I posted the development of this numouras times in the doodle-thread, but in the end after spending 30+ hours on this I didn't feel right posting the finished piece in there, so sorry for the redudancy.


Hi-Res
I hope you guys see an improvement. I promise this is the last sci fi pretty boy I do for a while

edit: I'll need to go back and clean it up, but I'm taking a break from this damn thing
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However he seems a bit thick around the hips, not that it's anatomically incorrect, just that he looks like he's got a huge ass for a fighting type person.
Now get cracking on something not sci-fi dude related! ;)
edit: did minor fix on the sword, tightened up the grip on the hand holding it
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
Specifics:
-The purple around the ears is sort of a perplexing choice and seems out of place given the rest of your palette.
-His right hand's gesture is just weird. Not that is isn't possible, there just doesn't seem to be any reason at all for him to have his hand contorted over to the side like that, aside from what appears to be a mis-fired attempt at making him look cooler. He looks like he's petting an invisible dog. Hands are important--take your time and make sure they're contributing to the character and not confusing or even detracting.
-The bodysuit has too much dead black. It's hurting the believability of the rendering and making it very hard to tell where your lightsource is, or even read the actual form of the suit itself since every nook looks like it's sunken into a black hole.
General:
-I'm going to keep saying this until I think it's no longer valid--I think you are relying way too much on photoshop to weave your paintings together. On a cursory glance in this picture alone I see a texture overlay, what seems to be a photograph of a cityscape composited into the background, and at least one brush(Seriously, stop using that rake brush) that is hurting almost as much as it's helping. It's a lot easier for you and us both to tell what you need to work on when you aren't leaning on crutches.
-If you were a little more adventurous with your composition and color choice, you could draw bucksome young clean-shaven solid snake clones until kingdom come. How do you think wakkawa gets away with almost exclusively drawing voluptuous women and monsters? Because while his subject matter is fairly stale, he is constantly experimenting with extreme variations in composition, design, color schemes, and rendering styles. It doesn't really matter much WHAT you're drawing, but it does become a problem when you keep approaching it the exact same way as well.
That can be used to portray depth of field, but that's not how you are using it. Everything that is not as finished as your face doesn't give the illusion of atmospheric perspective or focal blurring, it reveals laziness. Your hands not being finished says "I'm not confident with my ability to draw them."
The hatched over, scribbled in background is part of what is killing this as well.
If I'm not mistaken, you've been told by multiple forumers to render that black bodysuit using color, because that is how light works.
My suggestions: Pump out multiple traditional-medium drawings of bodies and hands, without matrix bodysuits. In doing these I would suggest not doing anything to the face/head except plot the structure. Along with these practice drawing architecture, plant-life, perspective, geographic locations, etc. After you begin to show that you are as comfortable with each of those areas as you are with digitally rendering that one face, then pick up some real paints and brushes and start composing paintings, working on the whole image at once. Whatever you need to do to break those obvious digital crutches that Scosglen pointed out.
I was trying to get that real painterly look with this one which may have been the result of me over using the texture brush. I did use some photo-texture overlay on the columns and the wall beneath it, and lower part of the city as well, then painted over it. I'm trying do something like Jason Felix does, a good example would be his cover of Robotica.
I would say with the various revisions, experimenting, and redo's it did make me a seriouse ass long time. The face especially took up most of it, I was never satisfied. I would take a break and come back to it and be like, oh god - fugly!
thanks again for the crits
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
I tried to eradicate all of the "black hole" areas and fill in the vagueness of his bodysuit so that there is a clearer light model. REFLECTED LIGHT, which generally lives in those areas that were pure black is a very important part of the overall light model. I added a slight rim-highlight on his backside since the window itself acts as a relatively strong lightsource.
Stupid little composition tricks can be very effective if employed right. I tightened up background pillars and sky near the head so that there is some very strong light-dark contrast going on in this area. The rim highlights help draw the eye up to the face that you lovingly spent so much time rendering. The coolness of the body suit also contrasts with the warm hues in the face, further enforcing the focal point.
I made a few other minor tweaks all over to please my own nit-picky nature. I used A SINGLE HARD ROUND BRUSH FOR THE ENTIRE PROCESS. This is by no means the "best" way to help some of the issues in this piece, but it's how I would go about fixing some of the issues. Hopefully you can glean some insight into how you would go about it by seeing how I did.
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
Try adding some color in next time. Black and gray are not always completely black and gray, really...there's stuff like reflected light from the sun, sky, etc...especially on the material he's covered in.
Edit: Lalilulelo
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
PSN: MaximasXXZ XBOX Live: SneakyMcSnipe
k, I'm currently redoing some of it with the changes you guys recommended. Here are the changes so far
"I was born; six gun in my hand; behind the gun; I make my final stand"~Bad Company
approaching something new with a fresh outlook is sometimes the best option when trying to improve artistically
and then try this piece again. marvel at your progress when you Dare To Compare!