Tsuchinoko's Critique Thread

tsuchinoko

So, I think I'm doing this right. I'm changing my previous thread into a more general critique thread. If there's another way to do this, I'll gladly listen to any recommendations!

tsuchinoko

Eyyy, 100 hits, no comments? What's up? 2D dead?

Avanthera

Hey Tsuchinoko,

I think it has more to do with where you are skill wise makes it harder to put down a useful and valuable critique. Much easier to crit beginners with who a simple word or two will do wonders.

Onto your pieces;

The sketches could use a more careful eye on the proportions, individual pieces don't look bad, but some body parts seem out of scale with the rest of the character.

The rendered piece looks better, it has much better proportion control, but I think the values could use some help. You have lots of soft gradients, but materials don't really work like that, the rolloff from lit to shade is much shorter. I'd go for more of a two-tone render and then blend a slight bit on forms to avoid such soft value changes. I did a quick paintover on the arm to show what I mean:



Good luck!

tsuchinoko

@Avanthera, thanks for the reply!

The sketches are lazy honestly. Working straight in pencil has it's flaw of not seeing the whole form yet.

And the blending: It's a pain in the ass to do in photoshop. I've conditioned myself to a layered approach, almost like airbrushing? But, I like your example. I think for the next one, I'll paint all the color on one layer. The problem I have is I like to go back and color-tweak everything. And if it's all one layer, the colors all change simultaneously, unless there's a different way to change colors in PS?

One thing I'd like to try on the new piece, is add in some textures for the limbs. But I dunno if that would look distracting.

tsuchinoko

So, trying to get around to finishing up X. Here's some WIP for the pose & colors:





I'm going to use the pose on the right, hence the colors. The idea is to compliment the Zero piece. I maaaaay even do Vile/Vava, but haven't worked up any ideas for that.

Comments/critiques welcome

ralphosn

Your drawing and rendering are very nice but you can't really distinguish the shading valus because of the soft brushing. Material definition is also lacking. Try to work with clear layers of core shadow, highlight, etc, ...

- Weird light direction: http://i.imgur.com/IwBtmT4.jpg
- Light theory: http://www.udel.edu/artfoundations/drawing/images/txbk_valuesphere.jpg
- Light on Iron man: http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/marvelmovies/images/9/99/1185ironmanavengers.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130526133151

tsuchinoko

@ralphosn: Thanks for the feedback! I think it comes from a personal quirk that I have yet to work out. I can't ever decide if I want to go for realism or stylized rendering.

I'd say I aim to have a cross between the two? Something inbetween:



and



While I admit I can't render anywhere near the Iron Man piece, I enjoy the look of the Zero piece. I found this link in another thread, going to read it over for some more tips.

tsuchinoko

Update: went out on a limb and tried a different painting approach. Which, is actually painting. And not layers of rendering. C&C welcome~

Edit: still getting used to PC's new forum thing. Can we just upload images now, or what?

Operator

I really do like the colors and the shading on this one, and the design is solid as well. However, the posing and expression of the character bring all the good work on the lines and shading down a lot. First, the pose is hard to read - it's hard to understand what it represents. The outstretched gun-hand makes it look dynamic and threatening, but the left hand, weirdly crooked with a crippled out palm doesn't go with it. The character looks somewhat down, and not forward like you'd expect, and his expression is equally vague.

It's evident that you put quite a heavy amount of rendering into this, and it pays off - the details and parts of the suit look pleasingly 3D-esque and functional, but it seems like it was all drawn on a not very successful barebone sketch. So I'd advice you to run through posing thumbnails and roughs for your characters before moving into an actual drawing phase.

tsuchinoko

Hey there Operator, thanks for the feedback. For what I attempted to accomplish with this piece, I think it is a success. Obviously I aim to keep developing my rendering abilities, but I take it as a good sign that now the feedback has shifted to other elements.

I agree with your comment about the hand and face. I redid the face 3 times before arriving here, but I still think it reads as "mild acid reflux", and not "maverick hunter". The hand is strange, but I imagined this pose would arrive in motion? Like, a dynamic ready-for-battle stance. But I suppose a balled fist could work? 

And about the pose; I did go through a variety of thumbs that would show off the character, and at the same time compliment but not copy my Zero piece. I initially wanted to do the one with the orangish star next to it, but felt it was too similar to the Zero piece. 


And the underdrawing was a cleanup from the previous posts. Not quite as clean as the Zero piece, but not a rough sketch.



I do appreciate your feedback. At this point, is it worth to go back and redo these elements on this piece, or just "take note" and attempt to do better on something else?

Greg Westphal

Its worth going back and redoing but before that I would practice rendering on a smaller scale they materials you are looking for in the style you want.  If you rendered a few shapes in the way the Iron Man you posted was, you would alleviate the pressure of trying to do a full character at once while building up a process. 

Great work on this piece man. Your studies are really showcasing your train of thought on this and I wish I had more than 5 minutes to do a draw over but I have to head out in like 15 so I was only able to really point out a few things I saw.  First, the character doesn't sit well in the camera angle you chose.  The gun arm is dynamic, his shoulders are aggressively angled into the camera, but the hips are really flat and the feet are equal distance from the camera although the one is at a higher elevation.  I would find the horizon line on the guy (because he is dramatic I would think its about chest height and then find out where the ground plan is so the guy can be standing on the floor accurately.  In my draw over I just made him jumping for the purpose of ease.  Secondly, contra-posture is going to be huge in selling this guys pose.  His shoulders already have it.  The gun arm is is elevated which caused the back arm to drop and go backwards hiding it from camera.  When this happens the opposite leg, the one bent, receives most of the weight causing the torso to contract on that side while stretch on the side facing the camera.  Right now the hips are just flat and where the skull connects to the spine (the middle point of the body) falls almost equal distance in between the legs.  Lastly, check your proportions on the legs and arms again.  If you can swing the arm through the body the elbow should hit almost at bellybutton and the hand would end halfway between groin and knee.  I think this might have a problem with the legs being a bit small or the perspective on them being flat but right now it seems like the legs are a bit off. 

This is probably frustrating having already spent 2 months on this but its getting better and it seems like you're learning a lot so its not a bad thing at all.   Hope this helps man and once again sorry I was so short on time for the draw over.

tsuchinoko

Hi Greg,

This is actually very helpful, even in a quick moment! And to be honest, the total time for this piece was about 2 weeks on-and-off, actual painting only took about a week? It was put on temporary hiatus for another project. 
One reason I chose a more grounded pose was because I didn't like how the Zero piece was just floating in midair. Your first paintover is interesting, but I'm not liking how elongated he appears, everything is almost too stretched. Your second paintovers are helpful. Is it strange to admit I rarely proportion characters out to a head-height? Isn't the simple solution to just reduce or increase the size of the head, depending on how tall you want your character? And I think the legs look funny because it's a combination of: contrapposto + eye level at chest + foreshortening. You've got me doing my own paintovers:


If I've put myself into a corner with these, let me know. 

Greg Westphal

You're not in a corner at all.  Its interesting to see your draw through because you have so much energy in your looser stuff that gets lost when you tighten up. I'll honestly have to take a closer look to figure out what is off but this is not something that I can say "ah its this" because tbh, I'm not much of a character guy.  It could be something as varying the lineweight a bit more or as complex as needing to get a friend to take a photo of you in that pose with the camera to figure out if anything is off.  I think you're right though that it is just a bit goofy in terms of a combination of horizon line and forshortening.  I would still think about dropping the hip on the extended leg though because right now it is higher in elevation than the one bearing weight which usually only happens when you kick forward.

RainbowRat

I think the coloring and rendering looks great so far! The most useful things have already been mentioned by now but I just wanted to let you know it looks pretty cool so far. I usually do super dynamic characters and poses which might be the reason why your poses appear pretty static to me.. plus seeing anime characters, which usually behave pretty stretchy as well, in realistic poses adds to that staticness even more. But this doesn´t seem to be your main goal now anyway, does it : P So, yeah, like Ralphosn said, just do some more material studies for the plastic/cloth/metal parts.

tsuchinoko

@RainbowRat  Thanks! And yea, I'm starting to think I should attempt one of those giant material painting exercises, with like 30 different types of items? But maybe scaled back to 10 for a start? 

@Greg Westphal  There does seem to be a "not sure what's off / close but no cigar" happening here. I try not to rely on mannequins for figure reference, but it's making me want to pose it with an action figure or character rig. 

RainbowRat

I think you can scale it down to the amount of textures you need, no? Cloth, plastic, glas, metal etc.
If I did 30 texture studies now, even ones I don´t necessarily need for the current project at hand, I´d be afraid to forget them because I haven´t used them
: P These walls of texture studies people sometimes post is amazing but... dunno, probably not suitable for me.

tsuchinoko

@RainbowRat  Yea, I hear ya. I'm always conflicted between doing studies for their own sake, and studying things that serve an immediate purpose? 

tsuchinoko

Update: Worked on the proportions and line quality. The foreshortened arm looks odd to me, but I think it'll read better once it's painted. Going to hold off this time to render anything, so C&C welcome~

RN

I also need to work on foreshortening.
Maybe it's the hand?

tsuchinoko

Hey folks, hope you all had a good turkey day. I finished up the re-rendering of this piece, and would like some feedback. (I put a glowy-circle to indicate where I was painting the underglow from). I do plan on putting some graphic elements to this, but the character is at a point I like. I'm really leaning towards being done with it for now, and moving onto something else. However, C&C welcome for improvements  

tsuchinoko

Double post!

tsuchinoko

I'm not sure if this posted already, seems like there's admin approval now? Either way, some personal work again, redesign of Vader. Which coincidentally lines up with this contest: http://cgplus.com/forum/t/star-wars-reimagined-deadline-extended/296
But I think I'll make a new piece for that. 

C&C welcome!

tsuchinoko

Hey folks, workin on a new piece. It's for the contest mentioned earlier, check the post here. 

It's at a point where I like how the palette looks. I want to do something with the background that makes sense, I'm thinking a dungeon? C&C welcome though!

tsuchinoko

Missed the deadline on this one, but I still want to finish it, so this is where it's at. I'm not too sure about the background, but I don't want to do something that looks distracting. C&C welcome~

Wolthera

There seems to be a radical difference in the ground-plane where the monster is standing and the ground-plane where our hero is shading. I would look at that first(maybe you can cheat by making the ground more rocky )

Narratively, the pose also feels stiff and the hero generally looks too clean and calm to have been slaying a monster. There just seems to be too much detachment between the two.

tsuchinoko

@Wolthera
Is it the shading that's making the ground-plane look off, or the actual positions of the hero/monster?

And yea, I got the same response about the pose previously. It's something I have to push more towards dynamic poses. Or at least, less rigid "royal portrait" poses. 

Wolthera

The feet, actually. The feet seem to stand on a different plane than the arm is lying on.

tsuchinoko

Is this making more sense?

Wolthera

yes, much better.

tsuchinoko

@Wolthera  Excelleeeeent, I think I'm going to put some more detail into the surrounding rocks. Thanks again for the suggestion! 

tsuchinoko

Hey folks, long time no post. Recently got MangaStudioEX5.0ClipStudioPaint on sale (can they come up with a better name), and I'm really liking the painting aspect of it. Thus, I'm working on a new piece, nearly "finished" with it. But, I'd appreciate a critique. I'm mostly concerned with lighting and effects, does it all look cohesive?

tsuchinoko

Hi Polycount peoples, working on something new. Currently doing the CGSociety contest "THRUST", and here's my final design. Their forums are a bit sparse, and I can't seem to garner any feedback. So, how's she looking?

One thing I'm concerned about at the moment is the grime/dirt. Not sure if it looks too faded or too much like it's painted. Any ideas?

krraej

Hey there. I think you're using your soft brushes too much. The only reason why this technique tends to work is because you counter-balance it with your lineart. If your images didn't have lines (which is a form of stylization), your forms would fall apart. I know it's fun to mix colors in ClipStudioPaint, but try out a couple harder brushes.

As for the dirt, I might not have even noticed it if you hadn't mentioned it. Honestly, the patches of dirt look more like grease stains on a piece of paper. I think the biggest issue I have with this image as a whole is that you tackle every material with a very soft brush so everything looks sorta uniformely airbrushed.

Your lineart itself is really nice, though. Particularly on the jet. Please try playing around a bit with your approach to different materials. I'll be looking forward to what you'll come up with next.

tsuchinoko

Hey there @krraej , thanks for the feedback!

Your comments about the soft rendering is something that I've previously received about my work. The top of this thread starts off with that being one of the points to tackle. Which I have with some of my pieces, but I still fall back onto it. I guess I'm still at a crossroads with how to render, because I do very much like preserving the linework, but also tend to want to render things out semi-realistically. 

Also, about the dirt: I don't think I applied it enough previously, I updated it since then, along with some darker shading:



This is the final image I've submitted for the contest. 

krraej

tsuchinoko said:

I guess I'm still at a crossroads with how to render, because I do very much like preserving the linework, but also tend to want to render things out semi-realistically.

Like I said, I think your linework is really great, and as far as concept art goes, it makes eyeballing the seperate shapes easier, so I think there are definitely 3D modellers out there that will appreciate this style. So I don't think you need to drop your linework-style or anything, but if I were you, I'd personally try to breach out a bit, just to be able to render in more styles (though, I think I'm preaching to the choir here XD). Maybe look at a couple different brushes for next time? That certainly helps me when I try to go for a different style.

The dirt is certainly more noticeable now! I'd personally add some signs of wear and tear like scratches on the material, but if that's your final image then that's okay too.

tsuchinoko

@krraej
Yea, that branching out thing is difficult to do when you feel like you've worked towards a particular style. It feels almost like having to relearn how to do things? Which is always difficult starting from scratch and not necessarily knowing which direction to go in. 

I suppose as far as style goes, I keep returning to a comic-book style of rendering. Something like:




Christ Steven's work pushes the realism a lot, but it still feels rooted in comic exaggeration. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with this post, so onto the next one.  

tsuchinoko

I've been working on this piece for a few months now, not entirely sure of how to accomplish it, learning things as I go. But, I hit a bit of a roadblock essentially about what was mentioned earlier in these posts: Does the linework clash with the rendering, am I showing enough through the rendering, is the rendering believable, etc. etc. So here is the piece, broken down:


Full lighting with post



Full lighting, no post

Linework

Comments & critique welcome!