Trying to stay positive.. Buzachaka's art thread

buzachaka

finished (sort of) something...

part of a sequential project of revisionist biology. pen and watercolors 9x12 illustration board.

I give it freely to the critique machine... teach me new ways to hate my work, i'm already not particularly fond of this one. it is my first watercolor, my skills must grow, and growth can only come from the fertile soil of pain!

stupid scanner can't accomidate the entire image, there is more foliage to the left and right framing the picture, and a title at the bottom "Bornean Great Tree Snail"

for context: the pen and ink done before this was titled "Azerbaijan Stacking Crabs" (already gone as gift to pretty girl before i could scan it).. the bearded biologist is a reoccuring character.



side note: anyone know best scanner setting for keeping colors consistent with originals...because the hues are completely off.

Mustang

There's issues with the antennae, either that or the head (do you call it a head?) is skewed. Either way it doesn't seem to connect well with the rest of the neck, the structure is all fucked up and doesn't make sense.

The rest of it is looking pretty good.

EDIT: Ungh, that's a horrible crit. The right hand side of the snail neck seems to indicate a twisting motion at the top but when your eye moves further down it seems to be leaning back, but when you look at the head it looks more like it's leaning forwards. I hope that helps a bit more.

lyrium

As far as the composition, the bottom third is pretty empty so the big leaf on the left ends up looking like something that the fellow might be standing on, because it only just barely blocks his feet. I'm assuming the big leaves are meant to be very close to the viewer and not just gigantic compared to the man, but it looks kind of awkward.

RubberAC

Oh i totally thought he was standing on a giant leaf

winter_combat_knight

i can see this going somewhere cool. I like simple ink and watercolour work. Try farting around with some compositions and see what works best.
With this, i think the composition may be a little too central. But i'm not sure if that may be a good thing (im not a good judge on that).
Also, should the colour of the leaves closer be brighter, higher contrast? And maybe make the trees in the background darker, but keep the colour washed out like you've done.

beavotron

oh god i hate it!
(no i don't i think it's neat welcome to the forums)

buzachaka

.... i told you to pull no punches...that i was open to the critique process...but guys, did you really have to see through all my tricks? Did you have to look past the pretty colors to the utter lack of underpinning technique?

did you have to hold up ALL my weaknesses to the bitter light of day?!



.... le sigh

NotASenator

I like it. That's all.

winter_combat_knight

dunno if it was intentional, but i notice everything is pointing towards his crotch.

NotASenator

winter_combat_knight wrote: »

dunno if it was intentional, but i notice everything is pointing towards his crotch.

NotACrook wrote: »

I like it. That's all.

buzachaka

"the crotch is the center of a man's day... and therefore his art." It may have been jesus who said that.

crawdaddio

Also, that man's got one flat foot; I think those things generally have slightly steeper slopes before they hit the ankle.

buzachaka

next in the series...if two is a series... probably too early to tell right?


"Greater Bornean Tree Snails"
watercolor on illustration board

buzachaka

Got a new tablet... so i figured i should draw something (3.5 hours, photoshop cs4).



Compositional crits? I feel like it needs something!

...of course i just realized it's the exact same boring composition scheme i keep using...dammit

I'll make it diagonal..that means action right? schmuck

... i need to draw some robots!

beavotron

to make this composition more interesting, i think you need to frame it a bit better and draw particular attention to the tension between the two bugs
because right now, there's a lot of extra stuff that's very distracting and makes it all less dynamic

here's some quick scribbles of possible solutions
in the first one, i've cropped it all down a bit
and in the second one, i changed up the angle to draw attention to the fact that the other bug is flying above him... sort of gives the feeling of perceived threat, dunno what you were going for though

buzachaka

thanks beavotron, especially for throwing together the sketches. I think the right move was to recrop the image.. i'm not sure i was going for a 'death from above' situation...

Some things to think about for the next image... thanks again

CheerfulBear

Reminds me of Buttercup Festival! That is a good thing! Awesome!

Snails are pretty cool.

Thane

I think that it looks ok as framed. Like, theres this explorer, just came up to a Huge Snail, and whatever. no big deal
it could use more foliage, and be a bit tighter, thats all

in the second one i couldn't figure out where his arm was, because he has those Popeye-ish muscles and his belly didn't look big enough to hide the rest of it

buzachaka

wrapped a couple of quick pieces, mostly just to test using surfactants and gesso glazes with watercolor. the art isn't great but i like a few of the effects. Please Crit if you get a chance.



... today is the dawning of the zomboctopus!


any tips on getting the colors to come out right? they look so much different in real life.

Cheers