Photos reveals all!

[phc35]

I had entered figures at the 2005 chicago show in the gneral category.I thought
I had painted well till I found pics of 2 of what I thought were my better pieces.
When I clicked on to enlarge the pic's,I gasped in horror!! What a mess!!! I noticed
that other figs didn't seen to suffer this "upclose and personel" crash and burn.I'm
in a town where I find no other painters to run my craft through.How does one
improve with help only on line.

Suicidal in T-Town
JAy

 

[A.Hopwood]

This probably isn't the most helpful of replies, but here goes.
Why not invest in a cheap camera ( preferable SLR with interchangeable lenses ) and take you're own pictures, then look at them closely.
My first camera was a second hand, ancient piece of kit, that did the job admirably. There's no need for a macro lense, or anything fancy, simply buy extension tubes to beef up the close up capability of the 35mm lense that comes with the camera.
If you go to any half decent camera shop, then they'll usually be able to help you out, and as everyone seems to want to go digital, plain old fashioned "film" type cameras are relatively cheap to buy. Most camera shops do 24 hour processing too, so what's the problem there ?
It's amazing what shows up on a photo, and even just using the camera set-up for checking the model is useful - especially as you should be able to get massive magnification.
It's only a thought.
Adrian.

 

[Parkadge]

I borrowed a good digital camera to take some shots of my work and like you I was horrified to see the results. So I'd agree that a camera is an essential tool for self criticism. But I would go digital, the difference between my praktika (+ extension tube + close up filter) and the Canon Powershot S50 (on macro mode) that I borrowed is HUGE plus the results are immediate.
An alternative is to buy a huge magnifying glass to view your work through.

 

[Figure Mad]

Hi Jay

I agree, get the best digital camera you can afford and yes the results will be instant. This will improve you painting no end. But if you are painting without any magnification then having the camera with the magnification is only half the battle.

What I have found to be an absolute must to have in my tool kit is a pair of watchmaker magnifying glasses, they are on a head band and have interchangable lenses at four diferent magnifications (2x,4x,6x,10,) they are available from most watch repairers, agreed they may not be cheap, but are now, for me, totally essential to get the brushes and paint where I want them...

If you need to know anymore about the ones that I have I can find out the availability in the US for you, over here they were about £35 (65-70$ i think)

Hope I can help...

Dave

 

[Grant]

Jay,

I know what you mean about the impact of having folks around to help critique one's work. I was in Atlanta for around ten years and benefited a lot from people in the Atlanta Military Figure Society. Last year I moved to South Bend, Indiana, and I haven't found any figure painters here yet.

As suggested, I would recommend using a digital camera to be able to easily take close-up shots of your figures in progress. A fairly basic digital camera should work adequately; many of them allow you to focus very close to a figure. Take a figure, go to a place like Best Buy, take some sample shots, and see what works well for you.

Once you have a camera, use the photos to examine the work yourself. If you're new to painting, use the photos to compare your work to the many painting references and guides. Perhaps more importantly, be willing to post your photos are sites like this to get others' feeback. Start a V-Bench, for instance.

One important caveat: don't be too intimidated by what photos reveal. Keep in mind that your finished figure will not be seen in the same scale as you carefully analyzing a much enlarged photo. Few figures look good when blown up too much. While certainly helpful, be careful not to be tempted to enlarge too much. A good reference for seeing the effects of viewing figures at different magnifications is Bill Ottinger's Historex book.

Attending shows is important for getting good critiques of your work as well. Take in-progress figures to shows and ask people to give you pointers and critique what you've done so far.

 

[Sambaman]

Jay,
a couple important points to consider that don't cost a DIME! While your painting, turn the figure upside down occasionally. Look at it from this angle. The lighting hits it differently, and it forces you to look at it completely differently! You might see things you didn't see right side up. Also, take the figure into another room, or even outside in a shaded area when the sun is out and bright. The lighting differences will make a huge differnce in how the figure looks. If you have access to a florescent light source, say the garage for instance, be sure to look at it there as well. Most competitions will be lit with florescent lights, and this will give you a better perspective of what it might look like there as well. Also, I don't know if your using any type of magnification or not, but I use a #7 Opti-visor lense and if it looks good at that magnification, it looks good to the naked eye! The others are correct though, taking pictures is still a great way to reveal your "evils" as well! HTH,

Jay H.
OKC

 

[phc35]

Picture:

 

[phc35]

AND:

 

[Brad S]

Hey Jay,

I like to emphasize the point that Grant made about not blowing it up to much. Most everyones work probably doesn't look that good once it is blown up too much. I kind of compare it to a Picasso or a Monet. From a little distance it is beautiful but up close you see all the little sqiggles and dashes and doesn't look that great. I also agree with Jay H. look at it from different angles. I know I thaought I had done a wonderful job on some eyes once, then looked at it from the sides then from the bottom. They were bad.

Just my thoughts.


Brad Spelts

 

[thegoodsgt]

On the other hand, don't put too much value in what you see in photos. I my experience, most figures look much better in person than they do in photos.

 

[Einion]

First off Jay don't trust photos to tell you what a figure is really like - they can lie through their teeth! I'm sure most of us have figures that look okay/pretty good/great in the flesh and then we see a photograph of it and yikes! On the other hand I should point out that some models can be made to look better in a photo than in the flesh, if the picture is not too large and it was lit well. I'm sure most people who go to shows have seen something that they had previously seen in photos and were disappointed by the model in the flesh.

Massive enlargements can be very cruel to even really accomplished paintwork simply because you're seeing everything three, five, even eight times larger than in reality. Look at some of the best actual paintings in the world that close and they show all their secrets too. Plus photography seems to pick up things you just can't see with the naked eye for some reason, check out my photos in this thread. See just how rough some of the paintwork looks? But these are two gold-medal winners at Euro Militaire.

It would be a good idea if you could take digital photos of your work so you can blow them up and really examine them (you'll often spot things you won't in the flesh) fantasy-mini painters often use this as a gauge of their development as a painter. But mostly I'd recommend painting more slowly and carefully, building up in more layers and/or with thinner paint, critically assessing your work as you go. Plan the highlights and shadows in your head so that you're 'lighting' the figure consistently and accurately; after a while you won't need to do this consciously, it will become second nature.

BTW, I wouldn't make a habit of looking at your paintwork upside down - figures don't look good when lit in reverse. I've held up pieces during judging from most of the best names in the hobby and they tend to look pretty awful when strongly lit from underneath, although this does vary a little depending on what medium they're painted with.

Einion

 

[btavis]

Coming from a 2D art background the whole process of painting miniatures is somewhat contradictory. In fine art having a "painterly" style is considered very acceptable (desirable actually) and if you look at the great painters of Western civilization you will see, when examining them close up, brushstrokes. However, when viewed properly at a distance everything looks great. In miniatures having brushstrokes evident is considered a negative. However, I think the real test is how the figure looks at arms length not under a microscope. In reality, having a perfectionistic rendering under high powered magnification does not mean all of that great work will even be visisible at a reasonable distance. If, like those people who paint the Bible on the head of a pin, painting miniatures is about how much detail you can put into a small area then they would have to be judged on what they look like when blown up. Honestly, that is not real interesting to me. It may be incredible but also may not necessarily make a good model. Alot of Russian stuff strikes me this way.

I guess it all depends on what your intention is and what you are trying to achieve.
Super realism in 2D painting was a rage in the seventies and eighties and the proponents of that style did demonstrate a great deal of pyrotechnical skill. But to me I can not understand why someone would spend undoubtably hundreds of hours to make essentially a photograph by hand.

 

[PJ Deluhery]

I think what you want is an "alternative view" - a more objective viewpoint.

One technique that might help is to get a 3"x 5" makeup mirror or similar hand mirror. After you finish a section, look at that section through the mirror (figure is between you and the mirror). This helps me to find mistakes and rough spots I might otherwise overlook.

I have also used a digital camera to do this, but I agree with the warnings above, so be careful. Sometimes setting the camera for black and white helps eliminate the distraction of color. Cameras can be of great assistance in figuring out how shadows fall and lighting a figure. I also agree that it helps to look at your work in different lights - especially florescent. I keep such a light on my workbench for that reason.

The most helpful criticism IMHO is from another painter with more developed skills or someone who judges and has a good eye. Since you don't have painter friends nearby that's a disadvantage. But, if you go to shows, use this opportunity to ask for criticism of your work. Just be prepared for some negative feedback, and don't be defensive or challenge the critic - remember s/he is doing you a favor and helping you to learn. Also, if you find a figure at a show that you have done or want to do, don't be afraid to ask the artist how s/he did the figure or what technique was used to achieve some effect. Most artists enjoy "talking shop" and are glad to share their techniques as long as you are respectful of their time.

Lastly, be your own harshest critic. Don't settle for "good enough" - make every piece the best you can make it. Da Vinci said that of all the things he did, oil painting was the hardest. Unless you are a prodigy, you should expect that you will get a little better with each piece and someday you will achieve the skill level goal you set for yourself. So practice, practice and be sure to finish what you start. My golden rule is that I work on one thing at a time.

Good Luck

 

[Calvin]

Jay,
believe it or not, when seeing the picture gallery on the Armourama (I think) web site, your russians was between my preferred.

In my opinion what is bad is not your figure, but the picture, which is burned. As you can see, balancing it seems to restore what could be the flash appearance.
Taking a good picture is just a step. Raw pictures coming from a (digital) camera already needs a balance, saturation, etc. correction, unless you are a professional photographer.

Another factor which influence the quality of your picture is the compression level you use (with the jpeg format) when you save it. A great factor reduces its size but in the detriment of the whole image quality.

The original picture you shown must have a really great compression factor, as you can see from the blurred area on the border of your figure, underlined by the white line.

Luca

 

[nagashino]

Hello Jay

Sound advice from all the previous posts. I especially agree with Pat that the best way to progress is by talking with other painters and setting yourself some achievable goals, and not being afraid to ask the questions you need answered.

There is also a lot to be said for the "one at a time" approach, although I know a lot of painters who will have several figures on the bench at any one time.

This forum is possibly one of the best resources you will find for constructive critique - the downside is of course, that this critique is very largely based on photographs, and as we all know, these can be deceptive.

As for cameras, well, my best photographs have been taken with an old Canon AE-1. I have a digital, but it's not as good , although that said, there are some good ones out there. I would agree they have the advantage of almost instant results, a benefit when assessing your work, but for picture quality SLRs have it (unless you are going to invest serious folding money)

For the record, I thought your Soviet Tanker was first class!

Phil

 

[Anders Heintz]

I personally think that it is a balance between how a figure looks at an arms distance ('wow' effect, contrast, general details) and how they look close up (fine detail, blending, techniques).

The way I look at it is that if you can see the flaws in blown up mode then you will see them at real size as well. There is really no use in posting images on the web that are 'life size' as they are usually too small to make out anything except what the subject is and what colors were used (unless we're talking about 120mm-200mm figgies).

Our eyes will automatically blend some colors to make it look a lot better, and by taking te subject and blowing it up it allows us to see whats really going on much like the thread says, pictures reveals all.

I prefer large pictures, you can really see the flaws and the technique used. Specially when you are trying to improve of help critique someone, the picture will tell what areas to work with.

I think that Digital Photagraphy has revolutionized the hobby in more ways then one. People can take a picture and get 100's of people viewing it within minutes, a great tool to become a better painter.

I would suggest that you buy a good digital camera with good macro mode, take a lot of pictures, study your work and determine where you need to improve. Post larger pictures that are good so people can acctually give good constructive critisism.

 

[phc35]

Thanks to all for the helpfull comments.this is why I love this hobbie.

Thanks again

Jay Ruggiero