Weekly Concepts - Critique

Illusions

For an open-ended project class at my university I have decided to start improving my concepting skills. So as an assignment, I've got to do 1-2 concepts a week, mainly character design. The focus is mainly anatomy, how well the concept gets across the idea of the character, and how well the concept itself is technically rendered. If they pass muster, they are to be inked and markered for finalization. So I'm basically looking for critiques on the concepts themselves, and how to improve the current concept, and also improve upon my skills for future concepts.

So heres the first one to be turned in, done in pencil... (the scan has been darkened so that its visible enough to show all detail):




...of course its to be penned and markered after receiving approval by my professor.

MoP

Right, there are a number of issues with this, mainly anatomical and proportional.

However my main beef with it is, it's so flat! His feet are flat on the ground, his hands look 2-dimentional, the straps across his torso have no curvature, all of this adds up to make this seem really "2d" ... a good concept should jump out of the paper at you - planting the feet on a ground plane in perspective is hugely helpful for this, as is determining a horizon line for eye level, so you know which parts of the figure will be looked "down on" or looked "up at".

His hands are too small, his waist is very narrow and probably too low too, the feet are not really the correct shape, even for shoes. There's no thought to anatomy in the arms that I can see, they just seem to bulge at the halfway points down each bone section.

The head is just resting on the neck, there's no indication of a natural connection there at all.

The design is cool enough, maybe not hugely original, but if you're doing something like this (an idea that has been seen a few times before) you want to make it stand out technically... and it's just not doing that right now.

I was gonna post a link to an image Marko Djurdjevic did, which had a great sense of depth to the view (foreshortening and figure in perspective, feet planted on an invisible plane rather than just flat-on side view), but his site seems to be down. Ah well.

MoP

nkoste

It looks good. I'm no great artist, but I can tell that you could work more with depth as your whole concept is kind of flat. Take for example the swords are both rendered from the side almost orthogonally and the feet are totally in line although your pose suggests that one foot is in front of the other . Try an imagine the current pose from a whole other angle. This is what comes to mind when I look at it, but I'm sure you can get better feedback from other users.

Good idea with the weekly concepts

hikagesan

first off, i like the concept. Mum-Ra meets Soul Caliber feel to it. As the previous posts said, there are issues with your anatomy, check out some anatomy resources on the web or at your schools library to get some muscle refrences, this will help you immensely in the long run. http://www.bartleby.com/107/ would be a decent starting point ( Gray's Anatomy)
Life drawing classes will also be a great resource, too. Sketching people of all sizes and shapes will help you undrestand porportion and the relative sizes of the parts of the body.
I like the detail you have put into your drawing, as well. Good start and good luck with future concepts.

Illusions

Thankyou for all the comments everyone. Sorry I'm slow in responding, I've been really busy with other work and just got some time to do some quick pose sketches tonight. These are just to get ideas for the best pose, I picked what I felt was the best 3 out of the bunch to see what you guys liked. Going to try sketching him out again, this time taking into consideration your suggestions on anatomy, perspective, etc. And I'm really interested in seeing the work by the artist, Marko Djurdjevic, you suggested MoP.



Oh, and I know the character isn't very original, the blade weapon itself was actually the original idea, with the guy being an after-thought for holding it. Going to try improving him as well once I have a firm pose down for the next drawing.

MoP

Hey, here's some of the most recent publicly availabel stuff he's done, for the Dissonance project.
Unfortunately he recently moved to San Francisco from Germany, and I think that's why his website is down, hopefully he'll have a new one up soon.

Here are a few links showing how he does characters and poses... all with interesting (asymmetrical usually) costumes, relaxed and believable poses, plenty of weight and depth. I recommend saving all his images to hard drive, and studying them often

http://www.parasyticmoon.com/dissonance/img/characters/bali.jpg
http://www.parasyticmoon.com/dissonance/img/characters/kianto.jpg
http://www.parasyticmoon.com/dissonance/img/characters/kodha_2.jpg
http://www.parasyticmoon.com/dissonance/img/characters/loa.jpg

...and everything else over here:
http://www.parasyticmoon.com/dissonance/img/characters/

Work on proportions, study anatomy, get a feeling of how the human form changes in space (foreshortening of limbs, deformation etc.) and you will be well on your way to drawing stuff as good as this (with maybe just a bit of practise)

MoP

Illusions

Thanks for the links MoP, and thanks for the critiques and comments everyone else. Ok, didn't get any time to update the thread in the last 2 weeks...so, I'll be posting both concepts together. Instead of doing a seperate concept weekly, my teacher wanted to see me flesh out the original more, but also redraw it each week until she gives the go to ink it. So, here they are:

2nd Week:



Took the original concept, and blended it with my ideas of a dark angel...so here we have an angel of death. The little thingy in the bottom corner is a concept for a cracked mask he will wear over one eye.

Week 2:



Redrawn with a bit of armor, and ideas for armor placement.

All of them have been run through Photoshop to adjust the levels since they were drawn only with a 6H pencil, and aren't complete. However I'm still looking for crits, and comments. And yes I know his torso is slightly elongated, trying to make him a bit more ominous that way.

Edit: I just want to pass out...I've got to condense an hour and a half presentation down to 15 minutes by Friday for the SOURCE conference in NYC. Finish a 3 minute group CG movie in 4 weeks, and another 3 minute movie (traditional) solo project for film class in two...and write two more 3-4 page papers for my writing class...plus finish this guy in color...

...argghhhh!!! /end bitch session -.-