Jumping Headfirst into Color and Environment Concepts

Over the last week or so I've made it a point to face my fears and look them dead in the face - Color, Lighting and Environment Art. It can be intimidating, trying to become good at something you've always struggled with and never really understood. Of course I knew the basic gist of these subjects, knew the theory, watched the video tutorials by masters of the subject such as Feng Zhu and Scott Drake, but this alone cannot improve one's practical skills and unfortunately I never really took the time to bite the bullet, and really sit down and put the information I'd gathered into practice. There's no way around it. If you want to be good at something (which I did desperately want) you have to practice it, and make the mistakes you need to make in order to learn and get better.

Well, although my progress has not been astounding, it is still progress and a big leap from where I left off in my eyes. I hope to practice more of these environment speed paints, along with the lighting setups and color - Wish me luck.

This was the first set of exercises I did. Focused mainly on lighting set up here and how different colored lighting might effect the color of the objects themselves. Also this is my first set of environments, not the best, but it was a start.

This was the second exercise which primarily focused on color and quick environment concepts. I used a different method here to the first few environments - This method closely follows the technique concept artist Feng Zhu teaches. Also my first time properly making use of a color palette - Funnily enough I never really understood the concept of a palette or how to use one as dumb as that sounds. My understanding has improved a lot through doing these. I took about 15-20 min on each of these.

 If anyone out there has some feedback or suggestions on areas where I can improve, or just a few tips that might be able to help me out I'm am eager to take on board your pearls of wisdom.

http://www.claytonbartonartist.com/