my concept art design work
i've posted my portfolio here for review and i got some real good advices , thank you guys , i was actually aiming for a concept artist position but my portfolio showed no strong design skills , which i believe it's a crucial thing , so i've decided to work this up , i'll be posting my progress here , hope i receive some good feed back .
Thank you
i'll start with this
Thank you
i'll start with this
Replies
Ok this might sound a bit harsh, but you need to sit back in the sketch phase and work out your actual design.
Your biggest thing here is that the design isn't readable. All of the forms and details have a uniform scale and so the eye has no idea where to rest. Also everything is super blocky, and it feels very basic because of that. Good design isn't about complexity, it's about readability, shape language and functionality. Detail takes a back seat to all these things.
For example. Have a look at these. Very simple sketches, but it's all about size relationships, and varying between hard and soft forms to draw interest.
Sauce: http://androidarts.com/metafight/metafight2.htm
More design influence.
http://www.pinterest.com/pascalblanche/juicy-junks/
In my opinion, you could benefit from free hand drawings or explorations without going too much into detail. If you can draw an interesting silhouette and make it readable, the details or rendering would be a matter of style. Try to study from real life objects, or even copy actual designs from another people (just don't upload them anywhere and keep them to learn). Cheers!
First off lets go over your fundamentals. You're drawing in a very flat perspective and as a human we're not used to seeing machines like this because with no convergence it would have to be a mile off and through the binoculars. For your next piece at least have the 3 quarter view pieces set up in some sort of converging perspective. Your line weight is a bit stiff which is telling me you're using a lot of either the line tool or the shift tool. This is generally frowned upon because it deadens your object. Between the flat perspective the lack of line weight even amazing designs will fall flat.
Second lets go over presentation. You have 3 major issues with this and its kind of a shame because it looks like you spent a lot of time on the drawings and about 30 minutes on presentation. First, all your objects are the same size. What am I supposed to be looking at? If you're trying to get someone jazzed about the piece generally 3 quarter view is going to be your hot sell. Make that the largest on the page. The back view if you feel like you want to include it should be very small unless its describing something that needs to take up page space. If I were to take the area that every object or grouped objects take up on the page they all take the same size and therefore convey the same importance. Straight on axis views are really interesting to include but they are not your sell. Secondly, there is no value pass. Back in the day if you drew something like this on paper you would do a marker wash. Today if you do line art digitally you should still fake at the very least a quick marker wash. Doing a fast marker rendering would have really helped sell the different shapes that you can't read through your silhouette. 3rd, take away the font. A well written note will do way more wonders and to be honest... text is mostly there for display purposes. In your case it is even different colors and so it attracts more attention away from your sell. The catch is if you need the text to describe your design, you haven't done a good enough job visually communicating. I'm including a quick pass at a suggestion on how I think your designs would read clearer. This is a very fast pass so I'm not saying this is the end all.
Last lets talk about your designs. The shape is a bit boring being a rectangle but sometimes you can't avoid that. Your design language is reading very old as well, think early gundam. That being said, for that style it kinda works. The one thing its lacking though is visual understanding of what needs to be on that piece and breaks in the silhouette . When you first start a design ask yourself a ton of questions. "who is this for? who built it? what is it doing here? how old is it? Is it comfortable? Would I use it?" Cont.
Don't let this discourage you though. This was a great piece to really dig yourself into learning how to do visual design man. I'm impressed.
His presentation literally doesn't matter when the design is as clunky as this.
Non converging lines? Long straight lines are bad in sci-fi? Boxy is bad?
Syd-Mead wants to have some words with you.
His readability issues have nothing to do with straight lines and boxiness, and everything to do with no breathing room for the eye to rest. These aren't even issues that he had in any of his portfolio.
Man, this is like the 5th time where I feel like you take most of my stuff out of context. I would really like to know what your background is because I almost feel like you come from an illustrative background because we're speaking 2 different languages.
Cstlmode, american style entertainment design for movies and game developed and is still developing out of industrial design. Even the comic influenced design styles such as French and Japanese (i.e. Moebius & Otomo) rely heavily on just old school industrial design methods for designing on their work. The two biggest schools in the entertainment design field are CCS in Detroit and Art Center in CA both of which had their entertainment field develop out of their transportation design field. It is extremely fundamental that you can design sketch. This, other then your first page of thumbnails which I saw in your portfolio, is the first page of design sketch and it looks good. I'm not going to lie and say this should be included in the portfolio because its still amateur but this is defiantly going down the right direction. You should really get on pintrest and sub to a few product or industrial design boards just to learn the language.
Muzzy, the pictures from Syd Mead that you linked does not contradict what I said. You absolutely must draw stuff with converging lines in 3 quarter view or else it will flatten out your image, but you linked an orthographic view, not a 3 quarter view. If you are going to use a camera angle you have to chose a camera angle that is pleasing to the eye. A very common mistake is to draw a small prop or even vehicle in a camera you might use for a skyscraper and visa versa. If you don't draw it in the right camera you're going to kill any sort of read you might have had on the object. Choosing the right camera once again takes a ton a lot of time to learn and I wouldn't expect him to use the best one on his first piece.
Lastly about the long straight line comment. The longest straight silhouette line on the Syd mead piece maybe takes up 15%-20% the length of the mass. The rest of it has form breaking angles and extruded masses. In cstlmode's he has single lines stretching from nearly 90% of the mass. I'm actually trying to think of any design that uses long horizontals like that and perhaps the closest I could get is maybe some of the bases from the original transformers or gundam series. I'm honestly not sure though cause I don't think I've seen sci fi done that way before. Even with most of the shape heavy sci-fi coming out today its still a lot of speed forms or shape intersection that make it interesting. I still stand by my comment to long straight lines kill sci-fi.
Greg, I dunno, maybe it's just me, I think you mean well and you know what you're talking about, but I get a bit lost reading your critiques. A piece drawn in isometric view really won't affect a great design, and it won't save a bad one. worrying about converging lines is the least of his problems while trying to understand design. Your new presentation looks better than the old one, but yeah, the piece needs work before any of that.
@cstlmode
Design work is hard! Your painting skills are good, but it's a whole different ball game when you try to create something that is interesting enough to be cool, but not so far out that it's weird.
Pretty much anytime people talk about design, I link to one of Paul Richards tutorials: BAM!!
But he is such a monster when it comes to design.
The guy you are talking to obviously knows how to draw and paint. We all share a common language so you don't need to go into such depth; I'm pretty sure that he knows what a vanishing point is. I actually misinterpreted your intention with the converging line point, because you made it sound like parallel lines in design are bad in the context, which sounds silly out of context.
I think the biggest thing that i take issue with is the tone of which you write. In his portfolio thread, if i took your comment out of context i would have expected it to be a comment on an absolute beginner because of the way you were talking down to him and belittling his actual achievements.
Also in terms of straight lines killing sci-fi. I invite you to have a look through all the Homeworld concept art. http://shipyards.relicnews.com/hw2/concept.htm
Also as a final point, and this is going to sound shitty, but people do care about the work you make. As much as people like to say that your own work doesn't matter and ideas from anyone are just as valid, it's just not true. If people can't see your work to back up the attitude, people tend to jump to conclusions.
I think a big trick to designing anything is realizing that it's not always about right/wrong - really what makes something right and wrong comes and goes with the tide, but that there are certain factors you need to keep in mind to help communicate that idea to the viewer. Keep at it, though, I think you know what you're doing and you just need a bit of time to let the new shoes fit right.
hello Greg , thank you for taking the time to write me this detailed long comment , i really appreciate it man , i've made a totally new design for this props , tried to fix the issues mentioned by you and by other cool members ,
the orthographic perspective issue is fixed , i used it cause i was too fucking lazy to draw that in a normal perspective , i tried to work on the presentation too , i got little bit inspired from yours , thanx for taking the time to do that man ,
also i avoided to use strait lines as much as i can , i forced my self to do them by hand , kind of painful giving up your old bad habits but not a big deal , i kind of liked the result ,
thanx again , looking forward to hear what you think
Hello Muzz ,
thanx for you comment , tried to create more empty space for the eye ,to be honest i kind of overloaded the previous design with boring unnecessary details ,
looking forward to hear what you think about the new design i made
Hello Avantera
thanx man for your comment , yeah absolutely , design is hard , can"t agree more , thank you for the paul richards article , i read it ,really helpfull , never 50% , 50% right ? hahah
looking forward to hear what you think about the new update ,
Hello Two listen
thanx alot man , took your advice into consideration , looking forward to hear what you think about the new update ,
The line work looks great man. It has a g-tech feel about it. When you went to render it though you lost a bit of the AO that you had suggested in your line work. Also never forget specular when rendering metal objects or metal painted objects. Around the edges where it will get used it will get a bit scratched and you'll get very strong highlights that will really help sell the item.
When you dropped the Fonted text it really brought in a very hand crafted feel, now i would try to add in some hand written notes. Even a simple "front" "back" "side" hand written can be used as graphic elements to drive the eye around the page. Also never underestimate the power of a vignette, exceptionally when painted. A simple black or dark grey vignette around the top of your painted object would have given it a bit more verticle depth.
The over all design you did a much better job of breaking up the long horizontals. Its starting to take on a cold war soviet sort of vibe. Honestly, because its a stand a lone piece its hard to tell exactly what world you're building it for but like I encouraged you before, always look at real world stuff and see what shapes and design language they have. In the new Star Trek the medical labs don't look that different than medical labs in a CSI. This is because we're conditioned to expect certain things like test tubes, even if the medical lab has nothing to do with bloodwork.
Keep it up man and I look forward to seeing more of your work.
http://www.gavinrothery.com/they-never-went-to-the-moon/2011/8/21/designing-sarang-robotic-space-house-of-the-future.html
Part of a whole series by Gavin Rothery: http://www.gavinrothery.com/moon-blog-index/ about the making of the film 'Moon' The set design is very similar to yours, maybe it can inspire some more.
a small update which is actually a redesign of that stretcher thing that i have started earlier , i think i've started to put my hands on design more than ever , need more time to get more better at this
Also, great job on taking some medical references and shapes and incorporating them into your work. You're running a bit generic (very "Moon"esque) which is not a bad thing but you may want to think about what this Lunar station will be used for and by who.
You're matcing design langauge through 2 pieces now so its really awesome to see this project grow. Keep it up man this stuff is incredible.
hey Greg , thanx a lot for following this and for your helping comments , i appreciate it man , from your comments ,seams like i'm getting better , which makes me feel good , your point about the macro and the micro design is very clear i got it , i tried to incorporate this here , i don't know if you have noticed some difference ,
also the station interior painting was really hard to do , actually was one of the hardest paintings that i have ever worked on ,
, looking forward to hear what you think and what the other member think too ,
First lets start with the line art cause that is actually where I'm a bit better at. I know you intended this to be a finished piece painted but if you wanted to showcase line art you'll have to add some line weight to show separation of depth. You're using the tool where you show depth separation by allowing for a line to diminish as it goes behind something else where the bottom part of doorway goes behind the furthest medical table but you haven't applied it else where throughout your scene. Between that and line weight you could really showcase depth pretty easily.
Also there isn't much to draw your eye in the line art. The detail density is very even so the only really heavy draws are the pools of black throughout the scene and the double line that reads as a very thick line going along the ceiling.
So with your painting its a bit different of a story. You're are showing separation in room by the lighting hue. The foreground, mid ground and background are clearly distinct value wise and are done very well. I'm not too great at painting realism myself but from what I can see the two parts I would look to really push are the values on the ceiling because the shapes are hard to read and the specular on all the edges of the equipment.
As far as design goes I can really start seeing the "human" touch that is going on in your piece but there are still some things that are a bit off in terms of interaction. Take for instance the handle bar on the left side of the room. If you were to draw a human interacting with the panel on the right side of the room and assume that its comfortably at arm level interaction, the handle bar is actually almost shoulder height. Also what is it used for?
You're putting in some futuristic MRI machines so it kinda feels something medical or at the very least sterile and experimental but if I were to cut your scene in half the left side is actually starting to feel like an industrial hanger. The floor to ceiling side doors suggest some sort of vehicle movement and the yellow and black stripes are usually safety markings for industrial equipment, but why would you need that if you're just putting people on beds to load them into virtual reality machines? You're also in a very designed environment similar to that of a space station or submarine and if you're on the moon then all of your space probably serves a purpose. It may be interesting to hit at a practical reason that you have very tall ceilings. Maybe some sort of medical robotic arm or ventilation system would be interesting to suggest.
These are just a few things that sprang to mind as far as questions as to what is going on your image. Once again man, this is super impressive improvement and I hope you keep it up man. Your stuff is looking really solid now.