Any Tips and Tricks to Painting Forestry?

[Miranda Branley]

Hi there! I see lots of yeti posts! It's making me so excited to start on mine! I have a really cool idea for it! But, I have to get these commissions done first. Which, I don't mind!

For one of my commissions, that's still a WIP, I added a tree and leaves in the back and foreground. Do any of you have tips or tricks to digitally painting leaves, bushes, shrubs, bark, etc.? I always seem to stumble on it when it comes to this part.

I put an overlay texture on the bark and changed the depth in the carving on tree. Drawing individual leaves always terrifies me. So I try to avoid it. Any ideas?

[StudioLooong]

@Miranda-Branley it may help to look at some reference of trees and pick out what variety of tree you are going for - is it an oak or a maple? What is the shape of the leaves? What is the branch structure like? I think the texture that you have on the trunk is looking good but what sticks out most to me is the shape of the trunk and the lack of branches. Your tree is very straight, in real life, tree trunks tend to be a bit more of an hourglass shape with the roots flaring out just a little at the bottom and branches starting to come out at the top before you get to the leaves. With how close your foliage is in the foreground, you aren't going to be able to get away with not drawing any leaves but a little detail will go a long way. If you draw 4-5 leaves with a bit more definition and then just suggest the rest of them with some edge lines or texture, I think it would blend a lot better with the level of detail you're putting into the people.

[Miranda Branley]

This is what I came up with! Thanks for pointing these things out! I really need feedback on this sort of stuff. I now try to give as much detail to the backgrounds as I would if to the people I draw. I wasn't always doing that, and when I heard of it from someone else's critique, I saw it in mine. It was eye opening! It's challenging because environments and backgrounds have things that you thought you would never really need to draw and pay attention to, but that's not true. That's why I got away with not drawing foliage. I was afraid of it, so didn't spend time on it. So again, thank you for the feedback!!! ![alt text](

[Nyrryl Cadiz]

@Miranda-Branley hi! the way I draw leave is that I only draw the the ones at the front and then just doodle some leaf-like shapes in the background. I focus the detail on the front and leave the back parts semi plain.