I feel like a douche posting such incremental changes, but....
Brighter brights (also, is the branding too tacky? keep it or leave it off?):
Also, for the sake of argument, here's an experimental splash of color. It's fun but is it worth $1-2 more per shirt (as the dude who has to pay to print these I am leaning no)?
I like it B/W with the text on the bottom! I like the orange also, but it makes me look straight at her, while in the no color one she's a shadowlurker.
Well, I'd say both have their problems. In the firs one it takes some effort to actually see there's someone there (I know it's completely different for you, the creator since you KNOW she's there) and on the second one, like Adam said, she's too eye-catchy.
Unless it WAS your intention to hide her, I guess I'd look for some middle-ground... make her slightly brighter on the whole?
BTW, did you ever finish that Sandor piece?
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NappuccinoSurveyor of Things and StuffRegistered Userregular
edited September 2012
You could balance the orange a little better- get some in the top half of the image and she won't pop out so severely.
edit: maybe in the horse's tail/mane or on the metal armor on it's head?
I'd really rather leave the orange out, Napp. There's no orange or anything near in Diamonds' (the horse's) actual design and I'd rather not shoehorn it in in order to prohibitively bump the printing cost. I'm sort of married to two colors, and I'd like to keep them pretty neutral. Popping elements out isn't really a goal; I'm trying to do something a little less obtrusive and more graphic than a straight-up character tee.
Personally I really prefer shirts without text. I usually like ones without characters, but seeing as she is so worked into the design and subtle it really works.
I think we're on the same page with shirt preferences; I hate text (particularly branding) myself & that's why I was asking if it was tacky. Thanks Kochi!
No problem. Also you should really put this on a human torso so you can see how big you want it/where it fits. Like, for dudes it doesn't really matter but I tend to not like things that sit weird on my chest.
Yeah, agree with both of you -- tiny little centered prints are generally gross & problematic. Thanks for taking the time to weigh in (& stick it all over that girl, Kochi).
If financially feasible, possible, etc., I might see how close I can get to more, like, belt printing. I think they might look better low and -- like you said, Napp, offset -- offset, a la:
(If you move this design over the other side there is potentially weird boob-interference with then mostly-centered watch guts.)
That might work, but shirts always look kinda different when you wrap them around people. I tried to line it up with where you've got it on yours. It looks pretty rad and because it's not like, directly under the bust it should look alright.
http://www.designbyhumans.com/ has a lot of atypically placed designs, maybe look at them? You should really be thinking about placement with your design while you go forward, like, the #1 thing that makes me not buy a shirt (I own a lot of shirts) is lame placement.
I feel like her calf is too short. Unless you're going for some foreshortening. If that's the case, you might wanna push the perspective on her shoe some more to make it more apparent.
Also, the hand is pretty small for the size of her arm.
At the moment your light is scattered all over the place, and it's taking away from your focal point, which is presumably the hand on the gun. You might want to try killing a lot of the brightness in the other parts of the painting and bring them up around the hand and gun.
As for the anatomy, I'm certain you'll be able to bust out something good and proper. If you haven't already, or weren't planning to, take an hour or so to put together a lighting setup similar to your drawing, and take some pictures of yourself or someone else in that pose.
An hour setting up a decent photo can save hours of frustrated guess work, especially when it comes to goddamn hands.
@Mynt -- Thanks! Yeah, calf is supposed to be foreshortened but the foot as is is not really communicating that shiz. Hand is freaky small, too. Yeah. I'll fix both.
@Chico -- That simple paintover is super informative. You're right about the focus and I think that's closer to working as intended. And I haven't taken any photos for this -- you're right about the guesswork. I'm gonna try to do that tonight.
first things that come to mind regarding that pic are:
1-very short leg (accentuated after chicoblue´s paintover)
2-very busy image with all the cogs getting in the way of everything (pre-chicoblue´s paintover) It may not be the cogs themselves too much, but combined with that semi-transparent white layer of something that is following the cogs wich make it, at least for me, a pain in the ass to read a whole.
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
Another quick pass on this. I have been a dick and disregarded your [excellent] photo ref advice Chico mostly because I'm self-conscious about asking someone to hold a camera while I pose literally like a whore with my 8-months pregnant gut.
Still I think I addressed some of the stuff. Long way to go yet though.
Its much easier to see the forshortening on the leg now, I think it looks much better, specially the calf (is that the word?). The cogs are not intrusive anymore either, and I love what you did with the hand.!
Yes, with a quick verbal "boom." You take a man's peko, you deny him his dab, all that is left is to rise up and tear down the walls of Jericho with a ".....not!" -TexiKen
As for the leg, we we don't have that much lateral movement on our lower legs (because our knees don't twist that far out) without our thighs rotating as well. In order for this to make more sense, we'd have to actually see more of the back of her thigh instead of a straight side view.
Your other option is that now that you lengthened the calf a bit from your previous image, I think you can tone down the foreshortening on the boot back towards what you originally had.
Either way, having someone act out a tough pose for you saves a lot of headache in the longrun. Even if you can't take the time to set up proper lighting.
Another, different start/sketch of another, different cover -- this one's a wraparound, so try to judge its would-be front/back/etc.. with that in mind. There's a few tangents I already need to rectify. Obviously super rough; mostly want to know if anything is glaringly bothersome, compositionally. I'm aware it's super busy; I kind of wanted the visual density to be such that the whole thing was sort of homogenous with no one element jumping out but maybe the whole approach is not great? I dunno. Thanks, guys.
(Hurtling toward being that guy whose shiz no one bothers to comment on because I never post finished work & for all you know all your crits are disappearing into a big vacuum of indifference but I promise that's not the case! If you're curious I called the other one done [due to time contstraints] here [w/o text]: )
The more I look at this, the more I like it. I'd essentially leave it as is. It is very busy, but that's not always a bad thing, especially when you are trying to make something look exciting. I like the complementary and near-complementary colors. It's got a nice rhythm, my eyes move easily around the piece. And Hunter and Vane are enough of a focal point to make things less chaotic. I don't relish giving a critique that is essentially "looks good, keep going" but if it looks good I'm not going to point out changes for the sake of changes.
If the following two trades are colored similarly, it being monochromatic helps to (immediately and visually) differentiate the collected editions from the more colorful single issues on a table at a con. I think it makes sense, even if a more colorful one would also have been good from an illustration standpoint.
The only thing that concerns me about the outlines is Vane not separating enough to convey that it's, to a layman, TOP CHARACTER versus BOTTOM CHARACTER. Her blending in with the the cast of screwed-overs might send the wrong message. Maybe if her layer is on top? There's probably something you could do with values, too, to make her separate from them further, but I like the image as it stands as a trade cover.
I haven't gotten to really work on it again but I'm going to probably substitute black outlines for white in at least a few places, which might alleviate your issue, Napp.
Toji I see what you mean, and I think I probably will first try pulling her out with value. She'd look more effectively antithetical if she were darker, and the value range on the screwed-overs (calling them that forever) maybe lends them too much visual weight given how clumpily grouped they are. They could be midrangier.
I'll get on it when I'm out from under everything associated with Thanksgiving.
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I feel like a douche posting such incremental changes, but....
Brighter brights (also, is the branding too tacky? keep it or leave it off?):
Also, for the sake of argument, here's an experimental splash of color. It's fun but is it worth $1-2 more per shirt (as the dude who has to pay to print these I am leaning no)?
INSTAGRAM
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
Unless it WAS your intention to hide her, I guess I'd look for some middle-ground... make her slightly brighter on the whole?
BTW, did you ever finish that Sandor piece?
edit: maybe in the horse's tail/mane or on the metal armor on it's head?
I'd really rather leave the orange out, Napp. There's no orange or anything near in Diamonds' (the horse's) actual design and I'd rather not shoehorn it in in order to prohibitively bump the printing cost. I'm sort of married to two colors, and I'd like to keep them pretty neutral. Popping elements out isn't really a goal; I'm trying to do something a little less obtrusive and more graphic than a straight-up character tee.
@Mayday Nah, I never touched that again.
Minimal pawing at the first one and a vague start on the second, which is probably too high-contrast ATM.
Good
Bad, because it kind of sits awkwardly been your boobs
because of the flow in this one it doesn't really have the, this is in the middle of my boobs problem in the same way....
unless you make it super small like this, then it kind of cups one boob.
Also, I much prefer the right "good" one for the first- But I've never cared for shirts that have an image over the entire front of it.
If financially feasible, possible, etc., I might see how close I can get to more, like, belt printing. I think they might look better low and -- like you said, Napp, offset -- offset, a la:
(If you move this design over the other side there is potentially weird boob-interference with then mostly-centered watch guts.)
heres the girl for you to try it out on, btw: http://i.imgur.com/ErZx4.jpg It's just the threadless girl model.
http://www.designbyhumans.com/ has a lot of atypically placed designs, maybe look at them? You should really be thinking about placement with your design while you go forward, like, the #1 thing that makes me not buy a shirt (I own a lot of shirts) is lame placement.
What's all wrong with it? Thanks guys.
I feel like her calf is too short. Unless you're going for some foreshortening. If that's the case, you might wanna push the perspective on her shoe some more to make it more apparent.
Also, the hand is pretty small for the size of her arm.
As for the anatomy, I'm certain you'll be able to bust out something good and proper. If you haven't already, or weren't planning to, take an hour or so to put together a lighting setup similar to your drawing, and take some pictures of yourself or someone else in that pose.
An hour setting up a decent photo can save hours of frustrated guess work, especially when it comes to goddamn hands.
@Chico -- That simple paintover is super informative. You're right about the focus and I think that's closer to working as intended. And I haven't taken any photos for this -- you're right about the guesswork. I'm gonna try to do that tonight.
Thanks you guys!
1-very short leg (accentuated after chicoblue´s paintover)
2-very busy image with all the cogs getting in the way of everything (pre-chicoblue´s paintover) It may not be the cogs themselves too much, but combined with that semi-transparent white layer of something that is following the cogs wich make it, at least for me, a pain in the ass to read a whole.
Still I think I addressed some of the stuff. Long way to go yet though.
As for the leg, we we don't have that much lateral movement on our lower legs (because our knees don't twist that far out) without our thighs rotating as well. In order for this to make more sense, we'd have to actually see more of the back of her thigh instead of a straight side view.
Your other option is that now that you lengthened the calf a bit from your previous image, I think you can tone down the foreshortening on the boot back towards what you originally had.
Either way, having someone act out a tough pose for you saves a lot of headache in the longrun. Even if you can't take the time to set up proper lighting.
(Hurtling toward being that guy whose shiz no one bothers to comment on because I never post finished work & for all you know all your crits are disappearing into a big vacuum of indifference but I promise that's not the case! If you're curious I called the other one done [due to time contstraints] here [w/o text]: )
I have some thoughts, but I don't have time to write them right now. And I'm not really sure if they would improve the piece.
I would either get rid of the lines, or pick a color that is more complimentary to the ones around it.
The only thing that concerns me about the outlines is Vane not separating enough to convey that it's, to a layman, TOP CHARACTER versus BOTTOM CHARACTER. Her blending in with the the cast of screwed-overs might send the wrong message. Maybe if her layer is on top? There's probably something you could do with values, too, to make her separate from them further, but I like the image as it stands as a trade cover.
I haven't gotten to really work on it again but I'm going to probably substitute black outlines for white in at least a few places, which might alleviate your issue, Napp.
Toji I see what you mean, and I think I probably will first try pulling her out with value. She'd look more effectively antithetical if she were darker, and the value range on the screwed-overs (calling them that forever) maybe lends them too much visual weight given how clumpily grouped they are. They could be midrangier.
I'll get on it when I'm out from under everything associated with Thanksgiving.