Your attention to detail and eye for accessory and decoration is very impressive, but your work isn't very refined and really has that high-school fanartist look. Don't take that the wrong way, but your characters are in serious need of some anatomy study and proportional work. I really like your coloring, but it's weakened by your poor handling of shadow and highlight, making your characters very flat and adding to the stiffness. Take a break from your current style, spend a lot of time drawing from life, doing figure drawing with lots of gestures, and studying some classic drawing books on proportion, like most of what Andrew Loomis wrote.
By the way, those robots are epic, but the lousy messy presentation is killing all the great detail, and I have idea what the heck is going on. Please, do a 3-point lighting setup (or less) with non-reflective floors, and not every part on the robot needs to be of the same material type. Some variety in that area could help you a lot. Your spiderbot reminds me of a production series that digital tutors offers, I'm wondering if you used them at all? I'm using the rigging one for a mech I'm working on right now, and it's pretty good.
Hope this was constructive, and gives you some ideas for improvement.
cool render+model.
Presentation wise. Think about where u want the viewers eye to go first. The spidey's head right? What makes it Not go there. The flashing lights on the legs. I dnt wana look at legs. i wana see the face.
The spidey is lost with the super white flooring. u want the reflections mainly on the spidey to show off the form. keep the white highlights for jus the spidey,and tone down the background lighting.
the background is too distracting, u have enough going on in the spidey, so keep it focused,clean,bold. also itll give ur red lights a chance to really pop .
also perhaps think of a prop that indicates a sense of scale. Something humans can relate to and tihnk. WOW thats a Big/Small spider. etc.
have fun with it! it has strong potential to look Amazing. it can still be messy but in a controlled way =p
Wow I can't believe you made this many posts with only getting 1 reply!
For your character sketches all of their heads are too teeny, their noses and mouths are just crammed in there, I agree with Razgriz that your anatomy needs some work and it's definitely got that high school fanart look to it. The reason it has that look is you are sketching out something quickly, then going straight to detail and then superdetailing it, you have to make sure you have a nice base sketch before moving on to accessories and colors.
For the troll sculpture you have it's not a terrible concept but the head on a head is odd, it could be that it's supposed to be a mask? But typically a head of the same creature is a skull of it's own race on it's head, and for that thing to still have skin on it and be completely covering his eyes just seems odd to me. Oh wow I went back up and took a look and realized it just looked cut into a second half by his nose piece, nevermind all of that I would erase it but i want you to know how some of these pieces are coming across when first looking at them.
Your shadow b6 dude has better proportions overall from your other characters, the flame guy makes little sense. His proportions are negligable since it's a fantasy creature, but it took me forever to figure out what was on his arm. I realized it's a flame blade sort of thing but you have it dripping as if it were a thick liquid, I have never really seen fire do this except when burning oil bottles on a stick, but even then the fire goes up while the plastic melts down.
For your roboish dude and messy spider, you have hyper detailed to the point of messyness for sure. You are using tiny body parts (much like the heads) and then cramming hyper detail within there, for the robo spider itself the contrast of the ground to the spider makes it really hard to read. Overall try to remember functions for pieces rather than just placing pieces of junk all over the bodies of robotic items. Go take a look at some tanks, see what the random details are and why each one is there, military machines are meant to be efficient since they need all of the metal they can get for the war effort, they typically don't place random scale patterns of metal on objects.
I think that's enough critiques for now You have a lot of potential, just try to dial back the over-detailing some and work on proportions more - remember, less is more
The proportions on this guy are definitely better and the contrast to the background certainly helps. The hard edges round shadow being cast by the spotlight is odd looking though, maybe if you can put in a directional light to light up the plane in the background?
This guy however has the same problem with the hyper detailing or overall noise, some of the stuff I can't tell what it is, like the feathers (i think?) on the shoulder. His armor shape is fine but you've got it colored randomy with streaks of grey, just figure out what this material is and stick to that color. (talking about the white bits)
The grey is a flat color, check out specular maps and learn how to make stuff look like metal rather than just rubber.
But mostly you've covered this guy in spikes, some spikes here and there in places where it would be useful to combat are fine, like on the tops of his feet and edge of his feet, but even the shapes of these spikes look soft and painless, rubbery. He doesn't need spikes on all directions on his feetor up the sides of his leg or on his back, and most of all around his arms, just dial the whole thing back, most of the chains are fine, the bands on the arm are a little gigantic but that kinda fits the style of tyrael from Diablo 2.
It looks to me like you are using procedural textures everywhere instead of mapping him out, is that what you are doing? If you have him UVed then throw up his layout and let me have a look if you don't mind.
oh yea this was just really quick lights and some procedural i have like zero texture experience so im hopeing to make this guy out pretty good
yea i angree with the detail thing haha i guess i just dnt know when to stop :P modeling is fun
i need to find some kind of system for details.. -.-"
this was also just a quick render ppl were watching my modeling videos and wanted me to post so i posted :P probably wasn't ready to though :P
i should have him uv'ed maybe next weekend i dunno with dominance war coming up though this might be on the back burner for a while till i get that guy done
Well for a "system" of details just start with a concept, while working on the concept think about what the character is, and what it will be doing, hopefully you can even go as far as why it will be doing that. Think about how things are made and why things are made that way.
I'll try to use the kul'krak as an example. It's really hard to tell what it is at all, this is because it is so covered in all of this split up armor that is multicolored and placed almost everywhere and randomly. Think about the helmet, why are helmets made - obviously to protect the head, what will protect the head metalwise? A solid chunk of metal. Think about if you have all of these segmentations, then the metal will just bend out of the way and let anything go right through it. Places that it should be segmented would be on knees, elbows, on the ankle above the foot, that's about it. Other than that things need to be as solid as possible to be sure they can actually block blows. Then look at the weapon, why do you have random bits of color on the weapon? i know many weapons are decorated, however most of the highly decorated pieces are show weapons for ceremonial purposes. And if it's a usable decorated weapon then it's usually a single color, like with metal shields it's simply etched into it, not placed with different colored metals. I am running out of typing breath so to speak so i'll leave you with that for now, hope it helps!
DW stuff
final concept
line work
update 3D ready for low poly
Neo Joan of Arc for EAS final
Final concept:
final line work:
some other school stuff:
fake tattoos on gf:
Fake cd cover and cd for symphony of science:
There are much better ways to design and organize the information than just random collage. Your backgrounds are way too busy, the font is too hard to read, and the colors clash and bleed into each other. The wireframes have no line weight or hierarchy and just add to the visual noise. "The client wants all this information!" is no excuse for poor organization and design. A designer's job is to take what the client wants and make it look as good and clear as possible, and these do neither.
its worth a lot thanks! nice to finally get some feed back on PC thought it was a ghost town or i just really really sucked, however they do look a lot better on my blog im work at print quality 19X13 i will tone them down on the next one and see if i can re adjust the noise level
Scrolling through your images, I think that you are rapidly getting better - you have an eye for color and vibrance that, once developed, will be quite an asset for you. The biggest problem I continue to see with all of your characters is that they are, while decently rendered, very stiff and wooden. Spend lots of time, lots of time on short, quick gesture drawings. Go to a cafe and do 10 seconds gestures of people as they walk by. If you can grow in that area, I think it will breath a lot of life into your drawings.
Have you thought about kicking things back a notch and going for something simpler? Right now all your work is very busy (which has it's own charm) but not every company wants that. Some variety in your portfolio won't hurt. Also, making something simple forces you to make interesting designs and choices because you can't simply add interest by adding more detail.
Replies
By the way, those robots are epic, but the lousy messy presentation is killing all the great detail, and I have idea what the heck is going on. Please, do a 3-point lighting setup (or less) with non-reflective floors, and not every part on the robot needs to be of the same material type. Some variety in that area could help you a lot. Your spiderbot reminds me of a production series that digital tutors offers, I'm wondering if you used them at all? I'm using the rigging one for a mech I'm working on right now, and it's pretty good.
Hope this was constructive, and gives you some ideas for improvement.
nope nothing taken the wrong way i need the harshness even more specific stuff would help
thanks alot for the PC
cool render+model.
Presentation wise. Think about where u want the viewers eye to go first. The spidey's head right? What makes it Not go there. The flashing lights on the legs. I dnt wana look at legs. i wana see the face.
The spidey is lost with the super white flooring. u want the reflections mainly on the spidey to show off the form. keep the white highlights for jus the spidey,and tone down the background lighting.
the background is too distracting, u have enough going on in the spidey, so keep it focused,clean,bold. also itll give ur red lights a chance to really pop .
also perhaps think of a prop that indicates a sense of scale. Something humans can relate to and tihnk. WOW thats a Big/Small spider. etc.
have fun with it! it has strong potential to look Amazing. it can still be messy but in a controlled way =p
For your character sketches all of their heads are too teeny, their noses and mouths are just crammed in there, I agree with Razgriz that your anatomy needs some work and it's definitely got that high school fanart look to it. The reason it has that look is you are sketching out something quickly, then going straight to detail and then superdetailing it, you have to make sure you have a nice base sketch before moving on to accessories and colors.
For the troll sculpture you have it's not a terrible concept but the head on a head is odd, it could be that it's supposed to be a mask? But typically a head of the same creature is a skull of it's own race on it's head, and for that thing to still have skin on it and be completely covering his eyes just seems odd to me. Oh wow I went back up and took a look and realized it just looked cut into a second half by his nose piece, nevermind all of that
Your shadow b6 dude has better proportions overall from your other characters, the flame guy makes little sense. His proportions are negligable since it's a fantasy creature, but it took me forever to figure out what was on his arm. I realized it's a flame blade sort of thing but you have it dripping as if it were a thick liquid, I have never really seen fire do this except when burning oil bottles on a stick, but even then the fire goes up while the plastic melts down.
For your roboish dude and messy spider, you have hyper detailed to the point of messyness for sure. You are using tiny body parts (much like the heads) and then cramming hyper detail within there, for the robo spider itself the contrast of the ground to the spider makes it really hard to read. Overall try to remember functions for pieces rather than just placing pieces of junk all over the bodies of robotic items. Go take a look at some tanks, see what the random details are and why each one is there, military machines are meant to be efficient since they need all of the metal they can get for the war effort, they typically don't place random scale patterns of metal on objects.
I think that's enough critiques for now
This guy however has the same problem with the hyper detailing or overall noise, some of the stuff I can't tell what it is, like the feathers (i think?) on the shoulder. His armor shape is fine but you've got it colored randomy with streaks of grey, just figure out what this material is and stick to that color. (talking about the white bits)
The grey is a flat color, check out specular maps and learn how to make stuff look like metal rather than just rubber.
But mostly you've covered this guy in spikes, some spikes here and there in places where it would be useful to combat are fine, like on the tops of his feet and edge of his feet, but even the shapes of these spikes look soft and painless, rubbery. He doesn't need spikes on all directions on his feetor up the sides of his leg or on his back, and most of all around his arms, just dial the whole thing back, most of the chains are fine, the bands on the arm are a little gigantic but that kinda fits the style of tyrael from Diablo 2.
It looks to me like you are using procedural textures everywhere instead of mapping him out, is that what you are doing? If you have him UVed then throw up his layout and let me have a look if you don't mind.
yea i angree with the detail thing haha i guess i just dnt know when to stop :P modeling is fun
i need to find some kind of system for details.. -.-"
this was also just a quick render ppl were watching my modeling videos and wanted me to post so i posted :P probably wasn't ready to though :P
i should have him uv'ed maybe next weekend
I'll try to use the kul'krak as an example. It's really hard to tell what it is at all, this is because it is so covered in all of this split up armor that is multicolored and placed almost everywhere and randomly. Think about the helmet, why are helmets made - obviously to protect the head, what will protect the head metalwise? A solid chunk of metal. Think about if you have all of these segmentations, then the metal will just bend out of the way and let anything go right through it. Places that it should be segmented would be on knees, elbows, on the ankle above the foot, that's about it. Other than that things need to be as solid as possible to be sure they can actually block blows. Then look at the weapon, why do you have random bits of color on the weapon? i know many weapons are decorated, however most of the highly decorated pieces are show weapons for ceremonial purposes. And if it's a usable decorated weapon then it's usually a single color, like with metal shields it's simply etched into it, not placed with different colored metals. I am running out of typing breath so to speak so i'll leave you with that for now, hope it helps!
DW stuff
final concept
line work
update 3D ready for low poly
Neo Joan of Arc for EAS final
Final concept:
final line work:
some other school stuff:
fake tattoos on gf:
Fake cd cover and cd for symphony of science:
i semi trimmed the geek down just for u guys
That's my opinion, for what it's worth.
Cool though.
Sorry, don't want to derail your topic, but here it is.