DWIII paintover workshop
polycounter lvl 18
<u>these are for artistic edutainment purposes only, seriously. i am not doing your concept for you, that's against the rules. concepts not beyond the thumbnail stage will be ignored.</u>
i decided it'd be best to spin this one out into it's own thread and keep my entry separate. this is a thread where everyone can come together to do paintovers and other wonderfully neighborly things for each other. everyone gets stuck at some point in their process--from concept to diffuse coloration to final renders--and you can come here to get some help. i'll be trying to respond to everyone who posts in this thread, but Ninjas (who sits across from me at work) and everyone else is invited to participate as well.
also including people from other forums (but you gotta register here
)
if you'd like to request a paintover, be sure to link your entry thread
first, a quick word on thumbnailing (originally posted in Wake's thread)
i've found that the particular way of doing them will influence the results quite a bit. off the top of my head i'd break it down in three ways:
(1)"proper" thumbnailing, which is to say, a sheet of thumbnails, done as a sheet, together.
(2)"layers" thumbnailing, by which i mean using layers to keep thumbnails in the same space, but visibly apart until you compile them.
(3)"iterative" thumbnailing--much like layered thumbnails, but a copy-paste from one layer to the next and iterating successively on a single design.
the important remarks is that traditional one-sheet thumbnailing will mean that you're far more consciously influenced by the other thumbnails--spatially most of all, since the shapes you draw on a page are always in relation to what's already on the page and the borders of the page itself. this is both positive and potentially negative. the andrew jones method, an advanced one-sheet type thumbnailing process, is awesome for developing a whole bunch of related forms and characters at once, but not so hot for trying to hit up wildly different ideas.
layered thumbnailing, on the other hand, helps free you from consciously thinking about the last thumbnail you did, since it isn't visible. i can find this helpful if i really don't want to keep the last sketch in mind, and don't want neighboring spaces to influence composition... just start a new layer and doodle. the temptation with this method, while naturally most amenable to photoshop sketching, is that you'll not be doing thumbnails at all, but sketching too big/greater detail than you ought early on. even on thumbnails i like to keep the canvas fairly sizable (600x600 let's say), but i hedge off this problem by keeping the canvas zoomed out, and even my head craned back a bit from the screen. in fact, the secret to improved PS painting for me as of late has been the same few tricks to keep a good eye on the overall canvas.
iterative should usually be reserved as a stage two deal, once you know you've gotten a really strong silhouette and now want to think about macro-level details, weapon, stance, major variations, and whatever. but even iterative can still help with initial thumbnails, since you can catch a great gestural seed and then spin it off into different silhouettes.
you'll see a lot of each approach. remember what el coro said, it's all a big toolbox, and the more approaches and techniques you can add to that toolbox, the better you are. vary up the way you approach thumbnails themselves to get the maximum variety of options.
#1: Matt22181
i like Matt's concept a lot, but he said he was thinking about how to incorporate an artifact, possibly as a magical codpiece and requested a paintover. so here's what i thought:
it's a diving helmet worn as a codpiece, that holds the spirit of a pervy ghost. so long as he controls the codpiece, he controls who the ghost will defile. Matt has a way better handle on this kind of style than i do so it's not the best paintover, but i think it gives enough of a suggestion
#2: rooster
sorry mate. i tend to criticize you, among others, for getting into rendering and coloring too quick, and here i am repeating the same offense far more flagrantly
i botched a lot of the interesting/more alien physique, so you ought not to pay attention to that.. but i had a lot of fun with the carlos huante style creepies with his cancer(tetsuo?)arm. i think you'll do well once you clarify the big forms and focus on bigger details... i think we all get hung up on scribbly bits. as always, strong silhouette and big forms, and above all a big personality/presence are essential.
#3: suprore
hey man, i feel you not feeling the brief i much prefer to keep away from magic as much as possible, but as someone posted in your thread, go ahead and take it as near carte blanche... the Arthur C. Clarke quote is particularly illuminative: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --and vice versa.
so anyway, just pick a direction and start considering it--but also try and get an attitude, a posture in there. i just threw this guy into the suggestion of a haughty fencer/samurai kind of thing, and it starts drawing itself. good luck.
#4: NaruSol
hey man, been a while. first off, "Tugger" is a really gay character name, i can't think of any other way to put it. there seem to be a lot of chains going around in this compo, all sorts of mystical energies in artifacts being tethered... personally i'd stay away. once you start seeing trends in a compo like this, trending away is going to help you stand out in a crowd if your modeling/concepting skills aren't the greatest. sell them on the idea.
i think it'd be best to keep with the kind of vibe you've got going, but push character and power without turning him into some horrible monster. there's an affable quality i like there, but he also seems completely non-threatening. you can go with the yogi sort of the thing, by which of course we mean a yoda type of thing, which is where i went with the paintover. ol' slug dude with his pillow atop a floating relic of the ancient wars--a giant, rusted over robot skull with lots of nice little mossy things growing on it.
i guess the biggest crits going through my head with this paintover is (1) make sure it's a properly heroic-stature character, and that (2) visual hierarchy is clear. dont put the character of focus "tugging" in front of a rock that commands attention far more than he does. sit him on top!
#5: El Z0rR
this was an interesting follow-up to Naru's, because it deals with similar issues of making a character work in tandem with a large object/mount.
in this case however, el Z0rR, my advice is to reconsider your concept slightly outside of the traditional strictures. everyone has the slightly mysterious robed/armor dude atop a formidable mount... but man, when are they ever as cool as the mount? very seldom.
it's advice i keep coming back to with people when they ask me how to spruce up a concept: discard the first inclination, the first iteration. chances are you're just grabbing something off the top of your memory, a well-worn form that's as comfortable as it is dull. dig deeper. you're not going to find anything "original"--real originality is way more off-putting than most people like to think--but you might find something more interesting to apply, or a method for thinking around the obvious pitfalls.
because frankly, the creative process is a lot like that old Atari E.T. game. it mostly sucks, and is a series of falling into the same hole, climbing out of it, and then promptly falling into the adjacent hole. the holes are cliches, bad habits, lazy shorthands. we all do it, but we all gotta keep struggling. just... like... E.T.?
anyhow, back to the paintover. i liked the idea of blowing the scale even huger, making the trees much smaller on the back, and ditching the rider entirely. make the awesome mud monster your character, a sentient mound of goo with some artifact buried deep within, animating his intelligence and gooey frame.
or, make the controlling force that tiny bird perched on his horn. the birds i thought were way more interesting than the rider.
oh, and he skews to a sort of, shall we say, rhino-mole thing because while rhinos always kick ass, doing a pretty straight rhino is boring unless you can really nail some of the critical features of that beautiful animal... and i don't think it makes a lot of sense as an earth-elemental. horns are cool, horns are great for most anything, but being borne of earth i figured a giant would have more earth-animal type characteristics, hence the facial features and weird little hands. which, although goofy looking, are still enormous, because he's a giant.
anyway, food for thought. good luck, and take your time rolling around some different ideas.
#6: JFletcher
hey, it's the fish kids!
you can still see certain pieces in there, but i actually started off your initial sketch, the "minor tough." maybe that's not fair; it probably could have been developed into a fairly formidable entry, but probably better suited for the last war.
in keeping with the idea of artifacts and the wiped out technology of the past reused or appropriated for other uses, let's assume your sketch was a character from a thousand years ago... fast forward a thousand+ years, and now a small cluster of horrible monster fish-kids are huddled together, animating the now magical armor. i guess i just love the idea of slick and oily fish-y things oozing out of a rusted out hulk of space armor, that long since ceased shining out of its random glow-y bits.
anyway. i like the sort of bull character you're developing now, but be careful about detailing out ideas for armors when you still don't even have a body. i cannot stress this enough, applicable to just about everyone--though doodling in certain key details can give you great ideas on how to proceed, in virtually all cases you want to solve the general before the specific. that's why thumbnails are so de rigeur--neat silhouettes mean so much, and provides you with an idea of how to proceed forward. drawing a head and then doodling up the head means that you could be drawing yourself into a corner.
a final note on anthropomorphic characters: winners just tend to have a high degree of humanity, corrupt or otherwise. you have to sell a whole lot more extra creativity to trump the inherent identification element that comes with (at the very least) a semi-human face. so bear that in mind if you end up with a very overtly beast-y face, it means you have to sell the personality in other ways.
#7: Abhishek
Abhishek, you've made great strides, but your basic rendering and detailing needs a lot of work. difficult to get a character concepted when you can barely scratch out a face, but you know this. and furthermore, you didn't really ask for a crit, so i'm letting you off the hook this time
main thing for this paintover is giving the legs a bit more dynamic shape, and throwing in some crustacean-y bits for good measure.
#8: low odor
shit man, i just finished uploading this and now i remember reading the last comment in your thread--the head at the end of the staff would be a way cooler way to address this concept. hopefully you can still use some sort of idea or small inspiration from this paintover, though. man i need to go to sleep.
i decided it'd be best to spin this one out into it's own thread and keep my entry separate. this is a thread where everyone can come together to do paintovers and other wonderfully neighborly things for each other. everyone gets stuck at some point in their process--from concept to diffuse coloration to final renders--and you can come here to get some help. i'll be trying to respond to everyone who posts in this thread, but Ninjas (who sits across from me at work) and everyone else is invited to participate as well.
also including people from other forums (but you gotta register here
)if you'd like to request a paintover, be sure to link your entry thread
first, a quick word on thumbnailing (originally posted in Wake's thread)
i've found that the particular way of doing them will influence the results quite a bit. off the top of my head i'd break it down in three ways:
(1)"proper" thumbnailing, which is to say, a sheet of thumbnails, done as a sheet, together.
(2)"layers" thumbnailing, by which i mean using layers to keep thumbnails in the same space, but visibly apart until you compile them.
(3)"iterative" thumbnailing--much like layered thumbnails, but a copy-paste from one layer to the next and iterating successively on a single design.
the important remarks is that traditional one-sheet thumbnailing will mean that you're far more consciously influenced by the other thumbnails--spatially most of all, since the shapes you draw on a page are always in relation to what's already on the page and the borders of the page itself. this is both positive and potentially negative. the andrew jones method, an advanced one-sheet type thumbnailing process, is awesome for developing a whole bunch of related forms and characters at once, but not so hot for trying to hit up wildly different ideas.
layered thumbnailing, on the other hand, helps free you from consciously thinking about the last thumbnail you did, since it isn't visible. i can find this helpful if i really don't want to keep the last sketch in mind, and don't want neighboring spaces to influence composition... just start a new layer and doodle. the temptation with this method, while naturally most amenable to photoshop sketching, is that you'll not be doing thumbnails at all, but sketching too big/greater detail than you ought early on. even on thumbnails i like to keep the canvas fairly sizable (600x600 let's say), but i hedge off this problem by keeping the canvas zoomed out, and even my head craned back a bit from the screen. in fact, the secret to improved PS painting for me as of late has been the same few tricks to keep a good eye on the overall canvas.
iterative should usually be reserved as a stage two deal, once you know you've gotten a really strong silhouette and now want to think about macro-level details, weapon, stance, major variations, and whatever. but even iterative can still help with initial thumbnails, since you can catch a great gestural seed and then spin it off into different silhouettes.
you'll see a lot of each approach. remember what el coro said, it's all a big toolbox, and the more approaches and techniques you can add to that toolbox, the better you are. vary up the way you approach thumbnails themselves to get the maximum variety of options.
#1: Matt22181
i like Matt's concept a lot, but he said he was thinking about how to incorporate an artifact, possibly as a magical codpiece and requested a paintover. so here's what i thought:
it's a diving helmet worn as a codpiece, that holds the spirit of a pervy ghost. so long as he controls the codpiece, he controls who the ghost will defile. Matt has a way better handle on this kind of style than i do so it's not the best paintover, but i think it gives enough of a suggestion
#2: rooster
sorry mate. i tend to criticize you, among others, for getting into rendering and coloring too quick, and here i am repeating the same offense far more flagrantly
i botched a lot of the interesting/more alien physique, so you ought not to pay attention to that.. but i had a lot of fun with the carlos huante style creepies with his cancer(tetsuo?)arm. i think you'll do well once you clarify the big forms and focus on bigger details... i think we all get hung up on scribbly bits. as always, strong silhouette and big forms, and above all a big personality/presence are essential.
#3: suprore
hey man, i feel you not feeling the brief
i much prefer to keep away from magic as much as possible, but as someone posted in your thread, go ahead and take it as near carte blanche... the Arthur C. Clarke quote is particularly illuminative: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." --and vice versa.so anyway, just pick a direction and start considering it--but also try and get an attitude, a posture in there. i just threw this guy into the suggestion of a haughty fencer/samurai kind of thing, and it starts drawing itself. good luck.
#4: NaruSol
hey man, been a while. first off, "Tugger" is a really gay character name, i can't think of any other way to put it. there seem to be a lot of chains going around in this compo, all sorts of mystical energies in artifacts being tethered... personally i'd stay away. once you start seeing trends in a compo like this, trending away is going to help you stand out in a crowd if your modeling/concepting skills aren't the greatest. sell them on the idea.
i think it'd be best to keep with the kind of vibe you've got going, but push character and power without turning him into some horrible monster. there's an affable quality i like there, but he also seems completely non-threatening. you can go with the yogi sort of the thing, by which of course we mean a yoda type of thing, which is where i went with the paintover. ol' slug dude with his pillow atop a floating relic of the ancient wars--a giant, rusted over robot skull with lots of nice little mossy things growing on it.
i guess the biggest crits going through my head with this paintover is (1) make sure it's a properly heroic-stature character, and that (2) visual hierarchy is clear. dont put the character of focus "tugging" in front of a rock that commands attention far more than he does. sit him on top!
#5: El Z0rR
this was an interesting follow-up to Naru's, because it deals with similar issues of making a character work in tandem with a large object/mount.
in this case however, el Z0rR, my advice is to reconsider your concept slightly outside of the traditional strictures. everyone has the slightly mysterious robed/armor dude atop a formidable mount... but man, when are they ever as cool as the mount? very seldom.
it's advice i keep coming back to with people when they ask me how to spruce up a concept: discard the first inclination, the first iteration. chances are you're just grabbing something off the top of your memory, a well-worn form that's as comfortable as it is dull. dig deeper. you're not going to find anything "original"--real originality is way more off-putting than most people like to think--but you might find something more interesting to apply, or a method for thinking around the obvious pitfalls.
because frankly, the creative process is a lot like that old Atari E.T. game. it mostly sucks, and is a series of falling into the same hole, climbing out of it, and then promptly falling into the adjacent hole. the holes are cliches, bad habits, lazy shorthands. we all do it, but we all gotta keep struggling. just... like... E.T.?
anyhow, back to the paintover. i liked the idea of blowing the scale even huger, making the trees much smaller on the back, and ditching the rider entirely. make the awesome mud monster your character, a sentient mound of goo with some artifact buried deep within, animating his intelligence and gooey frame.
or, make the controlling force that tiny bird perched on his horn. the birds i thought were way more interesting than the rider.
oh, and he skews to a sort of, shall we say, rhino-mole thing because while rhinos always kick ass, doing a pretty straight rhino is boring unless you can really nail some of the critical features of that beautiful animal... and i don't think it makes a lot of sense as an earth-elemental. horns are cool, horns are great for most anything, but being borne of earth i figured a giant would have more earth-animal type characteristics, hence the facial features and weird little hands. which, although goofy looking, are still enormous, because he's a giant.
anyway, food for thought. good luck, and take your time rolling around some different ideas.
#6: JFletcher
hey, it's the fish kids!
you can still see certain pieces in there, but i actually started off your initial sketch, the "minor tough." maybe that's not fair; it probably could have been developed into a fairly formidable entry, but probably better suited for the last war.
in keeping with the idea of artifacts and the wiped out technology of the past reused or appropriated for other uses, let's assume your sketch was a character from a thousand years ago... fast forward a thousand+ years, and now a small cluster of horrible monster fish-kids are huddled together, animating the now magical armor. i guess i just love the idea of slick and oily fish-y things oozing out of a rusted out hulk of space armor, that long since ceased shining out of its random glow-y bits.
anyway. i like the sort of bull character you're developing now, but be careful about detailing out ideas for armors when you still don't even have a body. i cannot stress this enough, applicable to just about everyone--though doodling in certain key details can give you great ideas on how to proceed, in virtually all cases you want to solve the general before the specific. that's why thumbnails are so de rigeur--neat silhouettes mean so much, and provides you with an idea of how to proceed forward. drawing a head and then doodling up the head means that you could be drawing yourself into a corner.
a final note on anthropomorphic characters: winners just tend to have a high degree of humanity, corrupt or otherwise. you have to sell a whole lot more extra creativity to trump the inherent identification element that comes with (at the very least) a semi-human face. so bear that in mind if you end up with a very overtly beast-y face, it means you have to sell the personality in other ways.
#7: Abhishek
Abhishek, you've made great strides, but your basic rendering and detailing needs a lot of work. difficult to get a character concepted when you can barely scratch out a face, but you know this. and furthermore, you didn't really ask for a crit, so i'm letting you off the hook this time
main thing for this paintover is giving the legs a bit more dynamic shape, and throwing in some crustacean-y bits for good measure.
#8: low odor
shit man, i just finished uploading this and now i remember reading the last comment in your thread--the head at the end of the staff would be a way cooler way to address this concept. hopefully you can still use some sort of idea or small inspiration from this paintover, though. man i need to go to sleep.
Replies
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=270665&an=0&page=0#Post270665
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=271045&an=0&page=0#Post271045
Thanks a lot for doing this thread, from everyone.
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=271562&an=0&page=0#Post271562
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=270353&an=0&page=1#Post270353
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=271224&an=0&page=1#Post271224
if not thats cool, this seems like a great idea actually, means people will be helping out in a way more advanced than just crit
im sure ill be requesting soon enough.
but yea... community award to gauss once again itd seem
hell, ill try ta provide amateur paintovers if i can
cheers!
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=270197&an=0&page=1#Post270197
elephant dude
Looks like you're going to be a busy boy, Gauss.
[/ QUOTE ]
I'm not gauss or even in his ballpark, but I'd be happy to help out with a sketch for anyone who wants a little help developing their character.
Edit: Another way I'm not like gauss is I won't be going in any sort of order, just helping out who I think I can be of assistance to. Mostly folks who are having trouble getting out of the silhouette/thumbnail stage. Hopefully it will be enough to keep ya productive while eagerly waiting on gauss to come throw it all out and make it better.
Xaltar:
rooster paintover posted. later ones are likely not to be so involved
Post an image of your current idea, a few notes on what you'd like to see, or any ideas you had and couldn't portray them well enough in 2D.
We all know he is a machine and will probably get through everyone here that posts asking for help and still manage to finish his own entry. But this is a learning exercise for you all and you'll never learn if you get someone to do your work for you.
But seriously, Jack, top stuff. Hats off to you for offering to help, because without your help for the first Dom War, I don't think we would have had half the completed entries. We also wouldn't have had such top quality concepts.
Plus your absence during the second war was evident because there wasn't a constant bombardment of paintovers, concepts, ideas and solid crits. I know I personally could have used some of that gauss touch last year.
Mad props to you, mate.
-caseyjones
We should really get the community contribution awards going this year, I remember suggesting it last year but I don't think anything has eventuated.
Spark
the other reason i'm not terribly concerned is that from experience with DW1, even if teams were allowed, people still wouldn't use my concepts
i think entries like these are so personal that, while although people are open to suggestion, virtually everyone i've seen on these boards is above just copping a concept straight off, even if it's a paintover of their own design. everyone's too much of an artist to think someone else can do their own design better than they can
if FredH says its out, then i'll certainly stop, but i think as paintovers are so vital a part of forums normally, i can't see how it wouldn't be in the best spirit of the competition. it's a lot of why i look forward to DW every year, in fact.
(can someone point him to this thread and ask for a clarification? i don't have a gameartisans account.)
Edit: Should have said visual crit OR suggestion, as apposed to written ones.
A paint-over is supposed to be a visual crit, as apposed to a written one. Banning it will bring up the question of whether we should be able to share ideas about each others entry's at all, which would be shithouse.
[/ QUOTE ]
Exactly. If we couldn't crit each others' works, we wouldn't be a "team" - just a bunch of individuals with the same colors.
Spark
cheers sar!
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=271910&page=0&vc=#Post271910
Any help would be really appreciated.
Here's the link to my post. I hope you have time to take a look at it.
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=271091&an=0&page=0#Post271091
The idea I had behind my concept so far is:
a vicious and insane fallen Angel escaping from the deep cesspit of Hell
to wreak havoc on the mortal planes. Having some physical resemblence to his angel counterparts soon becomes fouled by his own corruption.
Body Detail ideas:
-Face still resembles a humans but is cracked, broken, and frayed at the edges falling away
into dark spirit energies despercing at the back of the head.
-Expression: insane laughter as he frees himself at last.
-Body covered with stretched and decaying human skin and rusting armor.
-Tentacles from Hell still attempt to keep its hold on the fallen, crushing skin and armor alike,
some piercing the skin itself.
Again, even if you don't have time to take a look at my post, it is really great of you to offer these paintovers for everyone. Thank you.
http://img89.imageshack.us/img89/6172/05bw2.jpg
im not sure what direction to take him in and am sorta at a standstill with his design, i tried a couple of things last night on paper but didn't really get anywhere that i liked or that stood out as an overall improvement (eg thinner more muscular torso and larger centipede body parts, as well as a few armor changes)
so having a fresh look and a different perspective on the this guy would be much appreciated
thanks mate
(entry thread is in my Sig)
Spark
I finished up my concept now. I'm glad I stuck with it cuz now I won't be ashamed for people to see it when I submit my entry
Keep up the great work guys.
Seriously tho, 'Rats off to ya!' for taking time out of the busy schedule.
-wake
wake: i will have an entry that i'll be working on once work gives me a little more breathing room. just having fun warming up.
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=270993&page=3&fpart=1&vc=1
nothin in my entry thread yet... except for inspiration. Great Job!
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=270820&an=0&page=0#Post270820
I realise it's still intensely derivative with generic proportions but thus far, all I've tried has ended up making it look stupid xD
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=270200&an=0&page=0
http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2386
page 2 has a slightly updated thumb of #6.
I would love some gauss action too
http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=2386
page 2 has a slightly updated thumb of #6.
[/ QUOTE ]
lol, this is war you fool!
......also <u>including people from other forums</u> (but you gotta register here)
[/ QUOTE ]
Well he did offer it to us..
If you feel like something small, you could always have a crack at my blockout model 3d snapshot here...
It's a small image but you can scale it up and get lots of cool pixels!
Certainly not guaranteed that I'll even go with this model, but if you wanna have some fun with it, feel free
[ QUOTE ]
......also <u>including people from other forums</u> (but you gotta register here)
[/ QUOTE ]
Well he did offer it to us..
[/ QUOTE ]
Fair enough
i did this quicky, its the basic proportions for my guy, im gonna use this for paint overs for his gear, if anyone else wants to join in on the shinnanigans, feel free, its always fun to see different approaches.
thread: http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=273745&an=0&page=0#Post273745
Would be stoked if you could have a look at my entry. He's meant to be some kind of weary, wandering, healer/shaman type.
I think I'd like to take him in a more dusty, 'desert punk' direction. With scavenged equipment and scrapped together clothing to protect him from the polluted enviroment. Mixed with a few advanced looking relic pieces like his helmet. Anyway, if you feel like it I'd love to see your take on him
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=276194&page=0&vc=1#Post276194