Wave/Water problems

[Gray]

I've been fiddling with the waves here for a while, and nothing was working when artrage crashed on me and reverted back to this stage. I purchased the full version of artrage, and all the extra tools and layers and stencils are quite exciting, but I'd rather take the stability honestly. =(

At any rate, it was just as well that I lost that work on the wave, it really didn't look right at all. Any suggestions on how to make violent water? I've read over tutorials here about calm water, or light ripples, but never anything as dramatic as a really big wave. Ideas?

[Turtleman]

Find some good reference pics of what you want, also your brush is way to big. Also water reflects the sky. Use lots of white to show the differents between the waves. It takes alot of shades to get water looking like water.

[wenkat]

Make a duplicate and start experimenting (you are about half-way thru' already), use reference picture and also refer to the tutorial section of AR.
You'll also find lot of information at:
http://wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=300179

[Gray]

@Wenkat: Thanks for those links, there was a lot of useful information there. I'll keep working on it.

@Turtleman: Thanks for the suggestion, I've been looking through pictures of waves, but I've not been finding the exact angles I've been looking for, which is part of the problem.

[Peter Pinckney]

Hi Gray,

please forgive my cheek in taking your painting but it's the easiest way I know to explain what I want to say...................here are 2 screenshots showing the way I tackle it..............I added some dark blue first to your base colour and the rest is in the 2 pics included.............I hope you find it useful...................if you keep working with the knife they come to look like angry water

[Gray]

Thanks all for your help! Working with the knife to get that choppy water look was brilliant. Thanks so much for links and suggestions!

[Silentman]

Wonderful job Gray, you nailed it.

As i learnt "am learning" from my sketch book, what makes water, water, is the reflection of the surroundings, so that ship of yours could do with just a tiny bit of reflection to the front of it, because it's such rough water, the reflection would need to be heavily broken up, i reckon this would ad enormous realism to your painting Gray

Also with regards to AR crashing, check what size your picture is, ppi i mean, and what resources you have to run it at that size, i haven't had AR crash on me yet and i don't have a super computer, when i work with large size say 1680 x 1050 @ 300ppi i switch everything else off that's not needed, even my music

Hope it helps and have a great day hey hey

[sandyg]

That's looking great Gray, I can feel the swell of the water, the boats very good. Going to be a lovely painting.

[Gray]

@Silentman: I do have a smallish computer. 2gigs of ram and vista, but vista is under 400 megs when nothing else is running. It took me a while to clean it out that much, but it runs like a dream now. =D All things considered though, the image is...large: 2548x3108. I bet that's it. I'm working on the boat slowly, lot of other demands on time atm. I'll get the reflections in eventually; probably one of the last things I do. I tend to put off scary things like reflections until last. =D

@Sandyg:Thanks! I hope it turns out as well as you think it will... =D

Edit: I opened AR and this image, and computer resources indicated it was 225Megs: well under my 1.6 gig limit. Odd.

[Silentman]

Yep i reckon gray, that's a huge size lol, what ever inspired you lol hehehe. Is that at 72 ppi or more, i usually paint at 150ppi, a nice happy medium if i decide to print later on