Is my design taste shit?

Doodlok

Hello lovely people of polycount!  

I just have a quick question, more like asking for your opinion :

Is my taste in design shit? 

*Before I move on, my Artstation : https://www.artstation.com/artist/doodlok 

and my improvement thread : http://polycount.com/discussion/178177/davids-improvement-thread-cc-welcomed#latest

That seems pretty blatant, but yeah it's been eating me recently. I've been improving quite steadily for last couple months in terms of anatomy, composition, rendering and all that, but I feel like the core development of 'what' I draw is still lacking. As someone said, polished shit is still shit.

Whenever I look at something I drew, no matter how far I've polished it in its core it sorta looks bland, boring or just too 'common' in terms of design. I can look at other people's work and comment on their designs regarding how much I like them but I lose that critical objectiveness in what I draw when it comes to mine, because they all just look so boring. I've been getting some feedbacks on my technical skills but haven't got much on my design aspect and that got me even more worried. That's why I'm putting this here instead of technical thread, since it's more of a direction oriented question.

I know I still have sooooo much to learn and to many of you my works look like toddler's gibberish But I'm lost in this and would appreciate any input really, including "yeh your designs are shit and you need to up your game before polishing those". 

Brian "Panda" Choi

No, but it could stand for improvement  or if at least, variety.

I se e mostly a style influence by Neil Blomkamp movies.

Maybe it's time to push into a different type of sci fi future, like Jadorowsky or Asian aesthetics.

Doodlok

@Brian "Panda" Choi

Thank you so much for your feedback I look a lot at DARPA or Boston Robotics for reference when I design scifi to get that realistic feeling, but I definitely see how it's getting repetitive.

For my next projects I'll push myself in different direction and see how it goes. Appreciate your comment a lot

samnwck

I think one of the things your stuff could really benefit from is a better emphasis on lighting. All your pieces end up looking pretty flat even if there is a dominant light source. Many of your pieces have metals which seem to lack highlighting which also contributes to the lack of depth.

Here's a quick paintover to show what I'm talking about (please note I am a shitty painter):


Overall I like the designs I just feel like they could be refined further. Material studies might be something that might help you. All the best concept artists tend to have a very solid grasp of how shadows are cast and light is reflected of different materials.

Doodlok

@samnwck

OH my god, thank you so much for taking the time to make the gif I definitely and clearly see what the issue is  here. Thank you so much for taking your time to point it out.

And yeas, I've always thought my pieces sorta look like lego...ish? on the surface. Will definitely need to boost up my texture / material game. I think refinement also has to do with my current skillset which will just have to improve overtime

Please (if you have time) drop by to my improvement thread and see how things are working out, and thanks for the feedback

rgbeard

I think that taste in design comes with understanding what makes a design good and how it works.
Not only universally good but why you think its good.
So if you think your taste is lacking it might be because you don't really know what you are drawing and why.
Looking trough your work It looks like you have a thing for mechs combined with humans.

So look to ppl with great technique in those areas and first copy, trying to understand what makes there work good.
Look the things they have as ref and then try to design your own stuff from that.

Then keep going, you got a good start so find that thing that motivates you to keep push. Then keep pushing, posting, learning.

Artists I like with good design and technique:
Scott Robertson
Vitali Bulgarov
Ben Mauro

Doodlok

@rgbeard
 
Thank you for your kind words of advice, I really cherish these because I don't have much of a physical environment of artistic community here  

I absolutely love all the artists you've recommended, and turns out I was already follwing Vitali Bulgarov on instagram ( I didn't know before). I'll keep my progress and studies posted in my improvement feed, please do come by time to time if you're bored Thank you!

lotet

lost of good insight here already, I just wanna ad one more, color variety.
 
99% of what you do is composed of black, white, and red, in one or two occasions ive seen you use blue for a sky and yellow for some highlights. I dont think you have painted a single brushstroke thats green though =P 

Zack Maxwell

Here's another artist I think you might like for inspiration

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

brucemoose

This seems up your alley, honestly working through these videos would help you a ton.

https://www.youtube.com/user/FZDSCHOOL/videos

 Artist studies are invaluable if your actually applying the correct techniques and thinking about why you're making your marks and to what end.

AlexandruMunteanu

Hey there, here's my take on this topic.First off, your design isn't shit. It does however take some time to build and refine, we have our whole lives ahead to try and reach as far as we can.

My advice would be to focus on the fundamentals, grab a book and try to grasp the basic principles as best as you can. I'm talking about composition, shape contrasts, value, perspective, textures, etc. I would leave color out for now because that is a different beast, instead, focus on value - black and white.
As mentioned in the above comments, look at the artists that inspire you most and try to understand why you like the work, is it the composition, is it because of other basic design elements, is it color or something else? The faster you can understand other pieces of artwork, the quicker you can start applying those qualities into your own work.

You could continue with anatomy study. Understanding the human body helps your design better and you will develop an instinct for placing lines and shapes that support the characters anatomy rather than fight it.

I know exactly how you feel because I have been there, still am from time to time in a different shape or form. This is where inspiration comes in handy as well as working on something you enjoy. One of my all-time favorite artists when it comes to design is Paul Richards, he is so good it makes me cry (https://www.autodestruct.com/concept.htm), just check out his work on Darksiders for example, crazy good!

Here is a fun resource that you might like, a dota 2 art guide with some valuable information. It does focus more on game development and it is pretty specific but it's short and fun, great value.

If you are interested in design, consider spending some time on comic book / manga artists. These guys work on raw design all the time, more than other artists in the game industry, reason why so many are fantastic. Some of my favorite are Simon Bisley, Jim Murray, Joe maduirera, David Finch.

Bottom line, the fundamentals are the bread and butter. Try to research more in that direction because its the biggest bang for the buck. Try to also keep it fun, work on things you enjoy as well but don't be afraid to step out of your comfort zone. I think most of the works we absolutely admire have very few weaknesses and the only way to create that is to have a solid understanding of art with as few voids as possible so try to cover as much of everything as you can (composition, perspective, value, color, anatomy, etc) but not at once. Hope this helps and best of luck on your journey!

Doodlok

First of all, I'd like to thank you all so much for your kind feedback.

@lotet I cannot thank you enough for constantly coming back to my feed and giving me feedbacks, they help me immensely and it is an unimaginable motivation for me to keep pushing through.

@Zack Maxwell  THank you so much for the recommendation. I've been following the artist ever since, so much inspiration design wise I get from him!!

@brucemoose fzd is actually what got me into this study grind!! Love his videos and thank you so much for recommendation

@AlexandruMunteanu

Thank you so much for your long and kind feedback. I cherished every word of it and will keep reminding myself how important fundamentals are (even though this post was a while ago, when I didn't have any idea where I should proceed or how I should proceed). I absolutely adore your works and it is a huge inspiration to have encouraging words from you. Hope you drop by to my improvement feed once in a while just to check it out, and thank you so much again!