Concept Heavy Armor Cleaner Suit

Enimael

Hi there Polycount,

this is a concept-piece I am currently doing. The concept is about a mining-company on an alien planet where some sort of Lem-ish Solaris creature is living. The creature is meant to be like a smart liquid which can change aggregate-states from fluid to solid to attack or flee.

This guy is the first who enters unknown cavesystems to hunt or to chase away the creature so the mining guys can do their work.

I have a lot to learn when it comes to mastering photoshop techniques and I hope the tutorials of feng zhu and stuff like this: http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/main.php?id=ps55paint will help me, getting better. I really appreciate the loads of informative stuff which can be found!

But I wanted to get some more specific critics and I hope that you guys can help me improve my work. So here comes the picture:

I got the lightsource in there, the pose is kind of mid-air allthough he was never intended to have Isaac Clarke's thruster-boots ^^

Okay so I tried to get the values right, the linework is not totally worked out and colorwise I think I will go for blue and orange hues. I tried to avoid airbrush and follow the tutorial I linked.

So what do you guys think? C+C is totally welcome.

Have a nice (insert timezone-appropriate daytime)
Enimael
P.S. Go All Blacks!

Enimael

Doesn't anybody has some critics? Would be very much appreciated.

shotgun

Having fallen between the chairs with this "average" post (not too good but not too bad to deserve bashing or praise) this goes unnoticed. But I find it really odd that u r able to draw so well yet render so bad.

At this point I would suggest not even bothering with colors, just study pure rendering. Cubes and primitives in space, lightsource them and render them with their drop shadow, bouncing light and all that. That's what u need to do.

For the matter, u've got all the basic forms right but the rendering just doesn't serve them. It's not only inconsistent, it also doesn't quite reflect the lightsource which u seem to have really tried to nail. I can see u like details, maybe that's what distracted u. Draw whatever u like, but be ready to cast what is necessary in the shadows. Leave the details and sharp edges to the well-lit areas.



I may have gone too broad with the atmospheric rendering but it helps demonstrate the lightsource effect.

Regardless of this, try and pay more attention to symmetry where it belongs, u've got some off-throwing conflicts in some areas which would benefit from symmetry (like the neck "cushion" not quite aligning equally around his head).

Keep on..

Two Listen

If this is just a concept I think the image you've already posted is A-OK. You also won't be able to do a ton more with the lighting with him floating on a white background I don't think, not without it looking forced (which is never a good thing, IMO. No offense shotgun but I do think your paintover looks pretty forced and loses a lot of what was there).

If it's not meant to be a promotional, finished painting kind of thing or anything more than a character concept I think what you have is good. It feels consistent, gets your point across, etc. Additionally when you're working with something so mechanical or segmented like that guy's suit design/gun, etc - the difference between what's "linework" and what's not can become pretty small to the point of being insignificant.

If you want to try to push the volume and get a "lightsource" in there, I say get a different background color (such as a shade of gray). This will probably help you with defining your volumes and allow for some highlights in the form of rimlighting to get you more of that 3D feel. If you're going to keep the white background, move the lightsource somewhere else (such as coming from the viewer's eye).

Two Listen

I mean the lines in his drawing. A lot of times in painting if you leave the lines from your sketch your drawing visible, or if you rely on them to define your shapes rather than defining them with the actual values or colors - it can flatten the look of an image.

I got the impression that he was looking to further define his values, and wanting a more prevalent lightsource in there made me think he wanted more volume, more 'pop'. I just wanted to say that while normally you may try to paint completely over your lines to get that result, with mechanical designs and things of that nature - a lot of times the lines are necessary. A lot of times the actual physical details ARE just lines - which is not usually the case with something more organic.

Enimael

@SasoChicken: Thanks for the compliment. To be honest, I don't think that I would be able to convert this to a 3D model. At the moment I am more into conceptart. I did 3D stuff but mostly for university but I enjoyed it very much and I hope to get to the point, where I can model that well.

@shotgun: Wow, thanks for the overpaint, I appreciate the honesty very much.
You are totally right, I draw more than I render and as I wrote I have to learn Photoshop more.

@Twolisten: Thanks for the kind words. I know that 3D artist usually don't render out their concepts to the highest degree. Infact I saw 3D artist who had really simple concepts, but great 3D models.