concept crit
mod
Started this tonight.. I want to work a bit on my concepting and figures (The WAR cometh!!), so before taking it any further I'd like some crits- mainly on the pose and anatomy as those are the hard bits and I'm still thinking on the costume
cheers!
cheers!
Replies
1) it was hard for me to figure out what his right arm was doing. I got it after a few seconds, but that's a few seconds too long. I'm not sure exactly what needs to be done to fix it (again, not a character guy)
and 2) the left arm/wrist/hand combo doesn't look like it is supporting his weight on that little string. It looks more like he's leaping through the air with his balloon.
Sorry those aren't really constructive. . . just observations
Also, like tumerboy said, it doesn't look like he's supporting his weight with his right arm.
Personally I'd say you should do a few gestures to get the pose feeling right before going any further. But you're a far better character artist than I, so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Anyways, still looking pretty cool. Keep it coming.
hey man, glad to see you getting ready to bring your A-game for the dominance war!
as far as what you've going on here, i like seeing that you're continuing along with your digital paintery stuff... but be careful. my crit comes from a constant battle of my own when it comes to concepting, and that's the perpetual desire to render when i should be drawing. that make sense?
this piece is starting to be interesting as a painting/drawing, but it's not really going anywhere as a concept. i think you're getting caught up with getting a nice dramatic pose and great colors, etc., and the concept itself is suffering from reduced attention. i did it all the time. i can't quite do it as much any more, since i haven't touched a wacom in months (pity me). but in my sketchbook, i still want to start shading and that kind of bullshit automatically, when i need to be working up interesting forms. for me, the solution is working in ballpoint--cheap, easy, good control, but it forces a certain amount of consideration on my part of my mark-making and keeps me focused on the form and detail necessary for a good concept.
think of it like you're building a model--you work up the geometry and the texture and all that other stuff before you do a beauty render, right? so spend more time thumbnailing for good silhouettes, simple linedrawings etc.--you're doing some of that concept work as you go on this painting, but doing it all at once like that just makes everything harder. don't let some of the masters fool you--even though craig mullins or some other folks can make a great painting AND a great concept all at one go, most of us mere mortals need to step through the process a bit more gradually.
so there's a germ of an idea here--dynamically proportioned dudes-with-swords are always worth following through on--but you've got to push it.
right now it could go in a lot of different directions; doing thumbnails and giving yourself time to process concepting concerns without trying to work them into a nice painting at the same time will help you.
don't know if you saw my post in Askhat's minotaur thread, but if you didn't, it more or less spells out what i think is a very workable method for generating interesting concepts/details for a piece:
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=170443&an=0&page=1#Post170443
you had one of the strongest entries by far with the first domwar and i expect nothnig less this time around! good luck and keep on truckin'!
I agree I was thinking too far ahead, spent too much time on conceptart etc looking at sweet rendered pictures without thinking about the time and consideration that undoubtedly went before the finished product..
thumbnails at lunch then. in biro!
The arm thats supporting the rest of the weight should be straight snapped into place with the foraarm twisted respectfully to the gripping hand. and almost every outer muscle should be tensed.
use curves instead of hard straight lines and dont forget about composition.
the picture shows some good structure but its all peiced together and it dsnt seem to fit. but most importantly try and stay away from the swat fly syndrome. and THUMBNAIL.
just my two cents hope it helps
I don't think silhouette studies like these are really going to help much if you're intent on doing a pretty straight forward human-dude. You really need to start playing with silhouette-effecting shapes (capes, etc.), or go into line drawing mode, not painting with such a blunt instrument.
Try doing thumbnails like our good buddy Feng taught us: about a few inches tall, but with a small-pointed pen (or brush, if digital). Keep all your lines flowing and scribbly; you're not out for much in the way of detail just yet, you're trying for the main shapes.
With these thumbnails I think you've actually gone too general, so the thumbnails really aren't saying anything
anyway, I know it's harder than it looks to do interesting character work on a more standard human character... thanks for being such a sport about opening up your concepting process for criticism