Same source image. This was the first “real” thing from reference I tried to paint since the mid 90s. I figured after a year I’d try again and see how I’ve progressed. What do you think?
The 2024 version
Timelapse https://mastodon.social/@BallShapedMan/115256481266601680
Really like your stroke work except for the foliage of the tree. ¿Looks like you used some scatter spray tool? It looks a bit out of place to me (to harsh) and also the ends touching the horizon leave the square stroke visible when imo a rounded cap would look more natural.
New image also greatly benefits from the wider framing to show us the surroundings with a more colorful palette 🎨 as a contrast to the house (foreground).
Thank you! And help me see what you mean about the square stroke and so on.
As for the scatter brush I used a pencil brush and lightly shaded to try and give the illusion of detail without painting every single branch. Without zooming in it feels like I did that to me but I’m also the one painting it. Still trying to figure out how to paint trees… They’re so hard.
Yeah, the illusion looks quite good from afar (eg the thumbnail for the post) but full screen I noticed that many of the strokes emulating leaves at the contours of the tree end with straight edges perpendicular to the branch rather than being more rounded or have some noise that breaks up the straight lines.
I mark up what I mean here:
Oh I see what you mean. That’s totally what I did with the pencil. I’ll keep an eye on that next time!