, I've spoke too much, I hope I didn't scared you XD
Once again, you're on the right way and I don't doubt you'll improve very quicky

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MalevolentMask [2013-02-19 23:04:43 +0000 UTC]

Its really great, capturing scenes like this can be very helpful! But please link back to the picture you referenced unless you did this all by hand. Studies are perfectly fine but you still need to link back.

But its great to see you trying this exercise. I suggest just doing quick doodles of different places everyday. Helps expand your visual library of places!

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AnaKyonshi [2013-02-19 22:06:29 +0000 UTC]

Wow Kar

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