Paintover Help?

madmuffin

Lately I have been stuck in a complete rut in terms of design ability, it seems like everything I try to draw or concept just comes out completely terrible and I am dissatisfied with my work in every way. I'm trying to make this leg seem more interesting but everything I try just looks like some two year old tacked some Legos all over it in an attempt to make it less boring.



Normally I'd just take my time and work through it but I am on an extremely tight deadline that is stressing me out completely, I feel like I am just wasting every second of every day even though I spend them all sitting at my computer trying to work on this done, its just getting no where.

Anyways, any ideas, critique, meltdown relief tactics etc would be great.

r_fletch_r

some sort of indication of joints would really help to sell this as a leg. also perhaps split the toe. The armor stuff on the front also makes it seem like a rigid object.

madmuffin

Right sorry. I know all the details so I just sorta forgot that no one can see in my head and know what it is supposed to be unless I say it. Some info HERE and a bunch of details are in my blog that's linked at that link and in my signature.

Basically its a big robot. This is only the foot and calf, not the thigh or whatever the second part of your leg is called. The joint of where the leg is is that flat surface at the top, rather where it will be, since there is no second part yet.

Oh and here are some failed legs. Maybe I am just exhausted or something but it just feels like I can't do anything right right now, my brush is all wrong, everything looks and feels completely amateur.

cholden

It may be valuable to take a break on your own concepts and work with modeling proven concepts to get a better understand of why and where they place details. Once you've built this confidence, returning to your own designs with your new skills.

wake

Part of the trouble is that you're focusing in on the leg before you've reallly blocked out the rest of the robot. Is the deadline just for a finished leg or for the whole thing? If it's just for the leg then that's a weird deadline, but ok and we'll go from there, but if the deadline is for the whole robot then you need to post your sketches or ideas/blockout of what the rest of the robot looks like.

Mark Dygert

Should probably get the anatomy correct... your model has two heels?
Is it a bear? Or a cat, dog, goat leg?
http://www.vigville.com/forum_images/TigerBearFootRef.jpg
http://www.vigville.com/wip/DW4/DW4_03.jpg
http://www.vigville.com/forum_images/DogLegAnatomy.jpg

Figuring out where your joints are, and how they bend will help you figure out some function to your form.
As for detail have you gone digging for reference? I normally end up with more junk than I know what do with.

madmuffin

Deadline is for the whole thing but I am pretty sure at this point that is an impossible dream so I am just trying to get the leg done right.

I didn't just jump into doing this leg with no idea what I am doing, I didn't think to post all the work leading up to this point but you can see it all HERE, where I went into detail with the blockouts, studying a dog's leg structure, various concepts, etc.

Normally I WOULD go back and work from someone else's concept work for a while but my problem is a killer deadline and the project itself is you aren't allowed to use someone else's concept, the whole point is to work from you own this time.

As for references I have gargantuan folders full of them, but like I said before the point of this project is to work from your own concepts, and every time I try to incorporate some of those references into my work, it just feels like I am basically glueing someone else's sequins on it, tacky and horrible and out of place.

Here's the blockout if you don't want to dig through links and stuff, helps to get a sense of what the leg you are looking at is about.

madmuffin

I don't understand where you are coming from with 'no real concept work' when I posted the link to all the work and studies repeatedly. =/

I've repeatedly stated I am on a deadline and at this point 'Trash everything and start over' is pretty much the worse possible move I could be making right now. Maybe if I was just doing this for myself, and even then I don't see a reason to start over.

If you look at tons of the robots and other mechanical things in places like http://conceptrobots.blogspot.com/, you'll see that like 80% of the form is completely gratuitous and could be stripped away without affecting the function, so I really don't see the form follows function in this case as basically none of that leg is a moving piece save for the joint at the top connecting to the next part of leg that only exists as a block out and isn't the focus right now.

At least one part of the form got through, the back was supposed to look soft, I had brain matter in mind or at least muscle fibers but I guess pillows is close enough.

The paint overs were just me toying with concepts, I don't know how I am 'supposed' to do concepts and paint overs but I am just drawing what seems visually interesting, trying to break up the monotony of seven curved metal plates is all I am trying to do.

Does this help maybe?

achillesian

Calabi

Look at refs find mechanical machines, pistons, gears, thngs with movable parts.

madmuffin

Lots of people have been commenting 'Look at references.' Here is just one of my many collages of references I like to make. Just looking at small pieces of other works helps me generate ideas for my own without feeling like I am directly ripping off large portions of someone else's work. I am definitely looking at references.

http://conceptrobots.blogspot.com/ is a great website too.



and @achillesian is exactly much closer to the sort of thing I was thinking of. I am not so much in the market for dramatically changing the shape and form of it, its just the sort of things he put over it to break up the monotony.

wake

First off, relax. I know you're in a bind but we're trying to help. Second, we've all looked at your work posted here and on the blog, and what we're saying is that it's not enough to get a good start on a model. You've done one basic side ortho for the leg, and even that didn't really show any surface quality but the form underneath, which while helpful leaves you with nothing to go on when executing the actual surface quality. As for the rest of the robot, you have a couple of silhouette studies done with alchemy and one vague 3/4s perspective shot that doesn't even include the whole robot. The idea behind doing concepts is to explore the form in multiple different ways until you begin to resolve a concept that you're happy with. From there you do some more specific studies, draw some orthos, then block the model out. From the blockout model you can do some paintovers to further explore surface quality and maybe some subtler shifts in form, and THEN you model it. You're missing nearly all of the in-between steps, which is why you're getting frustrated and stymied when trying to model this robot, because you have nothing to go on. Modeling can be difficult enough as it is without trying to invent the form at the same time that you're modeling it.

Mark Dygert

Oh yea I remember that boot.... that thread didn't end well either.

So that's a massive calf muscle not a thigh? The toes look like a foot because the heel is drowning in calf muscle. Calling this a leg when you only have a calf done also makes people think the giant bulge is a thigh.

As for the "other kids don't put function on their form" debate. Sometimes thinking about something in a functional way gives birth to all kinds of detail ideas. Considering I'm not the only one to bring it up there might be some weight to considering function instead of "what flavor of greeble should I choose".

Looks like someone did the heavy lifting for ya, just pick one...

bahh... screw it have fun with your leg however you choose to butcher it.

madmuffin

Haha yes I am the boot guy. I never did get it the way I wanted in the end either. /live it down.



Here is my leg superimposed over the example leg. Besides that the knee is about one leg in front of his knee, I don't see why my leg doesn't have a functioning form? And the knee part was deliberate anyways, the robot itself was never meant to have a straight leg like human legs.

Giant Calf yes. I guess I could have called it something other then a leg, that might have caused confusion. What do you call everything from the knee down, if not a leg? Half a leg?

You have a point in that right now all I have been concerned with is what greebles can make it less dull, its just that it seems functional to me right now already, I don't know what to do different, and I really like the shape and all that of it now, its only breaking up the flat metal I am concerned with.

and @wake: I understand what you are saying about building up to this point but I disagree that I haven't done all the steps you are talking about. If you had access to absolutely everything I have done up to this point maybe it would be more apparent that I put the time and effort behind this, just because I only showed one blockout doesn't mean there aren't a pile of like a hundred rejected ones reaching this point.



This robot is probably a better example to look at in terms of leg structure then the one posted before.

EDIT: I want to put up more paint overs but for some reason imageshack keeps going 'no file uploaded' every time I try.

In the mean time, what is it about the above robot that looks good, like I know it IS good and doest look boring even though it is made up of flat plates mainly, there is very little greebling.

Zack Fowler

Right now the larger shapes of your design are letting you down. No matter what medium and small shapes you add, it will feel off and hard to read.

Use the ideas of the functionality of the pieces to set up the skeleton of the design. Consider using the locations of joints as visual focal points. Think about scale, and different sizes of shapes. Think about where the design edges are pointing, what kinds of shapes they make, where they lead the eye. Use a variety of thin and fat shapes so that the viewer can quickly prioritize design elements and find the focal points.

Here is a rough animated gif I put together. I did the big, medium, small versions in that order, making sure not to put smaller scale design elements in until I was happy with the larger shapes.



I don't think my specific design example is along the lines of the style you seem to have in your mind's eye, but the process is the same regardless. If you are not happy with how your design looks when you take the small and medium elements out, you need to rework the big shapes of your design so they are interesting without smaller details. This is why people have told you to throw out the high-poly modeling you have done so far: there isn't really a good way to make that look interesting. You will make a better looking final model faster by starting with a stronger design foundation.

Another thing: aspiring/student artists are always so focused on making something new, coming up with a new style, being recognizable and unique. But you can't force that stuff. Your personal style preferences and ideas come from the natural (and unavoidable) reactions in your mind to stuff you see in the world. Style is about breaking the rules. But you need to know what the rules are in the first place, otherwise you're just screwing around. For now focus on learning the rules according to the way other artists are successfully using and breaking them.

With all that said... for tech designs, shell, FFD, and path deform are your best friends.

madmuffin

@Zack; I like this post. It explains a lot of things I wasn't getting, but now I am having a fundamental problem. I get what you mean about flow and large and small shapes, but your robot leg design there has completely lost all the style, intent, feel, I don't know the world for it that the original held.

I'm trying to make something that looks organic and fluid, while your concept is visually interesting, it has completely lost this feeling, it looks no different then any other robot out there. I'm talking about like Giger Xenomorph or just any old insect exoskeleton.

How do I retain the points of interest and visual flow on something without using any sharp or hard edges or pointless greebling? I want it to look alive yet mechanical, which isn't really making sense, just any of Giger's work or general bugs is what I am going for. 'If an Insect was steel' maybe?

Zack Fowler

My paintover was about process, not style, like I said. It's a fundamental process you follow whether you are figuring out your design in clay, ink, markers, paint, whatever. You could even still take those general shapes of my "big" design and move them in a more organic direction, it's mostly a matter of how you work things. Instead of hard straight lines and geometric curves you make constantly turning and bulging or tapering lines.

If you feel so strongly about not having your robot to look mechanical then why have you stockpiled so much mechanical reference? The point of gathering reference is to find stuff that looks like what you want your work to look like, not what you want it to be different from. If you want to make something that is more a robot-like insect than insect-like robot, then the fundamentals of your design should be based on insect references, not robot references. You should be making an insect and figuring out how to turn it into a robot, not making a robot and killing yourself in trying to make it not look like a robot.

And for the love of God, stop wringing your hands over "style". Just keep making shit until you have enough shit made to figure out what you like the most and want to continue developing. Giger didn't come up with the Necromorphs by pushing himself to figure out "style" on one single piece of work, they were a brilliant yet natural extension of an aesthetic direction he had been working in for a long time.

madmuffin

Dude, calm down a little, it was a simple question. If I'm modeling a sheep there is no sense telling me to stop fussing over modeling a sheep and start modeling more elephants. Plenty of those reference aren't hard mechanical and I have even more I didn't bother to post, unless you want to see every single image I m using for reference.

I don't exactly have ten decades to develop a style just to do a single model in it, that would be silly if I had to live and breath a single style for every single model I ever do.

Also Giger's were Xenomorphs, Necromorphs is Dead Space. :poly124:

Anyways I'll get more insects and less insect robots now I guess.

Zack Fowler

I didn't respond like that because I was upset, it was to emphasize a point that you seem reluctant to acknowledge. Like so many beginners determined to run before they can walk, you have your mind set on making something new (or at least unusual), but without taking the time to establish a solid understanding of conventional design first. You're obviously averse to the idea of working on a design that "looks no different then any other robot out there", and yet you sarcastically point out that you don't have the time to properly follow through the artistic process and develop such a design for yourself. No magic forum paintover can solve that problem for you. Frankly, solving that kind of problem is the kind of thing that people are paid to do. Like Vig said, it's the inevitable "heavy lifting".

You missed my point about Giger. He didn't explore that style for years just so he could one day make the Xenomorph design -- that machine flesh aesthetic was a natural interest to him that he just kept developing over time into something recognizably novel. He wanted to make stuff like that so he did, and got very good at it. That's how you pull off something that is so different from standard visual conventions. You start with the familiar and through trial and error figure out how to make it different but recognizable. In other words, don't expect to be able to come up with something different and successful in a short time frame. If your deadline is so close at hand, you would probably be best served letting go of your lofty ideal and figuring out how to make a conventional but well-executed design first.

Moosey_G

Zack Flower has some very wise words. I'd like to interject that he's divulged a lot of very intelligent and interesting information on the basics of design, more specifically even, robot design. I'm working on some robot designs myself, and I've blasted through more work after viewing his paint over. From one professional to another you aren't really ever going to get the "here let me grab your mouse and show you how i'd do it," you get the theory behind it's design, which has been oozing out of every post in this thread. I suggest you at least try to take some of the approaches listed here, but without a more rough blockout and more concept works of a finished piece of the actual robot you want you're just going to coming up with as you go along, in which case no one can really help you because you'd don't even know what you're looking for yourself.

achillesian

madmuffin wrote: »

Random bitching about design, style, timetables etc...

I don't think there is much more we can do here. People on this forum have oft criticized me for the timetables I've worked with to justify bad work. If you
re serious about this, dumping copious amounts of time into 3d and 2d art is a god damn necessity, so basically If you don't have the time to : brainstorm styles, collage varied and interesting references, form or obtain a concrete 2d "direct-reference", and proceed to modeling, you can't do it. You won't be successful.

Your options:

1) stop
2) get help
3) get more time
4) ?
5) profit!

woogity

Along the lines of what others have been saying, what makes a good robot design a good robot design isn't the individual details but the overall balance weight and silhouette, this is pretty much true of every kind of design. keep working on blocking in a good silhouette before getting into details like these. Also, when it comes to robots, this is further complicated by the fact that the good designs there in at least have to have a marriage of the functional, or plausibly functional, with areas of lower detail, or they become overwhelming.

Again, this applies to pretty much every form of design. Even within the concepts you have posted, what makes them so strong is that there are areas of intense visual interest, next to areas that are smoother or that can give the eye a rest. what you have so far is basically flat plates with no hints to the inner structure or functionality of the machine. This will automatically kill the visual interest of the piece regardless of what sweet details you can drop on the plates. Add some mechanics, pistons exhaust, hydraulics, think up functions for the details you are going to add. this is a looooong process and in my opinion robots are essentially the very hardest to design because they are so dependent on function as well as anatomy and silhouette. If you want to ease yourself into it I would defiantly advise maybe starting with something simpler than a humanoid. Ive been working on this myself recently, and doing work everyday that you plan on never finishing but forcing yourself to do it anyways really helps you improve fast, I would go back to the concept stage and thumbnail some stuff, when you find something you like ask yourself WHY that looks awesome and what its purpose is to the greater design. my 2 cents hope it helps.


-Woog