Greg Improvement Thread (Critique Needed)

GregMack

Hey All,

I graduated a while back from art school and now have a comfy job doing graphic design for corporate, while the pay and benefits are great, I want to be creating artwork for games. After school I grew insular as an artist for numerous reasons and my work ethic deteriorated. When I got my new (current) job I moved in with an old roommate from art school days that I had kept in touch with. He suggested that I read his copy of Show Your Work by Austin Kleon and I realized why it felt like such a slog completing work for myself.

That kind of leads me to the here and now. I'm looking for improvement and suggestions in all areas, from workflow to technique and tools. Things I struggle with the most are environments/vehicles so have taken to doing daily sketchbook studies of both. I'm attaching WIP or uncompleted work here as I know I can improve in many other areas as well. For refrence I have attached one finished piece and my artstation account and the account itself.

https://www.artstation.com/artist/gregorymack

_Hofsta_

Cool stuff. I really like your environment sketches. I'm actually in a similar boat as you (minus the comfy corporate graphic design job) so I fully understand the struggle of being unmotivated to produce work only for yourself.

The only crits I can give here is that it seems that your brushwork, lighting and rendering techniques are all a few steps ahead of your composition and anatomy. In regards to the two pieces with characters that you are showing here that's what I would suggest working on.

I've been doing daily figure drawing exercises to help with my posing and anatomy, maybe add that into your sketch routine as well?

Keep at it man, good luck!

GregMack

Thanks for the feedback, I'll shift some time studying back to anatomy and post my progress!

DrawingMoose

Yeah I'd agree with Hofsta. You might want to look into constructing your characters and shapes a bit more. Understanding of anatomy helps, but also look into how shapes are built up and how the light/shadow would respond to that (eg: the golden shoulder armor doesn't quite fit into the perspective space you've made). You're on to a great start though, keep it going!

GregMack

Thanks Moose and Hofsta for the feedback so far. I did some sketches of mostly male anatomy last night/today trying to focus on muscle groups and shapes as you both suggested. I will keep posting daily as I tackle this subject so feel free to give any kind of further feedback in the days ahead.

GregMack

miguelnarayan

Anatomy is no picnic. You're certainly on the right track. I came from a digital art and design graduation, but they focused more on the graphic communication design side of things as time went by, I relate to your situation. Many great concept artists came from graphic design and went into concept art later, so don't worry, it has been done before, and you certainly seem to be able to do it. I like your colors

GregMack

miguelnarayan said:

Anatomy is no picnic. You're certainly on the right track. I came from a digital art and design graduation, but they focused more on the graphic communication design side of things as time went by, I relate to your situation. Many great concept artists came from graphic design and went into concept art later, so don't worry, it has been done before, and you certainly seem to be able to do it. I like your colors

Thanks man, yeah I'm trying to get back into good study habits, so easy to let everything slide and produce the same work over and over.

_Hofsta_

for sure on the right track with these. I do a very similar sheet of anatomy sketches every day as a warm-up before work.
Keep um coming!

GregMack

Ever since seeing David Platt's (among others) lighting processes on Artstation I've been itching to try some new coloring methods the past few days. In the past I've tended to favor rim lighting over everything else and fail to breakout my light sources. The result? Constant retouching of edges and hours of frustration. I'm pretty happy with the speed I was able to produce these and plan to do more heads/anatomy in this coloring style to round out my process. As usually I look forward to any feedback! :proud:

GregMack

Sorry for the lack of updates guys, I went camping for July 4th, celebrated my Dad's b-day and got some bad news about one of my relatives health all in this week.

Drow Image: Attempted to solve anatomy issues pointed out by others by fixing the back hand, feet and waist line.

Skill Icons: Started these as something to fluff my portfolio and I'm having a blast practicing new lighting styles and layer effects. Going forward I think it would be prudent for me to thumbnail vfx and materials in a similar fashion before I start a piece as complex as the Drow.

Beestonian

Nice work! If you'd like feedback, first thing that pops to mind is to push your material definitions a little more. Brighter speculars on the metal, tighter value ranges on the tightpants of the elf, things of that nature. Try and make metal look like metal, wood look like wood, hair like hair, etc. Even when stylizing them there is room for added clarity.

Happy hunting!

GregMack

So I'm going to be posting updates as I follow through every Tuesday. It's easier if I make a list to explain what I tackled:

-Anatomy studies (should have done more, but didn't have the time to gather ref this week)
-Icons cont. (critique on if materials read/how to improve be greatly appreciated, keep in mind they would be viewed by players as thumbnails on a skillbar)
-Planet tutorial (came out looking fairly generic, but tutorial had some cool lighting tips)
-Mobile RPG Game Layout
        -Trying to get my foot in the industry and many people have told me to start in mobile
        -Painting assets and laying out background so making the vectors will be quick and easy

Let me know your thoughts or advice on literally anything. I will possibly be doing some QA Testing for a game studio over the week so either
A) I will get the week off and I will have a ton of work to show next Tuesday
I will be working from 9am to 1am and be beyond tired :awesome: 
C) My boss lets me go early each day so I dont die of exhaustion

miguelnarayan

Good luck on your game studio test!

GregMack

@miguelnarayan oh it's just some quality assurance work nothing art related sadly, but maybe i can woo them with my winning personality overtime haha. :silenced:

GregMack

Well I got my week off....and the same day the company rep reached out to me to tell me their test was canceled. I explained that I took a week off explicitly for this opportunity, but they had no other test currently ongoing. Time to art harder.

GregMack

No jury duty this week! Spent a lot of the week + monday with the family because a relative was in poor health, but I'm arting again.

Mobile RPG Layout - Trying to keep colors simple to make selections easy for vectorization, not going to sweat line quality except for the character.
Icons - Further refinement of effects/ materials, almost completed 4th row, probably will be another consumable like the potions or food.
Environment Studies - Trying to broaden my palette horizons so I can make better decisions when concepting environments.

GregMack

It's been a wild week sorry for the lack of work! I've attempted experimenting with UI building in Photoshop using shapes and Bevel/emboss and it's been slow going. I just downloaded all the WoW UI textures and look forward to what tricks I can learn from pecking those apart. I also stumbled upon Tsuyoshi Nagano's work a talented artist who did amazing illustrations for all Star Wars Japanese book covers in the 80's/90's. The theatrical nature left me completely blown away!

GregMack

New update! Shifting my focus to producing solid monsters and armor turn around concepts while working simultaneously on the Sylvanas fan art and the skill icons.

I stopped working on the user interface concept after i downloaded all the WoW ui textures. I never knew they were so high quality when I played WoW and want to study them throughly before I attempt doing UI again.

Feedback on my thumbs would be great, do you have a favorite, or should I keep going? For the fan art I attempted to solve the material and anatomy problems spotted earlier. Thanks all!

Tomiajayi

Hey those anatomy tests look pretty darn good if you ask me!

GregMack

Tomiajayi said:

Hey those anatomy tests look pretty darn good if you ask me!

Thanks! Sorry was away for the past week. 

GregMack

Whew um 8 months, a lot has happened. I'm just going to pickup where I left off and not spend too much time dwelling on what happened in between. If you want to see my newer work you can visit my artstation, but I am going to keep this focused on process. Also why does my artstation signature always redirect to that cheapo looking website interface?!?!? >:O

This next project has a two week deadline roughly (self imposed) and my deliverable is twofold:

1) Finished Illustration 2) Concept Sheet w/ relevant information (turnaround, skills, movement etc.)

This is a high level view at my concept. Materials, reference, inspiration etc.

GregMack

zachvance

Love the details and the style of that suit. Hope we get to see a more polished version!

GregMack

So after some thinking, I decided to pivot my idea quite a bit. While I wanted to do something with more military and scifi influences, it was straying just a bit to close to waifu territory with the whole 'emotionless android uses gunz and iz hawt.'Also the sticker part of the concept seems like a rebellious activity a killing robot wouldn't do, but a human would.

Here is the result of my brainstorming so far, a pilot who chooses to rebel, a mech suit to get inside of and the rough sticker designs. The stickers look rough now, but I will be taking them into Illustrator now that the designs are solid.

Doodlok

Man, improvement threads are the most fun to look at, aren't they? (No shame)

Not that I'm any qualified for feedbacks so take it with a grain of salt, and I absolutely love your stuff and it's a lot of fun to look at.

I think, as peopel above pointed out, your environment / lighting / rendering skills are really striking out in comparison to your anatomy skills; I see you've been grinding them so Im sure they'd improve in no time.

Also, did you change your brushes? I personally prefer the thick, almost impasto application of brushstrokes of your early works over the new style.. but that might be just a preference

Keeeep up the good work, excited to see where this would go in future!

GregMack

Doodlok said:

Man, improvement threads are the most fun to look at, aren't they? (No shame)

Not that I'm any qualified for feedbacks so take it with a grain of salt, and I absolutely love your stuff and it's a lot of fun to look at.

I think, as peopel above pointed out, your environment / lighting / rendering skills are really striking out in comparison to your anatomy skills; I see you've been grinding them so Im sure they'd improve in no time.

Also, did you change your brushes? I personally prefer the thick, almost impasto application of brushstrokes of your early works over the new style.. but that might be just a preference

Keeeep up the good work, excited to see where this would go in future!

Thanks for the feedback Doodlok! I have been using some softer brushes, but I can see how that can suck the character out of things. My materials are definitely not strong yet, looking at Riot illustrations kind of casts my work in stark relief. I look forward to your continued feedback!

GregMack

Further progress on the jumpsuit

chubbycat

Looking good, Greg. Your anatomy knowledge is coming along nicely. Just be careful with how you place the breasts and breastplate. On the render above her breast are at her armpits, making the whole area look uncomfortable and unnatural. Also, she seems like she's a strong lady, and even slim women have definition separating their traps and deltoids. The area between the neck and shoulders isn't a simple sweeping line.

Be careful with the rendering of her left eye. I know a secondary light source is hitting it, but it's looks 'milky' compared to her right one. The head is angled away from us slightly, so why is the left eye the same size as the right?

Hope that helps. Keep pushing it man!  

GregMack

chubbycat said:

Looking good, Greg. Your anatomy knowledge is coming along nicely. Just be careful with how you place the breasts and breastplate. On the render above her breast are at her armpits, making the whole area look uncomfortable and unnatural. Also, she seems like she's a strong lady, and even slim women have definition separating their traps and deltoids. The area between the neck and shoulders isn't a simple sweeping line.

Be careful with the rendering of her left eye. I know a secondary light source is hitting it, but it's looks 'milky' compared to her right one. The head is angled away from us slightly, so why is the left eye the same size as the right?

Hope that helps. Keep pushing it man!  

Thanks! I think your spot on about the lighting, 'milky' eye and arm slouching, I'll post back with an update on her.

GregMack

Another minor update, had a chance to work on the pilot a bit again but more importantly I sent out my first applications in over half a year and got several art tests back. I'm pretty excited and having completed one of the tests I learned something pretty valuable.

I should probably be using my sketchbook for everything.

 

Basic I know, but I had always shied away from using my sketchbook for portfolio art. I mean what's the point if you have to reproduce all that work or clean up the scans/photos of it? Or at least that was my thinking. I found out through the art test I can move faster in a sketchbook and reduce time going in creative circles. Working on this pilot character after that experience, I realize how much time I've wasted literally painting and rendering a not fully formed idea. I'm not bummed about it, but I am wondering if this current project even aligns with my portfolios needs...regardless excited about the art tests and looking forward to posting more frequently.

GregMack

So I just discovered Krita. This might be a game changer for me...

I have only tested out the round brush, symmetry and perspective controllers but I am sold. I use 3rd party plugins and action scripts in an attempt to make CC do what Krita comes packaged with seamlessly. If anyone has experience with this program I'd be glad to know if they have any gripes. BACK TO ART!!!!!!

GregMack

Some rendering material/style studies I wanted to post before I delved more into Krita.

lotet

wow, Thats a big skill leap you did in a very short amount of time.

GregMack

lotet said:

wow, Thats a big skill leap you did in a very short amount of time.

Thanks, I studied my references and then kept them side by side and flip from color/grayscale. As I would paint over my lines I would look over and compare when my values were getting way off. For instance the man with glasses's made me realize how dang bright I always make hair values.



I don't think using photo's as a crutch for values is the best way to do work work (ideally you'd pull leather, cloth and skin values out instinctively as they are pretty basic), but it may be the best way for me to learn for now.

GregMack

GregMack

GregMack

Somehow I always seem to lose focus of what I want to be doing, after talking to my sis and looking at some Blizz/Riot artwork this past week I'm back on track I think. No more detours just making stories! Any feedback on my cutthroat duder appreciated

lotet

Looks good, id say you should ad an inch or two to the neck though.

GregMack

lotet said:

Looks good, id say you should ad an inch or two to the neck though.

Yeah thanks for pointing that out, it didn't look like he was slouching  so much as his neck didn't exist. I also brushed back the hair and moved the pauldrons to show traps and better sell that area.

lotet

Looking much better!
be careful about your perspective and middle cuts though.
I traced some red lines to check the horizontal perspective, and they are going all of the place, also the back leg is looking really skewed if you look at the purple lines.

(EDIT: lol, realized I totally botched some of those lines, but you get the idea I hope :P)

GregMack

Went through and readjusted the perspective along my character and added some more refinement. Upped boot size, foot position and moved tabard inward.