this is Bean (or Dean) De Boots. (can't decide. help?) i have to re-create him in 3D so that i can animate him it was fun making him out of plasticine... don't know how i'm going to go with it in maya.
this is Bean (or Dean) De Boots. (can't decide. help?) i have to re-create him in 3D so that i can animate him it was fun making him out of plasticine... don't know how i'm going to go with it in maya.
Thats a really good technique when you need to produce something good, in a short amount of time. i did similar with some concept art i was doing for a university assignment last year. Though, i had my brother model up a (basic) scene in Maya, based on my sketches, i pretty much just traced it in photoshop. Technically, i'd say it's cheating, but many professional concept artists do it, because of their close deadlines, and having producing many realistic renders a day. It saves a shit load of time.
Mykonos: At first I was like, why does the ninja get a speed trail but not the jet. Then I realized (I think) that you were using the jets trail to try and lead to the ninja? If that's the case though, I don't think that curve works, and the reverse (starts downward curving up) looks like it would fit better to my eye. I don't know, anyways, it looks pretty neat so far, I like to think he just set an explosive on the jet and was making dramatic escapage before explode times. Also, it might help to bank the jet (I think that means turn corresponding to the horizon, right?) slightly as he seems to be turning, and also will give the ninja jump a little weight, though it's not really necessary.
I think I'm about done with this bugger. Some of the rendering on the mans is a little cludgy but I'm not accustomed to painting figures so small and being forced to abstract out the big shapes of light like that, especially with colors. Certainly better than the original incarnation anyway
Thanks everyone, Google Sketchup is very easy to learn, I picked it up and in about 2 hours was making shit. I have had some expience with 3ds max and Maya, but really, Sketchup is extremely intuitive. Plus, they have a lot of awesome training videos for beginners, advanced, and expert users, all on their site. I highly recommend it to you all.
/fanboy
That is really good, Scosgen. Please tell me about your process!
scos the one thing i notice is that the beast doesn't look intimidating at all
it looks kind of like he's shrinking back from the guy and he looks more scared than pissed
i think if you made him look more fuckin' piiiisssed it'd be a stronger piece.
it's in his eyes that i notice this, and his stance, the way he's standing makes him look sort of like he's recoiling his head in fear
is that what you were going for?
Mykonos: At first I was like, why does the ninja get a speed trail but not the jet. Then I realized (I think) that you were using the jets trail to try and lead to the ninja? If that's the case though, I don't think that curve works, and the reverse (starts downward curving up) looks like it would fit better to my eye. I don't know, anyways, it looks pretty neat so far, I like to think he just set an explosive on the jet and was making dramatic escapage before explode times. Also, it might help to bank the jet (I think that means turn corresponding to the horizon, right?) slightly as he seems to be turning, and also will give the ninja jump a little weight, though it's not really necessary.
yeah ur right on shiboe. The smoke was really bothering me especially since it was a left over from a previous thumbnail draft. I was also playing the explosive idea, but I was concerned over losing much of the rendering of the jet in addition to indicate that the charge was set off by the mechaninjadude. Thanks for the input
Mykonos on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
I think I'm about done with this bugger. Some of the rendering on the mans is a little cludgy but I'm not accustomed to painting figures so small and being forced to abstract out the big shapes of light like that, especially with colors. Certainly better than the original incarnation anyway
Hey Scosg, I feel really strange doing a paintover for you, primary since your technical knowledge is awesome and also you do them for me all the time which have helped me tons. I just wanted to help show you some examples of how you can improve the composition and perhaps make the dragon seem more dynamic than he currently is. I also sorta worked on the lighting and changed the ratio of the canvas. If this paintover is too obnoxious (and it probably it, i dunno...) then I apoligize and will remove if it u want.
Ok so what I did was try and follow the Fibonacci spiral which painter provides and try to rework the composition to fit it. I used the green arrows to signify where I intended, success or not, to guide the eye to the final payoff of the guy holding a spear to the dragons. I also sorta changed the perspective on the dragons head to help give an impression that its snapping its neck in a wtf!? sorta way. I tried to indicate this with the saliva and the lighting on the neck. Let me know what you think. Like I said, I hope this isn't too much for a quick paintover. Also, this piece has way too much potential for you to halt so early, I say keep at it
Mykonos on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
For the most part I really like Scos's composition better, the closeness keeps it more dramatic, though I do like the highlighted back ridge. Originally I was gonna say the mouth semi-transparent flaps looked wrong, as the back one comes out much further than the close one, but his head isn't really angled as such. I agree with Beav that it could use more anger though, I think it's the straightness of his neck and head. Maybe tilt his head to one side, get some flem coming out of that roar, and feirce up the eyes abit. Otherwise, I love it, it's exactly the kind of stuff I like. ;D
Ugh I'm tired of coming here without arts of my own. Really gotta finish catching up on schoolwork so I can get back into it. =/
oh his composition probably is better, especially if he's going for a certain look or story element. I just wanted to throw out some ideas to keep him going with it. Also, it was perhaps the only way for me to describe what I was thinking at the time without ranting for ten pages.
Mykonos on
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
scos the one thing i notice is that the beast doesn't look intimidating at all
it looks kind of like he's shrinking back from the guy and he looks more scared than pissed
i think if you made him look more fuckin' piiiisssed it'd be a stronger piece.
it's in his eyes that i notice this, and his stance, the way he's standing makes him look sort of like he's recoiling his head in fear
is that what you were going for?
I think part of this might be because his feet are so far forward in comparison to his head, it makes him look like his body is shifting backwards instead of moving forward toward the soldier.
Might be wrong though.
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I thought the weakest part was the fact the dragon didn't look like it was connecting with the guy in the cape. They're sort of looking past each other. Deflates the whole piece, beautiful though it is.
edit: oops, this was about scosglen's dragon piece.
I think I'm about done with this bugger. Some of the rendering on the mans is a little cludgy but I'm not accustomed to painting figures so small and being forced to abstract out the big shapes of light like that, especially with colors. Certainly better than the original incarnation anyway
I think the city street is the weakest. Uggghh. Any suggestions for it would be awesome.
Alright, I'll give it a go- though admittedly if there's a context these fit into that I don't know about, some of my specific changes may go against what you're going for, though hopefully it's useful anyways. My strategy was basically just to try and make it look more like Blade Runner.
First off, on composition, I raised the camera a bit to show more of the tops of the buildings, that way the blue...thing (a spinner?) in the back is aligned on the lower third of the picture instead of the center. Gives it a little bit more dynamic feel to it. Also, this cuts off a lot of areas where not much is happening, what with the road and sidewalk.
On the lighting, this is a tough situation because you've started out with a lot of lights in a lot of different colors, so you get a rainbow effect where every patch of light is fighting for the viewer's attention first. Because you want to draw the viewer's eye to those things that are most important to the scene, what's needed is a way to unify the lighting scheme in a way that accomplishes that. What I went for was to make the overall color of the scene the green that you've got with those tubes; since they're around a lot, I've just lit them up more, made the green spill over into the streets, onto the buildings. By making most of the scene illuminated by green, the other lights, like the blue thing and the other practical lights in the scene stand out much more.
Also, sidenote: even the Las Vegas strip has streetlamps even though they don't necessarily need them to light the streets, so you're going to want to have them in urban street scenes both realism's sake, and to give you another source of light to manipulate for the sake of unifying a scene. I haven't done much with them in the paintover, though, because I wanted to keep more focus on the blue thing and less on the empty road. If the road in the foreground were more important, I'd light them up more.
Secondly, it looks like you're more or less depending on practical lights, an ambient color and a lot of glow effects to light this. Maybe if you were using global illumination to add more light scattering around from the practicals this strategy would work ok, but since it doesn't look like you are, you're going to have add some fill lights to simulate the light bouncing around in the scene (not to mention throwing you some more artistic control over the scene).
Example, you've got those areas with like 30 tiny little lightbulbs with 30 little spotlights lighting up the bottom of an overhang, but the light fades off so soon that it really doesn't do much to illuminate anything else, like it would in real life. But if you throw a big, intense spotlight or omni in there with a soft edge falloff, you can more effectively get the sort of light pooling effect that will occur would occur with the light bouncing all over the place there, which your 30 little spotlights aren't going to do for you in CG without global illumination helping you out.
Also, that pink light being so bright and pink really doesn't do much for me- it just grabs my eye and flings it down off the right edge of the page. It'd be different if more of the scene were lit up with the pink and/or there were more corresponding pink lights in the scene so it would look less conspicuous in comparison, but right now it's just HEY LOOK AT ME I AM SO IMPORTANT and I'm not convinced that it is the most important thing in the scene.
You also may want to rework the lighting in the first shot so there's more light on the things in the bathtub and less on the sides, because right now I'm immediately drawn to those posters and stuff on the shelves than the Little Shop of Horrors things. Also the bright purple shadow on the floor under the bathtub is a huge HEY THIS IS CG LOOK moment. I might suggest using a couple of overhead spotlights angled around the tub with soft shadows to simulate a bit of ambient occulsion, making the shadow in the floor get darker as it gets close to the tub.
All technical shit aside, the most important questions you need to hammer down on with any lighting problem is "What is the most important idea in the scene?" and "What is the strongest way to express that idea with light?" Once you figure that out, everything else is just noodling around with shit.
That was a better and far far far more practical critique than my teacher gave me. And that paint over. Goddd.
Doing a green wash over it, I hadn't even though of, and I really like how that looks to unify everything, and I didn't know that about street lamps. The camera is actually an object someone is holding/carrying, hesne the camera view, and I was told to drop it more to the ground, but it looks so much better raised up like you have it. There's GI on it, but i've actually been ganking out all my lights because I apparently had too many. The glow shader doesn't ad anything to the GI and looks like ass so I was replacing them with those little lights. With the pink I was trying to have it be like, pink/red lights and the blue/green lights just to have some complimentary colours, but it really doesnt stand out too much, was having trouble making it be less saturated but still glow. It's so distracting, gotta fix that, was trying to make the eye follow the arch back down but faailleedd. And. Jeeze. Just. I'm so excited to do this again. You've given me so many great ideas. And. Augh. Thankyou so much.
Yeah, I intend to make the posters old/worn into the wall more so theyre less noticable. And. I didn't even notice how wretched that shadow looks. Will try some spotlights and softening them and yeah.
Fffyes. You've gotten me so excited for this again after I was really burning out/getting bored and lost on where to go, and this is like, the best and most useful feedback I've gotten and. Thanks so much.
Posts
goto any middle class restaurant, it's the pictures on the wall.
ON ONE SIDE IS RADIOACTIVE WASTE
ON THE OTHER SIDE IS A PINK FAERIE
OKAY?
OKAY.
Bean with model sheet
lol sorry about the overkill.
[edit] whoops, botp'd:
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do you think dean or bean works best?
I love seeing this technique in action for concept art.
never thought of that!
sketchup yeah?
word. i needs to learn me some sketchups
I'd render out a quick blocked scene and just sketch over it.
Frank this is actually really cool. The color and texture is nice.
Sketchup, right? I gotta learn me how to use that program.
Yeah, me too!
And whoops, didn't know I got totp.
I'll edit mah post and put in botp stuff.
meh
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
Thats a really good technique when you need to produce something good, in a short amount of time. i did similar with some concept art i was doing for a university assignment last year. Though, i had my brother model up a (basic) scene in Maya, based on my sketches, i pretty much just traced it in photoshop. Technically, i'd say it's cheating, but many professional concept artists do it, because of their close deadlines, and having producing many realistic renders a day. It saves a shit load of time.
Looking good. Thoug, i think there should be a dam in the background. Would look totally awesome.
/fanboy
That is really good, Scosgen. Please tell me about your process!
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More sketchup, just the model so far.
it looks kind of like he's shrinking back from the guy and he looks more scared than pissed
i think if you made him look more fuckin' piiiisssed it'd be a stronger piece.
it's in his eyes that i notice this, and his stance, the way he's standing makes him look sort of like he's recoiling his head in fear
is that what you were going for?
yeah ur right on shiboe. The smoke was really bothering me especially since it was a left over from a previous thumbnail draft. I was also playing the explosive idea, but I was concerned over losing much of the rendering of the jet in addition to indicate that the charge was set off by the mechaninjadude. Thanks for the input
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
Hey Scosg, I feel really strange doing a paintover for you, primary since your technical knowledge is awesome and also you do them for me all the time which have helped me tons. I just wanted to help show you some examples of how you can improve the composition and perhaps make the dragon seem more dynamic than he currently is. I also sorta worked on the lighting and changed the ratio of the canvas. If this paintover is too obnoxious (and it probably it, i dunno...) then I apoligize and will remove if it u want.
Ok so what I did was try and follow the Fibonacci spiral which painter provides and try to rework the composition to fit it. I used the green arrows to signify where I intended, success or not, to guide the eye to the final payoff of the guy holding a spear to the dragons. I also sorta changed the perspective on the dragons head to help give an impression that its snapping its neck in a wtf!? sorta way. I tried to indicate this with the saliva and the lighting on the neck. Let me know what you think. Like I said, I hope this isn't too much for a quick paintover. Also, this piece has way too much potential for you to halt so early, I say keep at it
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
Ugh I'm tired of coming here without arts of my own. Really gotta finish catching up on schoolwork so I can get back into it. =/
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
I think part of this might be because his feet are so far forward in comparison to his head, it makes him look like his body is shifting backwards instead of moving forward toward the soldier.
Might be wrong though.
Critique on composition/lighting/whateva is welcome, as always. Though some stuffs obviously missing, like textures etc etc.
I think the city street is the weakest. Uggghh. Any suggestions for it would be awesome.
edit: oops, this was about scosglen's dragon piece.
Alright, I'll give it a go- though admittedly if there's a context these fit into that I don't know about, some of my specific changes may go against what you're going for, though hopefully it's useful anyways. My strategy was basically just to try and make it look more like Blade Runner.
First off, on composition, I raised the camera a bit to show more of the tops of the buildings, that way the blue...thing (a spinner?) in the back is aligned on the lower third of the picture instead of the center. Gives it a little bit more dynamic feel to it. Also, this cuts off a lot of areas where not much is happening, what with the road and sidewalk.
On the lighting, this is a tough situation because you've started out with a lot of lights in a lot of different colors, so you get a rainbow effect where every patch of light is fighting for the viewer's attention first. Because you want to draw the viewer's eye to those things that are most important to the scene, what's needed is a way to unify the lighting scheme in a way that accomplishes that. What I went for was to make the overall color of the scene the green that you've got with those tubes; since they're around a lot, I've just lit them up more, made the green spill over into the streets, onto the buildings. By making most of the scene illuminated by green, the other lights, like the blue thing and the other practical lights in the scene stand out much more.
Also, sidenote: even the Las Vegas strip has streetlamps even though they don't necessarily need them to light the streets, so you're going to want to have them in urban street scenes both realism's sake, and to give you another source of light to manipulate for the sake of unifying a scene. I haven't done much with them in the paintover, though, because I wanted to keep more focus on the blue thing and less on the empty road. If the road in the foreground were more important, I'd light them up more.
Secondly, it looks like you're more or less depending on practical lights, an ambient color and a lot of glow effects to light this. Maybe if you were using global illumination to add more light scattering around from the practicals this strategy would work ok, but since it doesn't look like you are, you're going to have add some fill lights to simulate the light bouncing around in the scene (not to mention throwing you some more artistic control over the scene).
Example, you've got those areas with like 30 tiny little lightbulbs with 30 little spotlights lighting up the bottom of an overhang, but the light fades off so soon that it really doesn't do much to illuminate anything else, like it would in real life. But if you throw a big, intense spotlight or omni in there with a soft edge falloff, you can more effectively get the sort of light pooling effect that will occur would occur with the light bouncing all over the place there, which your 30 little spotlights aren't going to do for you in CG without global illumination helping you out.
Also, that pink light being so bright and pink really doesn't do much for me- it just grabs my eye and flings it down off the right edge of the page. It'd be different if more of the scene were lit up with the pink and/or there were more corresponding pink lights in the scene so it would look less conspicuous in comparison, but right now it's just HEY LOOK AT ME I AM SO IMPORTANT and I'm not convinced that it is the most important thing in the scene.
You also may want to rework the lighting in the first shot so there's more light on the things in the bathtub and less on the sides, because right now I'm immediately drawn to those posters and stuff on the shelves than the Little Shop of Horrors things. Also the bright purple shadow on the floor under the bathtub is a huge HEY THIS IS CG LOOK moment. I might suggest using a couple of overhead spotlights angled around the tub with soft shadows to simulate a bit of ambient occulsion, making the shadow in the floor get darker as it gets close to the tub.
All technical shit aside, the most important questions you need to hammer down on with any lighting problem is "What is the most important idea in the scene?" and "What is the strongest way to express that idea with light?" Once you figure that out, everything else is just noodling around with shit.
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Doing a green wash over it, I hadn't even though of, and I really like how that looks to unify everything, and I didn't know that about street lamps. The camera is actually an object someone is holding/carrying, hesne the camera view, and I was told to drop it more to the ground, but it looks so much better raised up like you have it. There's GI on it, but i've actually been ganking out all my lights because I apparently had too many. The glow shader doesn't ad anything to the GI and looks like ass so I was replacing them with those little lights. With the pink I was trying to have it be like, pink/red lights and the blue/green lights just to have some complimentary colours, but it really doesnt stand out too much, was having trouble making it be less saturated but still glow. It's so distracting, gotta fix that, was trying to make the eye follow the arch back down but faailleedd. And. Jeeze. Just. I'm so excited to do this again. You've given me so many great ideas. And. Augh. Thankyou so much.
Yeah, I intend to make the posters old/worn into the wall more so theyre less noticable. And. I didn't even notice how wretched that shadow looks. Will try some spotlights and softening them and yeah.
Fffyes. You've gotten me so excited for this again after I was really burning out/getting bored and lost on where to go, and this is like, the best and most useful feedback I've gotten and. Thanks so much.