Challenge Demon - Critiques *PLEASE*

Tulkamir

Hey, obviously my demon did not do so well in the challenge, so I was hoping I could get some critiques on it here. I was thinking it was a possible portfolio piece, but judging by the complete lack of comments I got in my challenge thread and the lack of votes, I'm guessing it shouldnt be. So critiques on it and reasons why it did so bad would be great so I can improve in the future.

-Thanks

Rhinokey

well i think the main crit i can give on this, is just to keep practicing, it is a complete finished model, which is something a lot of people ever acomplish,

my best advice would be work on your anatom and edge flow, also the posing of your model helps to convey feeling, curently its kinda a just lumpy off ballance pose, (i'm not talking about rigging or anythign, but the base model pose, and general posture. porportions and flow are also important try to keep fromy lumpy shapeless formsm and work on flow between body parts.. curently its pretty pear shaped in the body.. even tho you may feel .. weird.. if you model a baby.. find a lot of baby references.. idealy dead babys.. but you can probably get by with live baby photos.

realy you will get better if you just keep practicing, and really want to improve, one ting that helps is to look at your work pretending that it is someone elses work. and how you would crit it.

ebagg

I think some more contrast would do wonders for it. It's a pretty solid model and texture, Rhinokey has some great points. My other crit (and this may just be a style thing so take it with a grain of salt) is the wings need to be designed more solidly, they are pretty much some torn looking texture on planes, I would definitely refer to some sort of nature reference when doing wings, whether it be bird, bat or insect, wing anatomy can definitely make or break a good winged humanoid design since they are such a major element.

Keep on practicing dude, you're off to a great start!

Downsizer

Yep, thats the fucker who shot me.

Tulkamir

Rhinokey - Yea, you are deffinatly right, more practice is deffinatly needed. Hopefully it'll help. And yea, I am kind of happy that I completed it, been a while since I got a fully completed model. And yea, my anatomy can deffinatly use some work, I'm currently attending some extra anatomy lessons (on top of my life drawing class) to hopefully help with this. For the edge flows though, could you give an example on how to improve? I know it needs work, I'm just not sure where.

And yea, the pose I deffinatly messed up on, I didn't have him in a good pose when I modeled him and as a result had troubles posing him properly. Learn from my mistake I suppose.

(And dead babies?)

Ebagg: Thank you very much. And yea, for the texture, I see what you mean. It's actually kind of funny, cause I upped the contrast from what I originally had and it's still too low. I really need to work on that. The wings... yea, they kind of suck. I ran outa time and didn't do em properly.

Thank both of you very much for the comments. They were extremely helpful. And thanks for really driving home the point that practice is what will ultimatly improve me. Very true.

Downsizer: The baby or me?

Steve Schulze

I had a flick through Inferno to see what old Dante had to say about black cherubim. There isn't a hell of a lot of info on what they actually look like - they're also called malebranche, references to shoulders 'which sharp-pointed were and high' (I guess that means they're hunched with spiked shoulders), references to tails, sharp teeth claws and "tusks like on a boar" on one of them. It sounds as though each one is different though.

One thing that is made clear is what they're job is. They live under bridges in the Malebolge and dunk sinners under the pools of boiling pitch using sharp grapnels on long chains. One of these hooks might make an interesting additon to your model.

Tulkamir

Jackablade, thank you very much for that. I hadn't even thought to look into what a black cherubim might be like, had just went out on whim. After hearing that I very much wish I did. (Though there is a lot I wouldn't change, as part of what I was going for was the creepyness achieved by having a demonic baby, I think big tusks could compromise that?)

The hook would be a damn good addition as well, I deffinatly have to agree with you on that.

Thanks very much.

Zwebbie

Ok, I'm probably less skilled than you are, but here's what I think: This model is fine. It isn't as spectacular as some of the others, but remember that, compared to the bulk of the Polycounters, you're very new and inexperienced. Practice makes perfect, and the old rots just have tricks that subconsciously make a model or texture better. Might even be subconscious to them.

I like your concept. A baby is really something different than all the more clich

Tulkamir

Sorry, missed that critique until now ComradeJ, but thank you for it. You deffinatly have some good points.

So yea, thanks.

John Warner

my crazy opinion.., take it or leave it

where's the love, baby? it looks as if you had a cool idea and assembled this object step by step without acctualy going in and making man-love to every little section. the model's proportions are a little un-appealing. looks as if you got some baby ref and made sure you had that chubby look to it's arms and leg segments, and that's really cool, but when i look at the model as a whole, something seems somehow lacking. when it comes down to it, the proportions are slightly dumpy. the side view hangs down like a sack of meat and the front view doesn't really have much of an interesting shape at all. as far as the sections of the model, i think you've got some great ideas here but it looks like you're not drawing attention to them as well as you could. those hoofs, for example, are small and rather non-descript. right off the bat they don't even read as hoofs, just a messy, un-defined stump. what about going in and really pushing the model so that they REALLY look like real hoofs- maybe push the size a little bit so they stand out, and instead of that pinch for an ankle, do something with the way the leg structure works so that the hoof has an interesting connection to it. just sticking hoofs at the bottom of a human's legs with a pinch for an ankle looks more like a rag-doll than a baby, let alone a hoofed baby. i could say the same thing about the hands too. what about larger, mangled hands with the bones tearing out of the fingers.. something more freakish, like claws or something. anyway what ever, it's just the general idea i get.

i'm not sure why you're keeping it low poly, but if you want to keep it down, i'd suggest that the interesting bits don't have enough polies and the un-interesting bits have too many. the torso could be cleaned up,the ass for sure could lose a few, and those polies could be re-distributed to sections that you chose to be more interesting. as far as the texture goes, it looks a little flat and un-interesting. i know it's bloody difficult to put in those medium and small details but what about really trying to tell a story for this guy? is he from hell? how did he end up on earth? maybe he went through some sort of really harsh rift that stretched the shit out of him and his skin tore in vertical strips and you can see something, like molten rock, undernieth. i dunno, that's just a random idea but you get the point.