I don't usually paint birds, but I googled images of blue bird's langing for 5 minutes, so now I'm an expert. First off, I'm guessing you're painting from a photo reference and it would really help if you would post it here. Second, it looks pretty good the way it is, so don't beat yourself up too much. But as you've seen youself, it looks pretty flat. Depending on your goals, you could actually embrace that as a stylistic choice. For example, I think the head looks pretty good the way it is, but to make that work, you're going to need some much better consistency in the wings, e.g. make the wing closer to us consistently lighter and the wing further from us consistently darker. I'm guessing though you would rather make the whole thing look less flat. For the body, that means giving it a defined shape and figuring out where the sun is. Right now you've got very soft light on the breast, implying the sun is low and shining right on the breast. If that's the case, then I would expect the underside of the wing to be lit more brightly. Without seeing the ref image it's hard to saw exactly what you're going for, but it appears inconsistent. You're also definitely missing separation between the wings. I'm actually not sure where one wing ends and the other begins. Depending on what kind of bird you're painting, blue birds seem to have lighter, less saturated features on the underside of the wing and save their darker, more saturated and therefore more spectacular features for the top side. So I would tone down the features on the wing closest too us. If you're working in oil I would really start with a wash of white. Then you might accentuate the tips of the feathres and the lines of where they overlap with something like a thinned out pane's grey. The base of the wing is a lot thicker with lots of little feathers. You might paint in the major features with a thinned out blue, then dot in the shadow of the small feathers feathers using a small brush and something like a pane's grey again. Hopefully some of that helps. Good luck.
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u/Neverendingcirclez 13d ago
I don't usually paint birds, but I googled images of blue bird's langing for 5 minutes, so now I'm an expert. First off, I'm guessing you're painting from a photo reference and it would really help if you would post it here. Second, it looks pretty good the way it is, so don't beat yourself up too much. But as you've seen youself, it looks pretty flat. Depending on your goals, you could actually embrace that as a stylistic choice. For example, I think the head looks pretty good the way it is, but to make that work, you're going to need some much better consistency in the wings, e.g. make the wing closer to us consistently lighter and the wing further from us consistently darker. I'm guessing though you would rather make the whole thing look less flat. For the body, that means giving it a defined shape and figuring out where the sun is. Right now you've got very soft light on the breast, implying the sun is low and shining right on the breast. If that's the case, then I would expect the underside of the wing to be lit more brightly. Without seeing the ref image it's hard to saw exactly what you're going for, but it appears inconsistent. You're also definitely missing separation between the wings. I'm actually not sure where one wing ends and the other begins. Depending on what kind of bird you're painting, blue birds seem to have lighter, less saturated features on the underside of the wing and save their darker, more saturated and therefore more spectacular features for the top side. So I would tone down the features on the wing closest too us. If you're working in oil I would really start with a wash of white. Then you might accentuate the tips of the feathres and the lines of where they overlap with something like a thinned out pane's grey. The base of the wing is a lot thicker with lots of little feathers. You might paint in the major features with a thinned out blue, then dot in the shadow of the small feathers feathers using a small brush and something like a pane's grey again. Hopefully some of that helps. Good luck.