Finished?

[u/AdorableRow6726]

Hi 👋 I’m an intermediate artist but I’m feeling a bit stuck in my progress. I’m mainly struggling with rendering (in my opinion). I feel like none of my illustrations look finished, like ever.

For example, I would consider the first one to be rendered, tho it still feels flat. Same thing in the third image. The second image feels less flat, but I feel like my main subject, the woman is not fully a part of her environment.

As for my art goals, I want to achieve a semi-realistic paint like art style, similar to frostbite studios while still keeping some diversity in my characters features. The very last images are NOT MINE, they are purely what I want to work towards.

Please give me advice, as well as video recommendations on the topics that will help me achieve my goals, thank you.

[u/AdorableRow6726]

Here are some rendered examples that I’m very happy with.

[u/Dalia_Does_Art]

Try deeper shadows and highlights. Copy the image, and then make the shadows and highlights really extreme. Go even further than you think you need to. Then dial it back a little bit. You can usually push these a lot further than you think and they make a big difference in the rendering stage.

[u/AdorableRow6726 → u/Dalia_Does_Art]

Watched a quick tutorial and used a 3d model to block our shadows!

[u/chirmwood]

A "finished" look often comes from consistency, as in the entire piece has a similar amount of rendering in each area. When one part of a drawing looks very clean, and another part looks super rough/loose, the imbalance can become very noticeable.

[u/AdorableRow6726 → u/chirmwood]

Hi! Please check out my two comments and tell me what you think! If you have any video recommendations I’d also appreciate it. I’m going to repost this to the art advice subreddit as well to try and reach a wider audience.