Wyvern (WIP)

Been working on this on and off for a couple months. I would appreciate some feedback on what I have so far. All painted on one layer.

Hey there, the name's Irish and I'm jealous of you.

Why?

Cuz' you gots skills.

I love this! The colors are fantastic and the picture itself is just...WOW! How did you draw it? Cuz I would love to know! It looks CG and oil pastels at the same time *scratches head* I don't know...

Anyway, again! I love this!!

Keep up the fantastic work!

- Irish

This is seriously, like amazing artwork. I wish I could paint like that. The colors are amazing, as Irish said, and the form and everything. I hope you keep painting this, I would also like to know what you used, cause it is superly amazing!

Hey Kyllorac!

That's a pretty good picture. Good job.

Now the first thing that strikes me is the pink eye. I wish it was a little more subtle so that it doesn't jarr out.
I like the faint outline/glow you've given.
The bottom part of his body seems a little messy and unfocused, like you sort of drifted in and out while painting it.
The tail end should be a bit more well defined. It doesn't look good if it looks like a wisp.

That's 'bout it. You do have loads of talent! Keep it up! I'd like to see the finished piece. PM me if you post it.

~Lava

@irish and Forest

I used openCanvas 1.1. It's the old, free version of openCanvas, and while it's buggy and very simple, I love how easy it is to paint in it, though you don't need it for the technique I use. Basically, I only use one brush and lay down the base colors before going back and blending them with strokes in the same direction. It's the same technique I used in this picture, though in a different program (oekaki). Please don't resurrect it. It is old and there are newer pieces here that deserve their fair share of comments. If you really must comment on it, do so here or in a PM.

@Lava

A lot of the stuff you pointed out (like the eye being too bright) are things that will disappear when the picture is finished. As for the tail being wispy, that is deliberate. The farther away something is, the less defined, and the tail is pretty far away. It's hard to tell without a background, but the wyvern is huge (about 1 kilometer in length).

Wow! Another beautiful picture!

I really love that! The sea looks a little too dark though, just a tad. ^__^ I'm really jealous of your skill lol.

I've never heard of that program. But it makes it look incredibly realistic, it must be a fantastic one cuz' its every hard to distinguish wether it was done on a computer or painted O_O

*babbling*

Anywho, awesome job on both!

Keep up the fantastic work and let me know if you have anymore paintings up! I'll be more than happy to review it for you!

- Irish

Let's try this again.

Since I now have a general idea of what I want to say, I shall be able do divide this into "love" and "needs work" instead of just rambling.

Love:

Your shading/blending on the lower half of his body is very impressive. The blending even looks like scales, from how you can just barely see the brush strokes. His underbelly is very impressive too. The sharing on his scales and underbelly get a little splotchy as you move up, but I'm not going to go into detail on this as you're most likely going to fix it. (Considering shading is fantastically hard, especially on a computer, you have mad respect from me for doing it this well where it looks finished)

Needs work:

The tail of the wyvern, where it coils behind the body, doesn't look right to me. On the right side, the tail seems too thin for what's hidden by the body. Despite following the curve with my mouse and getting it to match up, it just doesn't look right to me. Because there's only been a slight drop in thickness before the tail coils behind the body, the sudden drop in thickness on the right side makes it look like the dragon's tail is too small. And since the right side of the tail is coiled around the body, almost on the same baseline as the foreground, this makes the drop in thickness even more noticeable.

The highlights on the dragon body are a bit light. If you look at your colour samples at the top, the blues you're using are more purple/royal blues, and the middle blue has just a touch of gray in it. The really bright aqua stands out too much against those two colours (aqua has a more greenish undertone).

I'd actually suggest to scrap the pink in the wings. You've stuck with a purple/blue colour pallet for the rest of the dragon, and with the wings as purple I'd expect the same shades as in the underbelly used. I know the pink repeats the eye, but the fact you're staying with the same tones of colour for the rest of the wyvern make the pink stand out needlessly. Unless the pink is a lighting effect, then the pink tone should be reflected in the colouring and highlights of the wyvern.

Which brings me to the lighting itself. As I said, your shading is fantastic. However, if you look at the light-source for the blue scales' shading, and the purple underbelly's shading, you'll notice they don't have the same source. The underbelly is being highlighted from the right side of the image, while the back of the wyvern is also being highlighted, meaning light is coming from the back and/or left of the image. The dual-lighting isn't reflective in various parts of the image, such as the face and wings. The wings should be much lighter if lit from behind, and the face should be much lighter if hit from the front. The most noticeable lighting difference is on the face (quickly fixed by adding highlights on the front of the nose) and just under the wings until the tail levels out.

The second zone I mentioned is the one that needs the most work. That's where the underbelly seems to be darkening the scales surrounding it too much for the light coming from the left to actually be highlighting the dragon completely. It makes the dragon look flat on the page, because we're not sure where the light is. Although the shading is beautiful, it needs a bit of work.

Hope this helped! Drop me a line if you have any questions. ^_^

~Rosey

Don't Wyverns usually have two legs?

Shh, Griff. I haven't gotten around to painting them in yet. :P

Erm...I'd love to review this.... but there's nothing here.... perhaps my comp's faulty?