DWIII - 2D - Wake - Barbarossa
polycounter lvl 17
Edit-- Here's where I am currently:
So, firing up with a few batches of thumbnails first. Especially considering that I'm doing 2D, I'm going to take my time on this step. I really do want to shoot for the outlandish, and try to avoid the typical fantasy clich
So, firing up with a few batches of thumbnails first. Especially considering that I'm doing 2D, I'm going to take my time on this step. I really do want to shoot for the outlandish, and try to avoid the typical fantasy clich
Replies
Nice thumbs, can't wait to see how they evolve.
slosh- #10 started as a tree that ended up turned on its side. Might end up that his left arm is a massive appendage, would probably go in the vegetation category if so. I do like the silhouette tho, whatever it ends up being.
Clint- #1 is definitely the most aggressive and *alien* looking at this point in the game. Sometimes your first try just ends up working out...
Anyway, here's a few more for you folks to play with until tomorrow. I'm done for tonight, be back later with more thumbs until I find one to develop that I'm really feelin.
Spent some time on these thinking about embedding the artifact in the character. I like 18 as a creature that swallowed an artifact and suddenly became this hideous, sentient monster. I also like the idea of a broken phone booth becoming an arcane weapon. Aces.
(1)"proper" thumbnailing, which is to say, a sheet of thumbnails, done as a sheet, together.
(2)"layers" thumbnailing, by which i mean using layers to keep thumbnails in the same space, but visibly apart until you compile them.
(3)"iterative" thumbnailing--much like layered thumbnails, but a copy-paste from one layer to the next and iterating successively on a single design.
the important remarks is that traditional one-sheet thumbnailing will mean that you're far more consciously influenced by the other thumbnails--spatially most of all, since the shapes you draw on a page are always in relation to what's already on the page and the borders of the page itself. this is both positive and potentially negative. the andrew jones method, an advanced one-sheet type thumbnailing process, is awesome for developing a whole bunch of related forms and characters at once, but not so hot for trying to hit up wildly different ideas.
layered thumbnailing, on the other hand, helps free you from consciously thinking about the last thumbnail you did, since it isn't visible. i can find this helpful if i really don't want to keep the last sketch in mind, and don't want neighboring spaces to influence composition... just start a new layer and doodle. the temptation with this method, while naturally most amenable to photoshop sketching, is that you'll not be doing thumbnails at all, but sketching too big/greater detail than you ought early on. even on thumbnails i like to keep the canvas fairly sizable (600x600 let's say), but i hedge off this problem by keeping the canvas zoomed out, and even my head craned back a bit from the screen. in fact, the secret to improved PS painting for me as of late has been the same few tricks to keep a good eye on the overall canvas.
iterative should usually be reserved as a stage two deal, once you know you've gotten a really strong silhouette and now want to think about macro-level details, weapon, stance, major variations, and whatever. but even iterative can still help with initial thumbnails, since you can catch a great gestural seed and then spin it off into different silhouettes.
you'll see a lot of each approach. remember what el coro said, it's all a big toolbox, and the more approaches and techniques you can add to that toolbox, the better you are. vary up the way you approach thumbnails themselves to get the maximum variety of options.
I personally am liking 23's face and 27 looks like it could blow some serious shit up. Or, well, smash some stuff. One step closer...
Very interesting design!
Or something like that...
i love the idea of a rusted out tank husk, imbedded upside down for a head. tank treads up, turret poking through the "face" area imbedded. sort of like how rooster is designing his character's forebearer as he might have appeared in the last war to get an idea of where his character is now, i think it'd be a fun little exercise to actually design the tank properly, then flip it over/crunch/corrode it into the head design. you can even work in some vaguely creepy facial/skull features suggestions into the undercarriage of the tank, but that should be done carefully.
oh and don't be too stingy with the images, they're a little on the small side so it's hard to read the details on your inset orthos. good work on the action sketch, too.
When I do get around to doing an updated drawing, I'm tinkering with the idea of blowing out the barrel to give it a more interesting look. We'll see how that goes.
Anyway, here's the aforementioned idea of the exploded barrel eyepiece. In my imagination it was much cooler looking; as of right now it's rather underwhelming. I think the frontal pose isn't helping-- to get the dynamic look of the barrel you need more of a side view (something I should have thought about before I started the drawing).
Some ideas would be to just make a bigger barrel, make more barrels, or more interesting barrels. Another idea would be to integrate more of the broken vehicle into the faceplate than I have so far.
I also just need to take one of the images and develop it more, as right now I haven't ventured beyond the 'super-sketchy' area. Unfortunately thats where I get in trouble.
What I am happy about, however, is how the arms look tucked back behind the body. I'd like to spend more time exploring the different action poses of this guy-- the first one was full combat mode and the ortho was ready to attack. This one is more just traveling. I think I might try one with the second set of arms fully extended in a sprint, on all fours or even all sixes.
Crits are always welcome, and even a paintover or two if any of you are feeling generous.
Ok, serious business now. Took a few hours to pound this one out-- overworked and again took too long, but you can't have it all, can you?
I've elongated the head and torso, separated the upper and lower arms more, and tried some funky stuff with the actual texture of this beastie. I'm not sure if I like the ribbing-- starting to feel too much like aliens, and doesn't necessarily match up with the original idea of earthen construct. With the head, I went with more of a mortar piece with a much larger barrel, and I think it works better for the eye. I also returned to the first iteration where the upturned treads formed the top of the head. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how this went, but there's still a long way to go, of course.
In case it's not clear, the idea is that the goliath has your run of the mill mage-with-mana-shield pinned, and is in the process of cracking it like a nut. I imagined that the rock would become searing hot and blunted from repeatedly hitting the shield. Safe to say that guy's gonna get splattered
So yeah, progress so far with the 2 sketches leading up. Next step is to do a detail pass and really start to figure out what's going on with the shape and figure. Too much cheating with generic painterly blur right now.
Anyway, my giant with maw sans eyes.
that is fucking badass
So the idea that I'm throwing around is that at the pinnacle of the robot war, the mechanized forces of polycount had to make a serious adjustment, as the robots were able to scramble/disable all but the most protected equipment. As a result the ancient weapons of bygone wars were hurriedly rushed into service. This one, the behemoth, was the oldest of the bunch, not even possessing a motor but specially tailored to be pushed by a beast of burden. -insert dramatic story where the cannon was destroyed and the beast dies or something HERE-
Point being, the four-armed giant tank head takes the form of the original beast of burden, some 6 appendaged thing, which now dwells within the husk.
Hopefully that made some semblance of sense.
(arrow points to where the beast would push)
I do agree that losing the tank seems to make the character come together... now.. I was liking the idea of having external stuff attached, so why not experiment with organic stuff?
As I said, the central feature is the tank head, which needs to serve AS A HEAD, if that makes sense. Right now it's just broken equipment stuck on top of a moving dirt pile. It needs some character. I like the ancient battlewagon stuff I had going on earlier, and I'm toying with the idea that he uses the destroyed hulks of enemy machinery as armored plating-- tank hulls torn in half to protect joints, the hull plating of a battleship for a breastplate. Battleships... battleships have big guns...
Anyway, so here's a quick update for some of what I'm doing. Next I'll post some of the references I've collected; which by the way, everyone is welcome to post cool or unique weapons of war-- any help is always welcome.
I've got a long way to go
and 3
I went with a combination of 1 and 9; I like the longer barrel, and the blast shield adds some great shapes and personality to the head. What I have on the head now is a combination of those earlier references (based on artillery pieces) and some new refs of infantry based anti-tank weaponry from WWII. The blast shield I've got going on here is an exaggeration of existing ones, as I was trying to maximize the detail. On a side note, I'm happy with how the little bonsai trees and grasses are looking.
I have to say, detailed line drawings are brutal but rewarding. I'm cramming so much more detail in working this way, and I think having this as a base will dramatically help my paintover. Right now its actually a little busy, especially in the chest area, but I think that'll resolve itself with shading. Anyway, my hope is to finish this pose tonight, and tomorrow do a new action pose with the final design.
Anyway, thanks for the input-- always appreciated.
yeah it's busy, but like you say, most of that will be solved once painted. that level of detail is definitely forcing you to realize it far better than you have previous pieces, which is a very good thing. something to watch out for though at this stage is to not forget about macro-level detail, which is to say, the larger shapes/muscles of his body. because you're covering up so much of his surface area with rocks and miscellany (which does look good), you're copping out of making those still very general shapes of the limbs read as having muscle or tension or more particular shapes. does that make sense? i don't think you have to lose any progress here, but getting some more muscle/shape-lines within the silhouette of the arms and legs will really help flesh them out.
aside from that, the detail level really is paying off. the blast shield on the anti-tank piece really gives a lot of convincing detail to the piece. i'm not so sold on whatever is covering his torso, however; the horizontal line under his armpits reads almost as "corset", which is obviously not what you're going for. the material read is almost wood--is it metal? try and give it its own shape/area of interest without losing the hierarchical quality you've established already (the head is, as it should be, the clear focal point).
anyway, keep up the good work and keep posting updates. very cool stuff.
Every time I come back to this the anatomy changes again
Middle arms are still amorphous blobs, but a little better resolved than earlier. Still don't know where I'm going with that either.
All I know is, I like the rock vibe I've got going on, but right now everything looks too similar excepting the head. I might look into making the lower body out of scrap metal as opposed to earth. That way it's like he's absorbing the wreckage of busted robots into his body structure, making it even tougher the more he fights. Or something.
Damn concepting is hard
What really sold it for me, besides the fact that I just think it sounds cool, are the implications behind the name. i.e. Operation Barbarossa, which was the largest offensive the world has ever seen, where brutal conditions and severe casualties on were suffered by both sides. Also Frederick Barbarossa, for whom the offensive was named, was the Holy Roman Emperor who led the Third Crusade alongside the more famous Richard Lionheart.
I knew my 1 year as a history major would pay off someday
I'm itchin' to see this guy break some shit.
I'm trying to give him some weight and atmosphere on this one, avoiding overt linework for now until I can start hammering out the details. For now, I'm just trying to get the pose right while juggling colors as well.
Oh, and that's a robot about to get smashed.