Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

[Helm]

For a composite cover I am making of a lineup of people. 7 of them to go. Manga Studio+Cintiq completely, 1 hour.

[Xion]

I got a tablet, but I'ma take it back soon 'cause the cd that was supposed to have software on it was empty. Also, I can't get it to work with Linux.
supposed to resemble a raven or crow.

[Helm]

6 left.

[Atnas]

Nice work on the blood. :>

I don't know what it was, but I never really got into Manga Studio, (let alone Photoshop) for line art. I'm more of a Painter person. 

EDIT: Oh damn. I was searching for some lesser-known painting applications to see if I could find a gem, and I did. http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?id=59,141,0,0,1,0

Artweaver, from the half hour or so I've been playing with it, is better than the newer versions of Painter. Maybe I just don't know how to use Painter effectively, but if that's the case then Artweaver is a streamlined version which is a plus. Acrylics in painter always look too flat or are annoyingly sharpened to give the impression of "bristles". Artweaver, on the other hand, handles them AMAZINGLY well. It's like you're really painting, which I haven't been able to say for Painter.

[Drazzke]

Drawings I did a while back: (Some Portraits)




I'm not all that good, but I am improving (I think)...

[Sherman Gill]

Helm: Both are super badass. Don't like the plaid too much but I can't think of a better approach (That isn't probably horribly time-consuming that is.). The (our) left knee of the girl has some weird folds, not sure exactly what's wrong with it though.
The right thigh, the inner contour is wack. Like the curves are wrong. See:

[huZba]

There's a whole lot of small things that bother me about your characters Helm, but the biggest thing is that i can't place the eye-level anywhere, as if they're completely perspectiveless. Rendering is beautiful and easy to look at though. Lotsa nitpicks to follow if it's of any use.

Drazzke, now challenge yourself to a duel and draw your characters in 3/4 view and with construction underneath.

[Arachne]

Her face bothers me a lot. Maybe something like this instead?

[Atnas]

I decided I'd play a little game with all of you to see if I'm rendering properly. 



Could someone draw a side view contour of that with the light source and camera marked, please?

I've already done so, but I don't know if it's very apparent so I'll compare as soon as someone replies to it.

[AdamAtomic]

looks more or less like a lady's fingernail shot from above

[Atnas]

_{(...or I think the light and eye should be switched)}

More or less. I thought it looked more round, I suppose I should work on it. 

Thank you 

[Helm]

huZba sure go ahead with the critique. the lack of perspective is intentional as these are idealized limbospace pieces that will be used to make a wraparound cover.

Sherman, I don't see the wrong wrap, personally!

Arachne, thanks for the edit! I will consider.

[Ben2theEdge]

Helm I'm diggin these characters. The Salaryman is posed a little weird though. His right (our left) wrist is bent in a very peculiar position, like it's broken... I tried to make the same pose and my wrist really started hurting before I got an angle even close to what you have there. I think you need to either twist the hand clock-wise toward the camera or twist the entire forearm counter-clockwise and turn the hand to be more parallel to the ground.

I made an example - my strength is more in animation than anatomy so don't cringe at his mickey mouse hands

[Willows]

Lots and lots and lots of wierd stuff going on with that dude, Helm. The biggest thing to stick out, for me, is his ridiculously short forearms.

Ehh, I'll be specific.

Head is awesome, face is awesome, shirt and shoulders work, and the overall character is damn clear.

His left forearm is far too skinny (a bent arm would bulge at the elbow) and, as I mentioned, far too short compared to the other half of the arm and his hand. Also, the watch (or whatever it is) on that arm should defiinitely break the line of the arm to show its volume.

His right forearm is also too short, which leads me to believe it was more artistic choice than innocent mistake (Helm does not make mistakes! ever!  ) in which case I entirely disagree with your artistic choice, because it's distracting as fuck . His right hand feels massive, and aside from the impossible angle that ben mentioned, I really think it'd benefit from overlapping the other arm, to show its position in space.

Still on his right arm, just took another look and realised there's some confusion of depth. Right shoulder is behind the chest (obviously) and seems to be slanting further back in space based on how the sleeve itself is hanging forward and doesn't appear to be contacting the bicep. The elbow, however, is suggesting that the upper arm is actually slanting forward... somehow? I can't figure it out, but if I cover up the shoulder I can only see that arm slanting forward in space toward the elbow.

Hopefully someone understood that. Moving on!

His shorts seem a little stiff, and I'm not positive what they're made of, but I love the fact that it looks like he could just soil himself at any moment.

His right leg is great, except for the calf seeming a bit small and the discrepency in the boots, which is to say that his left foot's boot seems to have a wider opening than the right.

His left leg is also great, except for the whole impossible relation between the foot and the knee. The foot is turned more than 45 degrees from the knee, which.... well, try it. Ow.

That's it for the guy! As for the girl...

...love it. I greatly look forward to seeing the rest of these

(P.S. love the legs on that bot, Xion!)

[huZba]

Ben and Willows got down what i was thinking about the guy.

The girl has upper arms made of bone alone and the shoulder/armpit area looks really dodgy. Could use some curves.
The area from the waist to the knees seems undefined and disconnected from the upper body. It's not that glaring though. I'd go with sherman's suggestion.
Splatter on the shirt looks like a decal applied on top of the picture and very flat, doesn't follow the shapes of the body. Has some long continous vertical lines. Similar stuff on the face.

Then there's the gun. Check some references http://youtube.com/watch?v=U1NhsxG37E8&feature=related
It looks kinda big too. Is there some particular you're trying to make or is it "just a gun"? Should always get them guns right.

[Helm]

Thank you all for critique. I shall amend the pieces with all (omg!) your points (besides forcing a perspective unto them, I hope it's clear why I don't) and repost soon. High-class, really quality critique. As always. BTW, I will quote your posts in the anatomy thread where I will post the new versions too, this is the sort of thing that should go there.

[Ben2theEdge]

I was digging through some old stuff and found pages from a comic I never finished... surprise!

[Atnas]

Ben that's really cool. I see elements of so many scifi publications in it. It's cliche which adds a great touch! 


oh wait or does it need highlights to make it POPN? http://www.lolipopsicle.com/linky/likelikehi.jpg

er how is it the top segment is by far the best, which I did yesterday. Then I came back this morning and somehow all my tool presets had reset, and I forgot how I colored it the day before because this painting thing is so new.

first attempt at rendering something that isn't a blob or block, and that has some sort of texture

I need to flatten and refine it, but I'm quite bored with him atm.

MAYBE I'LL DO FRUIT NEXT

EDIT:  PUPPY

[madPXL]

@ben : very great style on your comic !

some of you saw the last mockup that I did :


I made the main character in 3D low poly format, Enjoy !



tris : 164, texture : 64*64

more to come and a big big news from it

[JJ Naas]

Ben: I really like the style of your comic. A Bryan O'Malley -influence can be spotted, but you've still got clearly a style of your own. (Oh, and Faith Hicks could also be an influence?) Awesome stuff.

[Ben2theEdge]

JJ you guessed right on the O'Malley influence... I'd never heard of Faith Hicks before but I looked her up and I think I'm in love!

[Helm]

Ben if I may, I'd suggest less dialogue per panel/page.

[Helm]

carrying on in the series. The expression is to signify distress intentfully, it's not dramatic for no reason. The reason is long to explain right here but I will if you want.

[Ben2theEdge]

Ben if I may, I'd suggest less dialogue per panel/page.

Yeah, looking back on it now the first page has some of the most awkward flow ever.

[Helm]

Also, you're putting a pretty heavy OPPRESSION FACTOR on your comics with that thick black border on the panels. Post a bigger page for panel edit of justice!!! if you want some time. We could talk more comic art theory nerd talk if you want. If it's old, best not to, if it's new, best to do so.

[saimo]

Helm, I love the implied lines in the guy reading the newspaper. However, his arm looks terribly undersized!

saimo

[ortodoxx]

My homemade undercoats

[Conceit]

Ben if I may, I'd suggest less dialogue per panel/page.

http://www.locustleaves.com/helmdude2.png

hahahaha. god the Irony!

MAD GUESS: You hate Allan Moore, but you LOOOOOOOOVE David Lloyd?

[Helm]

What irony? Please be clear.


I love both Alan Moore and David Lloyd's work. One writes comics, another writes and draws them. It's difficult to compare them.

saimo: foreshortening on the lower arm!!

[SolidIdea]

What irony? Please be clear.

If I had to guess, I'd say the irony is about the anatomy of this self-portrait (if it is one).

---

I think the torso and arms are looking kinda odd due the foreshortening and shoulder positioning.

[saimo]

saimo: foreshortening on the lower arm!!

The problem is not with the (foreshortening of the) lower arm, but with the whole arm (except the hand, which happens to be OK): it should be much thicker (maybe some 50%?) to match the proportions of the rest.
If I were an artist, I'd show graphically what I mean, but since I'm not, I have to leave it to your imagination

saimo

[Helm]

I beg to differ. Nothing as silly as taking post-art reference, but if it serves a purpose ok. Excuse awkward pose and stuff, it's difficult to photograph exact angles with a timer.


-

The issue is mostly of visual illusion. The high-contrast Gestalt style of rendering in this piece destroys middle shading (which one would use to sculpt the arm into appearing foreshortened, especially at the top of the hand and the far end of the connection between upper and lower arm), and as such the foreshortened arm appears flat. I am not sure if I should, and how I should, address such a problem without compromising the rendering choice.

edit: this pondering led to edit above anyway. Tell me if things look clearer and if the hand trick worked.

[willfaulds]

Super butcher edit.

No reasoning or theory other than it didn't look right or comfortable to me (i think his near shoulder also looks raised which adds to the feeling of discomfort):

EDIT: i think i prefer hand 1


(an issue at the elbow joint but shows you the direction i'd go)

[Helm]

thanks for the eidt, willfaulds! I do not want to artificially straighten the hand out because it makes the pose a bit wooden. I know it might read better but body language is all I've got with these series.

[saimo]

The issue is mostly of visual illusion. The high-contrast Gestalt style of rendering in this piece destroys middle shading (which one would use to sculpt the arm into appearing foreshortened, especially at the top of the hand and the far end of the connection between upper and lower arm), and as such the foreshortened arm appears flat. I am not sure if I should, and how I should, address such a problem without compromising the rendering choice.

edit: this pondering led to edit above anyway. Tell me if things look clearer and if the hand trick worked.

To me the problem is not with the foreshortening itself, but rather with the whole arm. I think I know now what did not look right to me in the original picture:

Now I understand that the part I have marked in red is the back part of the arm, whereas I originally interpreted it as the back/side part of the T-shirt, so that the arm was effectively reduced to just the bright part. However, even now that I consciously understand the shapes, still my perception is affected by the undersized-arm visual effect. Maybe it is because there should be no shadow (i.e. dark part) on the upper arm. I think willfaulds has done a good job towards a solution of the problem (although I'd rather avoid the vertical outline and let the volume be implied by the shadow of the elbow).
As for you new edit, the shadow on the hand looks inconsistent with the page it is holding - now that I think about it, shadows don't look consistent everywhere... if I have time, I'll explain better what I mean later (sorry, I'm in a hurry ).

saimo

[Helm]

Now I understand that the part I have marked in red is the back part of the arm, whereas I originally interpreted it as the back/side part of the T-shirt

No that was indeed the back of the t-shirt/hair, not the back of the arm. I think you've been conditioned by too much beefcake, saimo I'm a pretty slim man as you see.

[skw]

The expression is to signify distress intentfully, it's not dramatic for no reason. The reason is long to explain right here but I will if you want.

go on, if you have time. I'd gladly listen.

I always value emotional factor in works of art, but I think you should really go for something like on the willfaulds' edit. IMO, it doesn't spoil the body language at all and still fits into the 'distress' pattern of emotional behavior. I am way slimmer person than you are, but when trying to make the original pose before the mirror myself I was feeling quite uncomfortable (that the pose is not possible to adopt can be seen on the post-ref photo as well).

anyway,

here goes my crude M$paint edit-of-the-willfaulds'-edit (being out of bandwidth I am inclined to use a secondary station with no painting software installed at all), that makes the pose even more wooden:

• the torso is now bent a little backward, as he was leaning forward too much (which stands for 'absorbed' B-L, I guess),
• slightly less accentuated T-shirt folds (they made its tonality a bit inconsistent IMO),
• his left leg might be moved forward more, just to keep the pose standing firm (since there's no ground beneath, it should be pretty solid).

I don't know if that's of any use, though. I suck at giving good critique and I give it sparsely. I really like the characters so far; could you tell us what you made that wraparound cover for?

[Helm]

The series will form a cover for a collection of comic strips (full pages and strips in fact) I did for a greek newspaper circa 2006-7. Most pages/strips are self-contained, with very few recurring characters. The 8 on the cover are some of the more emblematic ones. The character is reading the last paper in which I were to have one of my comics featured but was instead pulled, signalling the end of that job. The comic that wasn't published starred a helm avatar/mouthpiece so I am not just plastering my likeness of the cover (in the back cover actually) just out of an egomaniac whim. For a person that has drawn themselves as often as I have, I really never got much enjoyment out of it.

Hope this makes sense.

There will be another edit soon. Thank you for your critique. I will amend the position of the arm as you guys suggested even against my personal preference, though I still see no need to beef up the imaginary helm muscles.

[SolidIdea]

-

Just to address my point though it's faulty

[ptoing]

As far as the looking down goes I think the original is better. It looks like he looked at it, was shocked because of what he saw/read/whatever and then let his arms sink a bit and now is starring into nowhere in shock.

Also Helm, that one will be ass to colour for me ; 3 ;

But I think the colouration will have to be holistic, once all 7 are done.

[saimo]

Now I understand that the part I have marked in red is the back part of the arm, whereas I originally interpreted it as the back/side part of the T-shirt

No that was indeed the back of the t-shirt/hair, not the back of the arm. I think you've been conditioned by too much beefcake, saimo

I hope I'm not!

I'm a pretty slim man as you see.

Well, as skinny as you can be, I'm still under the impression that you are not *that* skinny. To check whether it's a problem with my perception, I cut your arm from the reference picture and rotated it as needed to fit it to your drawing (I did not need to rescale as the photograph scale was practically perfect - I guess that was intentional of you):

Both the upper and the lower arm look undersized (the lower one more because it is partially obscured by the shadow). Moreover, the perspective in the photograph is not exactly the same of the drawing: had it been the same, the upper arm would have looked even thicker.
I don't want you to look beefed up, but I don't think you want to look underfed

That said, I'm not sure whether also your shoulders/chest need a little retouching... and the neck maybe could be made just a little longer without losing the distressful expression. But perhaps these last considerations would change once a more natural arm is in place.

saimo

[Indigo]

whoa... very very good critique going on in this thread.  This makes me very happy, as usually this thread becomes more of a gallery.  Keep it up guys.

I could also use some critique at the moment.  I pulled an all nighter and this came out...



Someone said it kinda looked like a frog. I somewhat agree. It was a refreshing dive into CG work which I've been neglecting. I wanted to give it a natural anatomic flow (to some extent) with various animals as inspiration. More progress to follow

Progress WIPS:
http://danfessler.com/dump/armor1.jpg
http://danfessler.com/dump/armor2.jpg

I'm intending to keep this drawing very loose, with lots of straight lines/angles - not like my usual stuff. And yeah, the hands are a bit wack right now. I'll fix it.

[Willows]

Wonderful edit, SolidIdea! The only thing I'd add to what you've shown is that the shoulders seem real hunched. Take a look at your reference compared to your drawing; In your drawing the top of your shoulders are along the same horizontal imaginary line as the bottom of your chin, whereas in your reference it's not even close, even if you were looking down.

Also, I agree with the looking at the paper (Which, come to think of it, looks more like a menu from a restaurant based on how tall it seems compared to how wide)... looking at the paper rather than looking beyond it, as the looking beyond it looks more like he's seen something that's offended him in the distance, and has yet to read the paper.

Indigo, fucking solid, man. Feet don't seem to be on the same plane, but that's a very small complaint

P.S. way to find a magazine that says SCIENCE on it, helm

[Opacus]

Indigo: As usual fucking awesome. But I'd really like you seeing add backgrounds to your stuff, you rarelly seem to do that

[Helm]

Thank you all for your wonderful critique! I will transpost the helm dude to the anatomy thread when I am less tired.



Newest helmdude and now robotboy. I took a lot of advice on helmdude as far as arm positioning went and it turns out you guys are totally right. The arm was too tucked in on the shoulder, too close to the ribcage and the wrapping of the t-shirt before suggested an uncomfortably high armpit. Various little nitpicks have been adressed (leg length etc) and I went ahead and applied the lightsource to the face properly (duh, I don't know why I had forgotten about that).

My recent stuff is all smooth inking with pens and soft tips so I wante the robot to be more oldschool, more like I used to ink pre-digitally, so the pen has a square end and lots and lots of crosshatching. I think the contrast is a cool effect.

Alright, 4 people down, halfway. 4 more to go. Next two are a couple so that'll be fun.

Indigo, really fun design and nice colors on your robot. Is this for an assignment? I think you should fully render every little bit about this, don't go 'half-finished concept art look' on it!

[Larwick]

Helm and Indigo, really inspiring robots! I wish i could say something more constructive but i really just wanted to give some recognition.
Helm i notice how meaningful your crosshatch-shading-strokes seem on that robot piece, giving signs of notches in the metal or suchlike rather than a simple rough texture all over (which is probably what i would have done...).

Oh just noticed, the head of the robot, even though i originally saw it as a purposeful thing (giving it a head-on view) looks strange once i took into consideration the neck piece coming out of the body at the certain angle (even though the eyes are nicely circular). The top of the head should probably be visible, unless it is actually really thin and/or there's some kind of pivot on the top of the neck. Although i don't think it's very obvious.
It actually seems to look fine as it is atm though, aesthetically speaking.

[Helm]

Thanks for the comments. As you say, it's an aesthetic thing, I like the red robot head to be as symbolic as I can get away with. Plus it's not really out of proportion, given the neck-torso angle is a bit extreme and could be tucked in a bit more.

As to robot and machinery texture in inking etc I suggest you check out the work of Yukito Kishiro 

[Ben2theEdge]

I painted a thing.

Concept art for Skeletroids, woo!

[Conceit]

whoops...just noticed helm's response to what I say.

the percieved irony was that Moore usually fills his comics with textboxes, and the style of your helm is quite obviously inspired by LLoyd. now I demand you all laugh really hard 

[Helm]

Moore usually does a great job of not making the words hurt the art. I wouldn't say I am very inspired by Lloyd, most of my influences are not from America. This high contrast style where gaps are left for the brain to interpret has been carried to its logical heights by A.Breccia, an Argentinian comic artist I an very influenced by. He also high-scored comics in every other conceivable way in the 50's and 60's, the same time the American industry was pushing out juvenile garbage superheroes for the most part.

Also, not to be a pendant, but I don't see any irony going on in there.