they look ok. you really need to work more on your perspective and the construction of your images. right now it looks like you made a rough silhouette of what you wanted and painted over that. do the silhouette then refine, refine, refine.
The style is alright.
I am a bit bothered by the fact that the pieces are not finished. Don't have such things in a portfolio, only in a sketchbook. Those drawings should really be finished, they are great.
yeah the style looks bold, powerful.. but as Asherr said, some of them lack a bit construction..
(but what bothers me most , is they all look the same...)
you have some ok shapes in there, a bit over the top on the bulky for my taste. try starting with some basic shapes in perspective first, then build off of that. the silhouette technique is cool if you understand your form first. draw a circle for the upper torso unit, because you know how to see that as a sphere, then apply that knowledge as you hook all the little gadgets on there. know what meridian it is on, and what meridian the opposing piece will have to be on. this will make these guys closer to the hawkprey look you are trying to get.
it looks like you took a talented artist's awesome half-finished work, and scribbled over them. i'm not implying that you did, but that's what it looks like. for a 3D artist, these concepts would suck, because too much is left undefined. and when you aim for alternate versions, make slight alterations to everything. don't simply paint glasses and a mustache over a previous work and call it new. it's especially important when distinguishing male from female.
i probably should change the name of the thread to Initial concept art.
Thanks for all the crits it will help me get to the level i am aiming for eventualy, as for someone saying that warhammer one is a paintover i assure you its not. you can find the wip at my blog.
alti, saw these up on CA.org, good stuff. i've got a soft spot for beefy powered armor designs, and these are only a few steps away from being memorable. i like your command of thick impasto and texturing, there's a lot there to draw the eye over surfaces that might otherwise not be as interesting.
first point: Asherr's right; the construction on these drawings is really bringing them down. particularly the third image you post--having just lines for the arms and shoulders might be cool, but not when you don't have the basics down. you don't have to make 100% perfect ellipses, but you need to get them a lot tighter before you get to painting them up. drawing and painting are built on foundations, as well you know. start with a weak foundation, end with a weak piece. the bastards that can get away with only sketchily rendering up a piece, well that's because they've got extra strong foundations.
second point: this pertains to where you are and where you're going. don't sweat the WH40k comparisons for now, but you can start moving away from them. i'd make a conscious effort at getting around to some form language beyond that of WH40k designs. they will always own those shapes (particularly for shoulder pads and the tiny bare head in a big ol' suit), so minor variations mean that you're still living in that ghetto. keep drawing, and keep letting your form language drift and mutate until it's starting to look like its yours, not something appropriated from elsewhere.
and while on the subject of "originality", i'd also caution you from spending too much time on conceptart.org forums. CA.org is no doubt awesome, but it's a stylistic black hole. if you get too close, you get pulled in, and there's no getting out. everyone gets crushed into the singularity of the house aesthetic. you'll draw your sketchbooks like they draw, you'll draw the same vaguely alt-y looking urban chicks that they draw, and all the same kind of vaguely hip and urban-inspired designs with scribbly mark-making that they do. i know that doesn't sound too bad, in fact it sounds pretty awesome... but you want to be one of those badasses that just post every once in a while with a big dump of cool images, being a groundling in the sketch forum is not how you get there. just a word of caution.
oh and i'd nix the jokey description on the second image. no one likes a "____ + ____" method of creativity except those that have no imagination, and seeing that on the image as a viewer means i don't take it seriously anymore. yeah it's a little goofy, but it's still an interesting look--why discount the concept because it generated from a silly idea?
gir, sectaurs: that's the pity of having a full time job, innit--less time to post cool things on polycount, eh?
edit: oh, and i never liked taking crits from someone i didn't know if i should respect, so www.gausswerks.com and decide for yourself
edit edit: i should stop appending things to this post, but another very helpful tip that you might not have put into practice: constantly mirror your work horizontally, to catch yourself making basic shape/perspective errors before you get too far along. it's a huge timesaver and work improver.
I was just saying I love the 40k style you dont really see enough of the detailed space marines done for the primarch guys just the standard mariney guy with no real armor details, I was spotting the designs he was incoprorating into the armor, I would love to see some more stuff like that detailed, who knows maybe even model it one day
Definitely branch out a bit. The first bunch of them look like slight variations of the same subject. They look fine, but I'd be bored playing a game where all of the characters are so similar. It's nice to see something different in the last image.
It's nice to keep a consistency in style, but that does not mean that you have to keep pounding away at slight variations of the same subject.
I like the one with the lion on the front. It still needs more definition which is not hard to do. I have colored some concept art before. I think I might create some more.
Sometimes it really irks me when folks come into boards and only post images. Guys like gauss and others took some time writing significant critique and advice, but there's not even an acknowledgment from the original poster.
It's good work, but it still comes off a bit rude. I know a lot of people just want to see pics (I mean, this is P&P, not GD) but it comes off as the poster ignoring replies completely.
Laheen > cheers dude glad you dig them.
conte > recently been trying to tighten up my composition and forms, its a slow gradual process hehe, but hey you should have seen some of my old stuff.
shotgun > i get hell mixed responces on my stuff everywhere i post it, i think its because i sometimes let the viewer read into the image what they want in certain areas where i just use siluet.
danpants > hey man thanks, yeah the lion was abit of an afterthough because i thought the character was abit boring, remedy = lions
wi_2 > thanks , its my plan to build up my process to get to a more finished lvl eventualy, its a long road.
snowfly> hehe yeah storyboards are fun, i'l try to get more resolved in the future
slum > hey there, sorry if it seems rude posting images and not replying all the time, i can only spare so much time between work to reply to forums, i appreciate every single comment and critic i get beleive me.oh and me not responding to gauss is nonsence, i sent him a pm, and had a good old conversation, i dont want to be perceived as a bumper that replies straight away to each reply because that shits me to tears.
zephire62 > i'l work the next ones up abit more, i got some nice character work on its way in about 5 hours.
Replies
take a look at this tutorial: http://www.fengzhudesign.com/tut03_01.html
see how he refines his rough sketch. your work looks as though you skip stages 2-3.
with a little more work in the initial stages your concepts could look really nice.
I am a bit bothered by the fact that the pieces are not finished. Don't have such things in a portfolio, only in a sketchbook. Those drawings should really be finished, they are great.
(but what bothers me most , is they all look the same...)
cool shit - i'm with gir, reminds me of gauss
When I first saw the last one I thought I had seen it before. It is really close to being a paintover from this.
I'm not trying to accuse you of anything but with stuff like this and they style you have the original artist might have different thoughts.
Just a heads up.
its a good start though, keep crackin
one good thing. the colors are nice.
I definetly dig alot of these concepts
Thanks for all the crits it will help me get to the level i am aiming for eventualy, as for someone saying that warhammer one is a paintover i assure you its not. you can find the wip at my blog.
first point: Asherr's right; the construction on these drawings is really bringing them down. particularly the third image you post--having just lines for the arms and shoulders might be cool, but not when you don't have the basics down. you don't have to make 100% perfect ellipses, but you need to get them a lot tighter before you get to painting them up. drawing and painting are built on foundations, as well you know. start with a weak foundation, end with a weak piece. the bastards that can get away with only sketchily rendering up a piece, well that's because they've got extra strong foundations.
second point: this pertains to where you are and where you're going. don't sweat the WH40k comparisons for now, but you can start moving away from them. i'd make a conscious effort at getting around to some form language beyond that of WH40k designs. they will always own those shapes (particularly for shoulder pads and the tiny bare head in a big ol' suit), so minor variations mean that you're still living in that ghetto. keep drawing, and keep letting your form language drift and mutate until it's starting to look like its yours, not something appropriated from elsewhere.
and while on the subject of "originality", i'd also caution you from spending too much time on conceptart.org forums. CA.org is no doubt awesome, but it's a stylistic black hole. if you get too close, you get pulled in, and there's no getting out. everyone gets crushed into the singularity of the house aesthetic. you'll draw your sketchbooks like they draw, you'll draw the same vaguely alt-y looking urban chicks that they draw, and all the same kind of vaguely hip and urban-inspired designs with scribbly mark-making that they do. i know that doesn't sound too bad, in fact it sounds pretty awesome... but you want to be one of those badasses that just post every once in a while with a big dump of cool images, being a groundling in the sketch forum is not how you get there. just a word of caution.
oh and i'd nix the jokey description on the second image. no one likes a "____ + ____" method of creativity except those that have no imagination, and seeing that on the image as a viewer means i don't take it seriously anymore. yeah it's a little goofy, but it's still an interesting look--why discount the concept because it generated from a silly idea?
gir, sectaurs: that's the pity of having a full time job, innit--less time to post cool things on polycount, eh?
edit: oh, and i never liked taking crits from someone i didn't know if i should respect, so www.gausswerks.com and decide for yourself
edit edit: i should stop appending things to this post, but another very helpful tip that you might not have put into practice: constantly mirror your work horizontally, to catch yourself making basic shape/perspective errors before you get too far along. it's a huge timesaver and work improver.
It's nice to keep a consistency in style, but that does not mean that you have to keep pounding away at slight variations of the same subject.
looks just flat
the last one is phenomenal
maybe the values on the left could be refined
but all in all its great work!..
It's good work, but it still comes off a bit rude. I know a lot of people just want to see pics (I mean, this is P&P, not GD) but it comes off as the poster ignoring replies completely.
conte > recently been trying to tighten up my composition and forms, its a slow gradual process hehe, but hey you should have seen some of my old stuff.
shotgun > i get hell mixed responces on my stuff everywhere i post it, i think its because i sometimes let the viewer read into the image what they want in certain areas where i just use siluet.
danpants > hey man thanks, yeah the lion was abit of an afterthough because i thought the character was abit boring, remedy = lions
wi_2 > thanks , its my plan to build up my process to get to a more finished lvl eventualy, its a long road.
snowfly> hehe yeah storyboards are fun, i'l try to get more resolved in the future
slum > hey there, sorry if it seems rude posting images and not replying all the time, i can only spare so much time between work to reply to forums, i appreciate every single comment and critic i get beleive me.oh and me not responding to gauss is nonsence, i sent him a pm, and had a good old conversation, i dont want to be perceived as a bumper that replies straight away to each reply because that shits me to tears.
zephire62 > i'l work the next ones up abit more, i got some nice character work on its way in about 5 hours.