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Before and after on a character portrait I did, 18 months apart
I redid an old elf mage portrait from early 2023 last week and the difference in lighting and anatomy was wild, just from watching a few color theory tutorials on YouTube. Has anyone else looked back at their old work and been surprised by how much they improved without really noticing it?
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sam_harris685mo ago
oh man I just zoomed in on that staff and the gems oh my god that's like night and day. the way the light hits them in the new one actually makes them look like they're glowing instead of just being flat colored blobs. i mean the old one isn't terrible but looking back at my own stuff from two years ago i literally cringed at how bad my hands looked and how the shadows were just like grey smudges. it's crazy how just watching a few tutorials can completely change your whole approach.
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grace9264mo ago
i don't know, i feel like sometimes old stuff has a kind of raw charm that gets lost when you over-polish everything, @sean_dixon96.
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sean_dixon965mo ago
Dude, it's exactly like that thing where you realize how much you've been just going through the motions in other areas too. I was rearranging my bookshelf last weekend and found my old high school journal and holy cow, I used to write paragraphs about how "the sun was a golden orb of fiery passion" or something dumb like that. Now I just write "it was hot out" and move on. Same with music - I remember thinking my first guitar riffs were genius until I learned what a chord progression actually was. It's like once you get a little bit of good info, the whole world opens up and you can't unsee the bad stuff you used to think was fine.
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