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Gsd Painting *finished*


Ravyk
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WOW this is really great, The following points are only to hopefully help with improvement. Your work is something you should really be proud of!!

If this was my painting I would consider this

The black on his tail is not blended in the same fashion as some of the other colours. so I would be putting in a few strokes so the colour blend into each other, as the black is from his black hair and the tan and black come together in more of a feathering of colours. You almost have some at the end of the tail but I would do a bit more.

Also I would put a little shading tone between his butt/back leg and tail. If you look there is a line of tone that is almost the same colour that runs from the hock of his leg up around his rear slightly (encompasing the light coloured patch and I think helping to blend it in better) which helps to easily separate his tail from his leg and rear visualy.

Lastly I would consider taking advantage of some of your higher contrast areas as these can really make a picture pop out. eg I would add a bit more darkness to his right ear (the viewers left) there is actually quite a bit of black there. Also i would darken the black in his muzzle on the same side as I think it could be at least another shade of black darker. Also I would put in the highlights in his eyes (they are in the comming from viewers right at the top of his eyes) this will also lift a flat picture. Actually I just realised you did put in tiny little highlights I would do a bit more with a little more tone on the coloured part of his eye.

The last thing is this, generally I find on faces that in areas of shade there is also highlights (reflected light I think) look for these they add dimemsion to the picture (such as under his eye on viewers left)

Hopefully these few things help, but you don't have to implement any changes to this picture, and it all depends on how much time you want to spend on a piece and how realistic you are going for. Great work!

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Very nice, you have potential to become a great artist, and I look forward to seeing your progress :love: . Now some constructive criticism :)

1- Use the smudge tool less, its a handy tool but you should not rely on it to make the furry effects. It is merely a support tool and should be used sparingly. Try to draw the fur yourself, it is time consuming but drawing the fur yourself with modified brushes or varying the flow and opacity can bring out much more desirable results that are not achievable with the smudge tool.

2- study the shadows while your shadows were almost spot on in placement they just lack colour. the lighting is still a little dark making the image a little flat, more yellow/white where the highlights are in the photos could have helped but it is all the learning process. The darks could have been darker in areas too, like near the eyes the eyebrows in the photo are near black.

3- Use more colours, painting animals isnt as easy as find the exact colour and draw, often one picture I draw can have over 200 different colours/tones to make it the way it looks, even with an oil painting I often mix hundreds of colours to make a painting look the way it does, sometimes there is purple on a yellow dog, green on a brown, while a brown dogs base colour may be brown, it is actually made up of reds, blues, greens, yellows, oranges, browns and purples. It sounds daunting and when i first did it, it seemed impossible to manage but now I can spend 30 mins on a picture and not realise I have just chosen 100 or more colours while drawing it, you lose track and you dont notice after a while.

4- practice makes perfect, buy yourself a sketch diary, draw and draw, draw everything and anything, draw the skull of a dog try to understand how the skin is attached to the bone, how muscles work, find an understanding of direction of fur growth and colours. All of the tiniest things you study often are the biggest things towards improving your abilities.

I hope this helps :o

Edited by kyliegirl
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Thanks guys :champagne:

altheau & kyliegirl, thanks heaps for the CC. It really helps :dancingelephant:. I am quite proud of how it turned out, particularly since it was my first attempt at this style of art.

Smoothiegirl-honestly I didn't notice the time go by, I was talking to a friend on msn during it, and a few times an hour or two passed without me saying a word and I didn't realise it until I looked at the timestamp in the conversation

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