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grand central orikae - Astro Zombies finished, p 8
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I didn't get into the visual stuff much because it sounds like you have a client who is dictating some of that--I try to avoid that as much as possible in my work. I try to stress that I'm the one who has done this for 9 years, and things that seem right to them, may not work well on the web. I also point out that people seem to like sites LOOKS that they will never use, and never spend money on.
I try to get my clients to identify sites that they actually use, and what they like/dislike about them, and I find that makes the design process less "he said/she said".
That's a future tip for dealing with clients/project management
But, I definitely agree with a lot of the design crit from crawdaddio--I'd revisit some of that. I really agree that textural backgrounds aren't typically a good effect: they have technical limitations (increased file size, lack of flexibility) and visually, they bring to mind things which aren't the web at all. I love print/off-web media more than anything, I woodblock print in my spare time, but it doesn't work so well on the web.
And you can't go wrong with readable type. That will always be in fashion, even if you look at it as a designer and go, "that's too big".
And, the favelet I mean, is "Computed Cascaded Styles".
I think you have a few more ems than you realize--I don't remember the default, because I specify every unit everytime (even 0, simply by habit)--I wonder if you didn't specify a few sizes, & it inherited the em designation from an ancestor?
Again, I don't actually know that it works that way--I can't recall because I never leave a unit unspecified, so it's not relevant to me, but that's something to check!
best luck
SO
*initial drawing phase* (i can't figure out how to get these pictures onto my computer*
colour blocks and gradual refinement!
Going for a Pulp Stories Magazine type of feel. It's for the Sci-Fi Show (that is its name) so I wanted to do something as genre-riffic as possible.
I also wanted to do a punk reference, since all my zombie-related paintings so far have had punk references and I think it'd be a funny schtick to keep going.
unless you never had that avatar and i'm thinking of someone else
in which case i'm still disappointed.
preferably when i'm like 50
http://www.darkrising.co.uk/SamGunn.htm
I actually have an entire book of pulp covers, and it's the best thing I own. I'm using a Captain Future cover for the ref.
I didn't even realize there was a film until you mentioned it! This is a Misfits reference!
I'm about to start adding in details - any pose crits before I go too far?
EDIT: Okay, the forms and edges are really messy, it's hard to make out what's going on.
Also I'm not sure on what is happening here, is he offering his virgin bride as a sacrafice to Astro Zombie? Also what is that white blob behind him? It looks like some kind of one legged ostrich is trying to pick pocket him. Also why do my fingers insist on typing "behing" instead of "behind"?
Orik, I love the old pulp stuff. What yours is lacking is a dynamic layout and title text. Both aspects of this painting are very plain. ...it's like you made the jambalya without peppers. It has everything else that's needed... aliens, damsel in distress, etc. It just doesn't have what gives it impact.
I would try more dynamic placement and poses for your characters, as well as interaction of light, and use the spotlight from the UFO to do much more. I would also cheese-up that title text, giving it some oomph.
Here's the composition I jacked from Captain Future. I wanted the poses to be authentic, so I grabbed them from an old pulp cover. (and, I admit I thought it'd be funny to switch the hero/villain int he composition.) Could you elaborate on your crits?
Anyway. I'm still working on cleaning up the forms and such, particularly the rocky outcroppings that make up the background, which should give the picture a little more visual interest. Hopefully that's what you mean by interaction of light, Manon. I'll post it as soon as it's done.
I have to finish this painting by tomorrow, so.. updates as events warrant, i suppose.
e:oh, and the ostrich is his jetpack.
Also, notice the strong shapes in the title of Captain Future and Man of Tomorrow. Yours is just a rectangle of very basic letters.
As for the additional caption, what it says is nowhere near as important as how you present it. Make sure that it is exciting visually, not because of the meaning of the words in the sentence.
Assuming it's actually option A, some suggestions:
-normal dude's pose could be changed to emphasize more the idea of protecting her- his torso bent away from zombie, leaning back, putting distance between himself and the attacker.
-zombie could stand to be made more menacing- either bigger in actual size, bigger in compositional size by bringing him closer in perspective, a more dynamic pose, or both.
-Using the composition more to emphasize the peril of the situation- sketch below to show normal dude smaller, zombie bigger so he feels more threatened, more closed in upon.
The use of extreme perspective here might be a little bit much for the cheesy 40's style (rather than cheesy 60's-70's) you're going for, but the same principles could still be applied more subtly and get a similar effect.
EDIT: That Captain Future poster is hysterical because it's totally less "alien menace" than "uh oh, Dad caught us, we are sooo busted."
I had intended for the cover to be ambiguous - one of the things that I'm trying to play with is the obvious power relationships in pulp covers, and.. well, it's not really working in any case. I think I'll make the zombie taller.. or.. something. Christ, I'm tired.
Thanks for the crits, guys. They're awesome.
Like I said before, it definitely has the pulp feel and I think to push that even further, you should redo the "Astro Zombies" logo with more of a "in dynamic space" feel to it. Make the right side of the title stretch back into space, or something like that. I think that would help break up some of the static nature of how the figures are placed without resorting to a full on repaint.
..Get some one to pose for you and take a picture.
You''ve really bitten off a bit more than you can chew here. Im not trying to be a dick but your still at the stage where rendering simple shapes like spheres/cubes/cones/ columns should be what you are working on.
Continuing this painting is really going to be an exercise in frustration for you as you dont have the tools yet.
I know this doesnt help you with your current painting, others have already offered great critiques specific to it.
What makes you say that, Ken?
you were having a lot of trouble doing those figures with pencil drawings that I did a quick draw-over on to (which also contained flatness), I think possibly you might be jumping the gun and it would benefit you more in the long wrong to try to figure out why that's happening rather then trying to make these pieces. Because generally there pointing exactly to that issue of being flat, lacking movement, being stiff.
I don't know. I think a lot of your problems are from the source material I'm using. Do you have the same troubles with this painting, which was reffed from people instead of an illustration?
What it feels like is you go directly to the painting and spend like 20 hours or however much you spend on it without thinking of how it will be layed out before hand, and then mold it into something thats on the go.
I don't think the problem is you don't know what your doing, but I think the main problem is your jumping to fast, even in the drawings of your comic design. The signs are fairly obvious that you know the figure. Its just that everything feels rushed, measurement is completely skipped and the stage of shading and detailing seems to be the only thing that has attention being payed to.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong, for you to make these comments. But it's not a lack of planning.
As I said, it's really hard for me to say where you're going wrong because I don't use the medium. Don't discount Loom though, he's pretty good with paint.
I want to work on these things, and I'm trying to - that's why I keep doing things like this.
i do tend to paint thinly though
then i block the colours in, then i start refining them
Your colors are muddy. I don't know what kind of paint this is, I've only used acrylic and oil. But as it stands, this is very basic shading, because all your shading is in big swaths and blocks. This is what you'd put down before you start going into detail. It seems like the paint and/or brushes you're using are too thick and wet to even do detail with. There are no sharp edges, everything is blurry and scribbly.
Your figures aren't well fleshed out. You said that you do a mock-up sketch beforehand. Well, that doesn't help with the paint/shading problems, and you should have offered that up for crits on anatomy and form. Honestly, I'm too intimidated to paint because I'm a perfectionist and I know I'm not ready. It's great you're running headlong into it, but I don't know how much good it'll do until you really have the practiced tools of drawing people/shapes well. Bacon's example shows how little depth you have in the picture, which makes it boring to look at, and depth in itself is one tool that takes a long time to master in drawing.
Painting is more of a practice in color, shading, and texture. It is not going to help you learn to draw people better, and it is not going to help with the drawing fundamentals. That is why basic drawing generally comes before painting in school.
So what people are saying is mostly:
1. Work on drawing forms
2. Work on shading forms
3. Work on depth/perspective
4. Draw from life a lot more
5. ... many other steps involving color and more practice
6. Do painting later because you aren't going to learn as much when pictures take you this long and you're not ready to be practicing the techniques that come with painting
Not that I'm not being a hypocrite, because what I do is avoid learning the fundamentals by finding ways to draw things that don't require them but still end up looking cool. If I were painting, I'd be doing really abstract things/figures without applying most drawing techniques and just focusing on color and shape.
Hopefully I can explain this a bit better by just trying to demo it rather than trying to explain it entirely in words...not trying to just dogpile on you with everyone here.
Did a paintover, tracing directly over top your zombie figure (took out the backpack though)...given, I have a big advantage working digitally, but I tried to follow a process that could be applied to a traditional working method. (Trying to approximate the working method I've seen some of my teachers use for their illustration work, but since I haven't actually taken a painting class here yet, I'm just kind of piecing it together...I think they paint a bit more directly than this in general though.
The big thing is that essentially, all your painting problems are at heart drawing problems. Some may be complaining about muddiness, but really the killer is lack of clarity more than anything- if your drawing is solid on form, the major problem with clarity just become having the paintbrush dexterity to be able to stick with what you've got- esp. for the sort of cheesy retro pulp cover look. Usually not a virtuoso display of dazzling color mixing in most of those things.
While slapping down a lot of color and then working over it over and over to a finish may work ok digitally (certainly what I've banked on for a long time, possibly for the worse)- or if you have a lot of time on your hands, and/or you're doing fine art- but trying to whip out precise work on a deadline is going to require some equally precise underpinnings.
I might recommend switching from stretched canvas to masonite, so you can draw a tight piece in pencil and then wash over it with a light coat of paint. Similar to the process Gregory Manchess is using here:
That music is even more obnoxious in the full video because it goes on for 2 straight fucking hours.
Biggest thing thing you're missing in getting the form to read after the linework is laid down is step number 3: establishing the core shadow transition for the simple forms. Establishing from the get go a clear separation between lit planes and those in shadow, you force the drawing to be read in terms of form. Imagine the unlit area filled in flat black and you still have a very solid looking drawing, even without halftones. See also the paintover I did for WCK. Notice as well that it's not just a straight line separating light and dark in all areas, but the edge is varied based on what forms are occurring in the figure. Example, the thigh is very softly defined through upper area, showing of the large, cylindrical nature of the thigh, but gets tighter as it approaches the knee, where the planes become much more boxy. Having established how the major forms are going to be sorted out, then I can move on to secondary forms.
With the form defined precisely in the drawing stage, painting it becomes much more about mixing up the right colors and noodling with it, making sure the halftones conform to the form schema I've already laid out. Ex: in the second color stage, I've made sure to reinforce the forms in the torso with my halftones, making sure the ribcage is defined as a sphere, and the abdominal section underneath it (probably could have used a more distinct bunching up forms of the cloth/abdominals there on second thought actually, but at least I made a clear decision on the matter.)
The only major change in decision that occurred after the drawing was established was to throw in the cheesy green rimlight to punch it out, probably would wait for the thing to dry a bit before trying to put that in there.
(Man this would have taken me so fucking long to actually do in real paint it is not even funny. 24 hours holy shit there would be no way seriously. You'd have to be hella pro to pull that shit off.)
EDIT: I bet you are regretting this now!
edit: on a side note, All the shadings that bacon was talking about is something that should be established in the underpainting, whether this be One single color or Black and white. Your black and white should look almost as good if not the same as your main drawing. I also have a example of this applied in actual traditional medium.
The shading and values and fitting it all in is the most complicated part, if you start adding colors like how it seems you did yours fairly early without thought of shade then it will usually... Fall apart.
Details should be avoided and general shades should be applied on first.
fortunately I can at least show something rather then just ramble in gibberish
and then I wiggle my fingers and make minor tweaks
Depending how much color you want or how you apply the first layer, depending whether it is single color or Black and white, you will also have to decide how much or how little you want showing through
edit oh wait I do have a color example to, one second. TIME TO GET MY CAMERA