Looking for CC After Long Hiatus

[faint escarp]

Howdy! I stopped painting around late 2018 and recently dug my stuff up and jumped back in. Looking for thoughts, opinions, and criticisms.

[sage pulsar]

Welcome back to the hobby! 👋 It looks like your painting is clean (=within the lines), which is good. I see some areas have texture - is it intentional? If not then it could be a sign you need to thin your paints a bit more.

I think you're doing good and just have to keep going from there. 👍

maybe look into shadows & highlights, depending on what your goal is?

[faint escarp]

Thanks for the welcome and critique! Definitely need to learn more about higighting and shadows. But wanted to ask, which parts are you referring to being textured? The head and eyes I think are only the real parts with any sort of texture on the model. My goal wasn't to apply any anywhere else on this bugboi.

Also, my general approach since getting back in has been: base color > wash > small highlights/dry brush. I think you can see a lot of that in his coat here. Before I hit it with another layer of white, the wash really made it look dingey.

[sage pulsar]

These parts?

[faint escarp]

I'll have to double check but I can see what you mean now. Right side of his coat is supposed to be a pocket. The spot on his shirt I think is just overzealous wash and a little bit of his belt.

[sage pulsar]

Yes - everyone has a hard time with white. A wash over white can only go hard, and then you have to work layers to get it more subtle up... Well, if you want a high finish. You've done the right thing here to choose cool shadows / wash (a warm one would have made him look dirty)

but I think I understand now. The dry brush would naturally make a texture if the surface isn't smooth. Do you think the surface on the yellow shirt is smooth or not?

[faint escarp]

Smooth

I didn't highlight his shirt at all tbh.

[sage pulsar]

okay

then I think you are doing fine by my book with the thinning, it looks

maybe as time goes on, try to "control" the wash by going back, soon after you've applied it, with a not-loaded brush (touched to the paper towel) to suck off some of the wash to try and keep the light where you want it, and the shadow where you want it?

I can't see pools per se so you've handled those

but you can also remove more wash where you want to keep the original base color as a highlight

[faint escarp]

That's a great idea. I've just been paper towel dabbing so far. Hadn't considered a more precise approach to that.

I really appreciate your feedback!

[sage pulsar]

my pleasure!

happy painting 😁 👍