desperaterobots: This may have been said - and it's obviously too late if it was not - but I think unless this painting is directly related to the other one (the one that used to be in your sig) you ought to change up the ship design.
Dear DesperateRobots,
One of these days I will have lots of money, or more money than presently, and I will give a portion of that money to you in return for one of these beautiful bits of your mind and it will hang on my wall and people will say "That's great," and I will say "He's great," and joy will spread throughout the land. You're great.
Sincerely,
srsizzy
PS: I've also considered that if I were to ever have anyone design a tattoo that would be on my body forever until I die, one of those people would be you.
PPS: (from chat) why didn't you submit a sexy man to the pinup contest? is it because it would end up being an un-sexy manalienmachine? because I think it would still be sexy. manalienmachines have manalienmachine peepees too, and they want love just as much as the rest of us.
BRO LET ME GET REAL WITH YOU AND SAY THAT MY FINGERS ARE PREPPED AND HOT LIKE THE SURFACE OF THE SUN TO BRING RADICAL BEATS SO SMOOTH THE SHIT WILL BE MEDICINAL-GRADE TRIPNASTY MAKING ALL BRAINWAVES ROLL ON THE SURFACE OF A BALLS-FEISTY NEURAL RAINBOW CRACKA-LACKIN' YOUR PERCEPTION OF THE HERE-NOW SPACE-TIME SITUATION THAT ALL OF LIFE BE JAMMED UP IN THROUGH THE UNIVERSAL FLOW BEATS
the rendering of that eagle statue looks like it's all up in the foreground, in front of the main figure. I don't really know how to explain that it looks like its a much smaller object much closer to the "camera." I don't know WHY it does, but I think it does. I also don't think it's at the right angle in comparison to the perspective of the street.
looks like you need to work on perspective, maybe using atmospheric perspective (subduing tones with less saturation/darkness) on the background buildings -- I don't think windows are actually that bright when observed from a distance, nor are they all white, nor are they ALL lit (most buildings have only the necessary windows lit at night).
srsizzy on
BRO LET ME GET REAL WITH YOU AND SAY THAT MY FINGERS ARE PREPPED AND HOT LIKE THE SURFACE OF THE SUN TO BRING RADICAL BEATS SO SMOOTH THE SHIT WILL BE MEDICINAL-GRADE TRIPNASTY MAKING ALL BRAINWAVES ROLL ON THE SURFACE OF A BALLS-FEISTY NEURAL RAINBOW CRACKA-LACKIN' YOUR PERCEPTION OF THE HERE-NOW SPACE-TIME SITUATION THAT ALL OF LIFE BE JAMMED UP IN THROUGH THE UNIVERSAL FLOW BEATS
lol youd be surprised how hard it is to draw a pantomime horse costume like that without it looking like some dude bumming a horse. Its for a film my mate is making, he is going for a goverment grant so i did a few quick sketches for him
Leggraphics - I'd suggest you don't highlight with white.
Here's some more conceptual art crap. "Bitten" and "Disappearing":
And I drew this during a required literary course. We're reading the Odyssey, so I just kind of ran with it. The professor hates me, though, so I had to be sneaky. >_>
...And I am being hulked enraged by multiple things right now and I will destroy you
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Vargas PrimeKing of NothingJust a ShowRegistered Userregular
edited October 2009
@F87: The design is pretty basic. Running with the bright-red hair, though, I'd say that it would be nice to see maybe some celtic-inspired touches in there. Maybe some tattoos, hair braids... Also, fleshing the sword out into more of a broadsword or something. It's looking like a low-rent katana right now.
Then again, I have no idea if any of that fits your idea for the character.
Can I get some feedback on my image? The design mainly.
There's not really a lot to comment on here, and you might get more comments if you're not like, "Oh hey I did this at three in the morning it's boring." That's pretty much saying, "I don't think much of this, you shouldn't either."
First of all, his pose looks like me when I was five and pretending to be an airplane. For the design, he's got some yellow shorts on, I have no idea if the blue thingies on the left leg are patches or bandannas or what, and Vargas was right about the sword.
In short, it's so WIP that there's no way anyone can say anything about the character design without pretty much designing it for you.
Can I get some feedback on my image? The design mainly.
In short, it's so WIP that there's no way anyone can say anything about the character design without pretty much designing it for you.
And it's like, extremely basic and generic. The face is pretty unremarkable. It looks less like a character design and more like a quick warm up sketch. *shrug*
A forumer in GV asked me to draw his character, Juan Chupacabra: Ace Investigator for one of our make-a-superhero contests. He asked me to take these [edit: whoops, forgot to link the source images] twoimages and combine them into a cryptozoological marvel.
Pencils.
First pass at the inks.
Final pass at the inks, trying to add a little more volume and weight.
I kind of prefer the first set of inks, due to my preference for nice, clean lines. Plus, I always kind of look at my stuff and think about what it would look like with shading added through color, with minimal spotted blacks/crosshatching. Worth mentioning is that these images are about twice the size of the drawing itself.
I've been mulling over this idea for a comic starring Dionysus/Bacchus, which would see him as an old, washed up drunk who's tasked by the other Gods to reign in his unruly brother Ares.
I wanted him to look like he has a slight overbite, with weather-beaten skin and constant five o'clock shadow. The white charcoal I used on the side of his face was kind of fun to play with, even if I went a little heavy on it.
Vargas PrimeKing of NothingJust a ShowRegistered Userregular
edited October 2009
The overbite might be accentuated a bit if you make his chin a little weaker. His chin is jutting out in a somewhat strong-looking manner, and I think it's taking away from the effect you were going for.
It's a nice idea, but he doesn't look particularly old, or washed-up, or drunk. I think it's the eyes - they're really wide and bright and quite clear, they don't have that heavyness in the lids and pouches which is associated with age, nor do they have the bleary, rheumy look of a drunkard.
@F87: The design is pretty basic. Running with the bright-red hair, though, I'd say that it would be nice to see maybe some celtic-inspired touches in there. Maybe some tattoos, hair braids... Also, fleshing the sword out into more of a broadsword or something. It's looking like a low-rent katana right now.
Then again, I have no idea if any of that fits your idea for the character.
/\ Last sentence is the most important thing
Not that I don't think that Vargas/Radar/Charis don't have a point (esp. about the pose- putting someone in bindpose when it's not for turnaround/modeling purposes is rarely a good thing) on the other things mentioned, but if you're going after a specific concept, just going and adding a bunch of shit isn't necessarily the way to go about it. If you're not going after anything specific, and just trying to make it look cool for the sake of coolness, however, that may be a viable way to go about it.
Now, here's how it reads to me: Young guy on vacation, bought a novelty sword at a shop and is goofing around while playing frisbee on the beach. Kids-to-tweens lighthearted anime adventure fare. Bright colors, simplified detail, and semi-nonsensical clothing design (presuming the sword isn't just for show). If that's what you're going for, you succeeded- I can't complain if that was the intention, even if that's not my cup of tea exactly. In a professional environment you might take this as a base and do 20 more variants on it to see if you can jazz it up a tad before settling on a final of course, but for whatever project you are working on, this may actually be a good design. (Though if I am on the money with this, I'd suggest cleaning it up a bit to be more obviously cartoonish and not trying to middle ground between 'speedpainting' and 'cartoon' styles)
Now, the question is if this was or wasn't your intention, or if there are demands of the project that aren't being satisfied here. Do you want a more realistic guy? Is this a game, where the art director wants to show off what the engine can do by rendering all sorts of crap on him? Or do you want to push away from a middle-ground cartoon/realism divide, push his anatomy and design to be wilder, more colorful?
The problem here is that by itself, this isn't a very striking image by itself, but on the other hand you're not obviously trying to reach a certain goal and it's coming up short. It's succeeding in its genericness. Taking it as a piece of concept design, however, I can't say, without context, anything is necessarily wrong with it. I could see this character being drawn in a more dynamically posed illustrative composition, or being animated entertainingly, and I don't think anyone would complain in that case. Put it on a wall of similar concept pieces for a guy-at-the-beach-playing-with-swords game and it makes perfect sense, but as a standalone thing it's not very exciting.
That said, if you do want your pieces to work as standalone images (and you should, if you want to make the big bucks), injecting a little more personality into the pose would help a lot. What's this guy's personality? He's just standing there, not doing anything. Is he a hot-headed guy? A smooth operator? Shy? A jock-type? Impossible to tell from the pose. I want to know what this guy's deal is just by looking at him. Are there any small touches you can use to establish a bit more context? (don't want to get too fancy since it's just a character design, but I dunno- bouncing a beachball around?) Make him live in the world you are trying to establish- any character should be more than a skin color, hairstyle and a set of clothes- the more fully you can convey who they are rather than just what they are, the better. (I think that makes sense? Maybe it doesn't, but it sounds good in a "book of quotations" kind of way.)
AoB, if you are ever in Oklahoma, I would like to buy you a beer.
Alright, guy-at-the-beach-playing-with-swords was not my intent. You are absolutely correct that this succeeds in it's genericness. I tend to just add random elements trying to make the character look cool. I never really approach it with a specific concept in mind, and I think this is what is hurting my art.
Also, I really want my concepts to work as a standalone image. The poses of my characters are always one of the weakest points.
The more fully you can convey who they are rather than just what they are, the better.
I think this sums it up perfectly. I am really going to put effort into understanding this. I have been aware of this idea for some time, but the way you explained it really shed some light onto this concept. I'm going to try again at some point, and focus on a specific concept while keeping in mind all of this feedback.
I want to know what this guy's deal is just by looking at him. Make him live in the world you are trying to establish.
You might want to check out The Skillful Huntsman or some of the "Art of" Pixar books as well- not just for the art (which is fantastic), but the explanations in the text of what decisions the artists made when approaching their design. As Beavs said when she went out to Valve, a big thing for concepting is being able to articulate your design decisions. If an art director asks, "why is X like this?", you won't be able to get away with, "well it looks cool" as an answer a lot of the time.
Linguini is kind of Remy's parallel in the human world. He's the whipping boy of the kitchen, a hapless klutz, gangly and awkward. He's out of his depth, so we gave him these big, bobbly eyes, and his characteristic expression was always one of being startled and afraid.
When I think about Linguini and Skinner, it's almost always in terms of force, I think of them on a purely visual, visceral, movement level. Their personalities are reflected in their designs, and the designs themselves tell you how the characters move. Skinner is a tight little ball of energy, and Linguini is this wimpy, anemic, spineless character. The contrast between those two extremes- having this little tornado interact with this weak noodle- is really fun.
Reading these sort of design explanations, from the characters, to props, to environments- right down to how the tiles are laid out on a kitchen floor- really drives home just how well thought out these movies are, and how everything is done for a reason beyond just being cool. If you apply that amount of thought to your concepting, the technical bit of actually drawing it becomes the easy part.*
You might want to check out The Skillful Huntsman or some of the "Art of" Pixar books as well- not just for the art (which is fantastic), but the explanations in the text of what decisions the artists made when approaching their design. As Beavs said when she went out to Valve, a big thing for concepting is being able to articulate your design decisions. If an art director asks, "why is X like this?", you won't be able to get away with, "well it looks cool" as an answer a lot of the time.
Linguini is kind of Remy's parallel in the human world. He's the whipping boy of the kitchen, a hapless klutz, gangly and awkward. He's out of his depth, so we gave him these big, bobbly eyes, and his characteristic expression was always one of being startled and afraid.
When I think about Linguini and Skinner, it's almost always in terms of force, I think of them on a purely visual, visceral, movement level. Their personalities are reflected in their designs, and the designs themselves tell you how the characters move. Skinner is a tight little ball of energy, and Linguini is this wimpy, anemic, spineless character. The contrast between those two extremes- having this little tornado interact with this weak noodle- is really fun.
Reading these sort of design explanations, from the characters, to props, to environments- right down to how the tiles are laid out on a kitchen floor- really drives home just how well thought out these movies are, and how everything is done for a reason beyond just being cool. If you apply that amount of thought to your concepting, the technical bit of actually drawing it becomes the easy part.*
*(sort of)
along with this, here are some book recommendations i have:
Posts
yep, directly related.
poopfarts
One of these days I will have lots of money, or more money than presently, and I will give a portion of that money to you in return for one of these beautiful bits of your mind and it will hang on my wall and people will say "That's great," and I will say "He's great," and joy will spread throughout the land. You're great.
Sincerely,
srsizzy
PS: I've also considered that if I were to ever have anyone design a tattoo that would be on my body forever until I die, one of those people would be you.
PPS: (from chat) why didn't you submit a sexy man to the pinup contest? is it because it would end up being an un-sexy manalienmachine? because I think it would still be sexy. manalienmachines have manalienmachine peepees too, and they want love just as much as the rest of us.
PPPS: inspiration?
I really don't know shit about shit. I'm just going to move on to my next artz.
looks like you need to work on perspective, maybe using atmospheric perspective (subduing tones with less saturation/darkness) on the background buildings -- I don't think windows are actually that bright when observed from a distance, nor are they all white, nor are they ALL lit (most buildings have only the necessary windows lit at night).
imp hermits poke holes in the hollows of the crabs' carapace and live there
Make way for Horse Cock!
"Defender of the Kingdom"
Tam, your crab thing is great. After you die I'm going to eat your brain.
Yeah....after.
It wants to be colored. Than again, most of your linework does. But this one especially.
Leggraphics - I'd suggest you don't highlight with white.
Here's some more conceptual art crap. "Bitten" and "Disappearing":
And I drew this during a required literary course. We're reading the Odyssey, so I just kind of ran with it. The professor hates me, though, so I had to be sneaky. >_>
Then again, I have no idea if any of that fits your idea for the character.
sketchyblargh / Steam! / Tumblr Prime
There's not really a lot to comment on here, and you might get more comments if you're not like, "Oh hey I did this at three in the morning it's boring." That's pretty much saying, "I don't think much of this, you shouldn't either."
First of all, his pose looks like me when I was five and pretending to be an airplane. For the design, he's got some yellow shorts on, I have no idea if the blue thingies on the left leg are patches or bandannas or what, and Vargas was right about the sword.
In short, it's so WIP that there's no way anyone can say anything about the character design without pretty much designing it for you.
And it's like, extremely basic and generic. The face is pretty unremarkable. It looks less like a character design and more like a quick warm up sketch. *shrug*
Maybe I should start back with the basics.
Pencils.
First pass at the inks.
Final pass at the inks, trying to add a little more volume and weight.
I kind of prefer the first set of inks, due to my preference for nice, clean lines. Plus, I always kind of look at my stuff and think about what it would look like with shading added through color, with minimal spotted blacks/crosshatching. Worth mentioning is that these images are about twice the size of the drawing itself.
I've been mulling over this idea for a comic starring Dionysus/Bacchus, which would see him as an old, washed up drunk who's tasked by the other Gods to reign in his unruly brother Ares.
I wanted him to look like he has a slight overbite, with weather-beaten skin and constant five o'clock shadow. The white charcoal I used on the side of his face was kind of fun to play with, even if I went a little heavy on it.
Tumblr Twitter
sketchyblargh / Steam! / Tumblr Prime
Also he looks a bit like Metal.
I am pretty much the poster child for old, washed up drunks.
/\ Last sentence is the most important thing
Not that I don't think that Vargas/Radar/Charis don't have a point (esp. about the pose- putting someone in bindpose when it's not for turnaround/modeling purposes is rarely a good thing) on the other things mentioned, but if you're going after a specific concept, just going and adding a bunch of shit isn't necessarily the way to go about it. If you're not going after anything specific, and just trying to make it look cool for the sake of coolness, however, that may be a viable way to go about it.
Now, here's how it reads to me: Young guy on vacation, bought a novelty sword at a shop and is goofing around while playing frisbee on the beach. Kids-to-tweens lighthearted anime adventure fare. Bright colors, simplified detail, and semi-nonsensical clothing design (presuming the sword isn't just for show). If that's what you're going for, you succeeded- I can't complain if that was the intention, even if that's not my cup of tea exactly. In a professional environment you might take this as a base and do 20 more variants on it to see if you can jazz it up a tad before settling on a final of course, but for whatever project you are working on, this may actually be a good design. (Though if I am on the money with this, I'd suggest cleaning it up a bit to be more obviously cartoonish and not trying to middle ground between 'speedpainting' and 'cartoon' styles)
Now, the question is if this was or wasn't your intention, or if there are demands of the project that aren't being satisfied here. Do you want a more realistic guy? Is this a game, where the art director wants to show off what the engine can do by rendering all sorts of crap on him? Or do you want to push away from a middle-ground cartoon/realism divide, push his anatomy and design to be wilder, more colorful?
The problem here is that by itself, this isn't a very striking image by itself, but on the other hand you're not obviously trying to reach a certain goal and it's coming up short. It's succeeding in its genericness. Taking it as a piece of concept design, however, I can't say, without context, anything is necessarily wrong with it. I could see this character being drawn in a more dynamically posed illustrative composition, or being animated entertainingly, and I don't think anyone would complain in that case. Put it on a wall of similar concept pieces for a guy-at-the-beach-playing-with-swords game and it makes perfect sense, but as a standalone thing it's not very exciting.
That said, if you do want your pieces to work as standalone images (and you should, if you want to make the big bucks), injecting a little more personality into the pose would help a lot. What's this guy's personality? He's just standing there, not doing anything. Is he a hot-headed guy? A smooth operator? Shy? A jock-type? Impossible to tell from the pose. I want to know what this guy's deal is just by looking at him. Are there any small touches you can use to establish a bit more context? (don't want to get too fancy since it's just a character design, but I dunno- bouncing a beachball around?) Make him live in the world you are trying to establish- any character should be more than a skin color, hairstyle and a set of clothes- the more fully you can convey who they are rather than just what they are, the better. (I think that makes sense? Maybe it doesn't, but it sounds good in a "book of quotations" kind of way.)
Twitter
Alright, guy-at-the-beach-playing-with-swords was not my intent. You are absolutely correct that this succeeds in it's genericness. I tend to just add random elements trying to make the character look cool. I never really approach it with a specific concept in mind, and I think this is what is hurting my art.
Also, I really want my concepts to work as a standalone image. The poses of my characters are always one of the weakest points.
I think this sums it up perfectly. I am really going to put effort into understanding this. I have been aware of this idea for some time, but the way you explained it really shed some light onto this concept. I'm going to try again at some point, and focus on a specific concept while keeping in mind all of this feedback.
This is now a crucial point of study for me.
Thank you, Angel of Bacon. You are awesome.
You might want to check out The Skillful Huntsman or some of the "Art of" Pixar books as well- not just for the art (which is fantastic), but the explanations in the text of what decisions the artists made when approaching their design. As Beavs said when she went out to Valve, a big thing for concepting is being able to articulate your design decisions. If an art director asks, "why is X like this?", you won't be able to get away with, "well it looks cool" as an answer a lot of the time.
Example from the Art of Ratatouille book:
Reading these sort of design explanations, from the characters, to props, to environments- right down to how the tiles are laid out on a kitchen floor- really drives home just how well thought out these movies are, and how everything is done for a reason beyond just being cool. If you apply that amount of thought to your concepting, the technical bit of actually drawing it becomes the easy part.*
*(sort of)
Twitter
hey guys
am I getting better yet
Odosketch dump:
along with this, here are some book recommendations i have:
http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Worlds-Production-Design-Animation/dp/0240520939
and
http://www.amazon.com/Prepare-Creating-Characters-Animated-Features/dp/0240808207/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1254437552&sr=1-9
don't let the cover of the last one fool you, it is an incredible resource for character, story and prop design.