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Gardeners of War
Kaptain H
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
This is a collaboration between myself and a friend. He writes and I draw.
I guess I won't say much right off, except that I'm experimenting with coming up with my own simple "cartoon/comic" style. So the art is going to change and hopefully improve as I try to develop that style.
More background info to be found here.
More to come!
I guess I won't say much right off, except that I'm experimenting with coming up with my own simple "cartoon/comic" style. So the art is going to change and hopefully improve as I try to develop that style.
More background info to be found here.
More to come!
Kaptain H on
0
Posts
Edit:
I thought it was pretty funnay by the way.
Especially that last frame.
Beers of War
Cheers of War
Deers of War
Peers of War
Piers of War
Queers of War
Rears of War (*ugh*)
SEARS of War
Spheres of War
Tears of War
Years of War
Now on the strips, great colours man, nice concept, Viva pinata meets Gears, although I´d change the name to reflect Viva Pinata being there too
My digital art! http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=8168
My pen and paper art! http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=7462
In all seriousness, though, I have to agree. I don't really think this is so different a concept that it requires its own topic, either.
Coloring looks really messy (I like the squiggly lines in the shrubs, though, in the last page...nowhere else)...but everything else looks kinda "meh". The values also seem pretty similar - the water, sand, foliage, skin, ground, sky, etc...it's all virtually the same value. Try darkening things up a bit in plces - go for contrast.
As for the comment that the concept is tired, I don't agree.
http://chemicalalia.deviantart.com/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=1073844895
and yours makes three. yup, the idea is tired.
That second link was him actually
PSN: MaximasXXZ XBOX Live: SneakyMcSnipe
Do you know why good TV ads get canceled? Because ppl grow bored of them, even if they are excellent ads. Notice how 6 out of 10 posts discuss the repetitiveness of your concept... these are your viewers telling you the concept is stale.
And no one wants to see that, I'm only skilled in pencil.
It wouldn't be pretty in pencil.
What I see is that besides me, one other person did one parody picture. So no, the idea isn't stale in my opinion. What is stale though is every time I post a Gears thing (of which this is only my fourth posting, and second Gears parody posting), someone thinks they are clever by listing a ton of alternate possible Whatever of War concepts. As for Gears, I suspect I'll be doing a bit more since I'm still playing it.
But do I think you are all off-base? Absolutely not. I'm struggling to find my cartooning style, and I think you guys could help me because most of you have a pretty good sense for art. That said, your criticism still sucks.
Maybe some of you should review the rules and guidelines on critiques again. When I first found this place, I thought they were some of the best I've ever seen for an art forum, which is why I signed up, and why I'm disappointed that they are largely ignored. Telling me that my proportions, anatomy, perspective, composition, coloring or whatever generalized attribute isn't helpful unless you are more specific. Yeah yeah, you think the whole thing sucks and there's too many to list in one post. But in less time than it takes you to respond to this post with further generalized negativity that take up 3 paragraphs, you could give me just one specific example of what is bad and/or how to improve it.
By the way, it's also in your guidelines to tell someone what you like about said art before going into your criticism. I don't think that part is necessary for me. But in art criticism and life in general, this technique opens up the listener to anything you have to say. I'll even give you an example of how it works: see the above sentence where I said that not all of you were off-base? Made you put down the pitchfork just a little bit, didn't it? Basic social skills.
And thank you to core tactic and Nightdrago for your helpful remarks.
http://chemicalalia.deviantart.com/
Tell me. If you were to look at this (let's pretend it was drawn by somebody who was, say, 15 years old)...and they asked you for critiques....what would you say?
Would you say "the arms, the legs, the face, the fingers, the hands, the elbows, the knees, the feet, the legs, the eyes, the mouth, the hair needs work"? Or would you just say, "you should really work on your anatomy?"
Would you say "the sun, the sun rays, the cloud, the bird's wings, the bird's beak, the butterfly wings, the butterfly body, the butterfly antennae, the flower petals, the flower stalk, the center of the flower, the grass, the tree leaves, the tree bark, the nest, the eggs, the bird's feet aren't the correct color"? Or would you just say, "you should really work on your color?"
ON THE OTHER HAND.
"The hairline looks slightly off - the line where his hair meets his forehead is too sharp, try softening that up. The values look a little off - specifically along his jawline - his beard there is extremely dark, but the rest of his beard is relatively light. etc etc etc."
The reason why the last picture got the most specific critiques because for the majority of the work, everything looks relatively decent, and correct, more or less.
The problem with critiquing your work like that is that there is SO MUCH WRONG WITH IT, you need BASIC, SIMPLE CRITIQUES THAT COVER ALL YOUR ISSUES. Furthermore, you are giving us comic book pages. Not a single image, but dozens of images in a single page. Dozens of images that ALL HAVE the SAME, BASIC ISSUES:
anatomy
color
perspective
composition
et cetera
We are not "cutting you out of some good critiques". The reason why they are not specific is because frankly, your work is not good enough to ellicit specific critiques - we would be naming every single characteristic about your comic. Nobody has the time or the energy or the patience to deal with your holier-than-thou attitude and list off every goddamn problem with your comic, especially when they know that there's a high chance you're going to brush it off in the end - I have already seen this in your previous posts. Yes, you've said "I'll think about it" sometimes, but overall you just seem to be disregarding the best critiques your getting, which are the ALL-INLCUSIVE critiques, which, again, are:
anatomy
color
perspective
composition
et cetera
I actually once went through somebody's comic page and picked out every-single-thing they did that was wrong/needed adjustment/fixing/etc...and it must have been a few thousand characters. And he didn't even use color. And he only posted one page (from what I recall).
I really do not feel like doing this for you, because I will literally have to right an entire paragraph for EACH PANEL so the critiques are specific enough for you to even bother looking at them. If your faces are horrible, we are going to tell you so. If every aspect of every part of all your faces needs work, we will say simply, "work on your facial anatomy". Only, you need to work on everything.
Put down your caviar-on-rye for one second, step off your velvet ass-cushion, sit yourself down with a pencil and draw until you fucking bleed. I don't know what else to tell you - we've all been trying to tell you "you need to work on a hell of a lot. Almost everything." ...but you have refused to listen, stating that The Princess needs really specific critiques or else the critiques aren't worth shit to The Princess.
When I gave you a critique above, it was a single, simple, somewhat-specific critique...but as I've said earlier, I could have easily given you at least have a dozen critiques per image. I just didn't have the time or energy to do that. There's just so much wrong in each panel that you can improve. I mean no - on the grand scale of things, you're not a very bad artist. You just need a lot of refinement in your work - just like everybody else. It's just that at the stage you're at now, you really do [again] need to work on bettering some basic traits of your artwork.
If you seriously need critiques that are that specific, pick up a book on anatomy. Study a photograph. Drag a color photo into photoshop and use the eyedropper to pick out colors - find out what things really look like. Find out how things reflect light. It's just a matter of observing.
You still want to post "____ of War" art? Fine, nobody's going to stop you. We're probably going to complain now and then, perhaps more as it goes on...but if you're going to post your work and ask for critiques, listen to the critiques your given. What do you do with an all-inclusive critique? Study the basics. Read tutorials. Somebody say your color is off? Look up "color theory" on google. Look up tutorials. Go to the library. We don't really need to take you by the hand and be any more specific than that. You're a big boy. You know where things are. Go find them. Just look both ways before crossing the street. I really don't think we're giving you general critiques to be assholes, or because we're lazy. We're giving them to you because we think if you studied those principles wholly your art would be a hell of a lot better. It is, honestly, a better even more "thorough" critique to give you, in this case, than it would be to list one thing that is wrong in a comic that contains -for example purposes - 100 things.
-edit-
Don't try to call me a hypocrit if this comes off as being insulting. The only reason I'm being harsh with you is because you've been kind of insulting, yourself, and that kind of pisses me off. I don't like being insulting, I don't like being insulted, and I don't like being pissed off. Please just understand why I've written this the way I have.
-/edit-
[/disclaimer]
Thank you, ma' lady.
Well, you are being insulting. But i'll give you this, at least I'm being insulted this time by someone who is good at art!
http://chemicalalia.deviantart.com/
Alright, I've calmed down now. I'm sorry for being insulting. I honestly don't like doing that - my consience eats me a little bit, even if I think the person deserved it, and even if they were insulting me...which I felt you were, however indirectly (all for one, one for all!).
In any case, I hope you read and understood the rest of my post, and will seriously consider what I said.
^___________________________________________________^
Same here.
http://chemicalalia.deviantart.com/
Most of all though, just seeing more x of war things is highly cringable. One is a paradoy, two is a ripoff, three+ is downright annoying. If your going to do multiple takes on this gears thing, I would suggest maybe doing a one panel per idea thing, where the theme could then be "how many cheezy gear ripoffs I can think off." If your going to make a serious and lengthy attempt at each one, it's gonna get old very, very fast (as in already old).
I take offence to that.
Also, Kaptain H. I want to know how you got that gritiness to the second frame and third frame. You know? The kind of old film reel typeness?
tumblrrr
deviantart
And backgrounds have always been my downfall, even when I'm in realistic drawing mode.
Thanks for commenting.
http://chemicalalia.deviantart.com/
tumblrrr
deviantart
http://chemicalalia.deviantart.com/
Concept: I don't mind. I could play "dark fantasy" games forever, even though the worlds aren't too original, I don't mind this here thing either. The funny is what matters to me.
Art: Somewhat confusing, as it presents different skill level on different frames. Anyway, yes, Captain: you just need to practice from life/ study an anatomy book, as it is the only sensible way. Asking us to give specific anatomy crits on every picture you draw is a bit too much. Besides, a gigantic amount of practice never hurt anyone.
Oh yeah, and I like the colours.
I lol'd at the end...first GoW spoof I've seen...
do you live under a rock?
At first glance, the coloring isn't bad, and your use of textures does help add the to grittiness of the story. The problem that's sticking out to me the most is the very obvious use of generic photoshop brushes. Take the first panel of the first page as a primary example. The brush strokes use to create the light reflection down the center of the water just looks like sloppy photoshop brush strokes using white with low opacity. Where the strokes overlap, the opacity is doubled and so on. See, this is a pretty blatant photoshop problem. Real paints and such wouldn't really do this. I realize there's strong appeal to digital coloring and it presents a unique look that real paints can't duplicate (and vice versa). However, the effect in both mediums is the same, to create the illusion of depth and color, and most of your coloring isn't doing this. When I look at the coloring, the brush strokes scream at me because they aren't lending to the quality or believability of the piece.
I would do some research on techniques using flats and cuts to try and alleviate these brush stroke problems (and yes, to me they are problems). First though, and I can't stress this enough, is to practice color management and applications. No matter how good the technique is, it won't amount to anything of the colors don't represent reality. That's not to say it has to be complicated. Cell shading is simplicity in it's finest form, and yet a believable color scheme must still be used to create the needed atmosphere being portrayed. You're close sometimes, but other things are way off. Again, using the first panel of the first page. The setting is a sunset over the ocean. The sunlight is the primary source of the colors we see, and those colors change depending on the hue that the sun is giving off. Obviously during a sunset the hue is orange, which your partially represent. However, things like the island and the water don't represent this. the green is way to green on the island. If you take that green, and add more of an orange hue to it, then you'll get a better idea of the color plants would look in that sunlight. The water has some oranges, but not in the way it would truly be represented. The sun att hat angle would be reflecting extreme amounts of light, leading to pure white reflection on most the surface of the water. The rest would largely reflect the color of the sky with possible hint of blue. If you were looking straight down at the water it'd be different, but right now you're facing the sun and it's implications.
You wanted indepth critiques and hopefully I've provided that. It would take pages to critique it all, so use my examples from the first panel as a good basis for the overall coloring issues. Honestly, you're doing alright with it, but you have to take it to the next level to escape the "generic" feel that it inevitably gives off.