Bronze

[ndchristie]

and now for something completely different, a bronze statue of a black man




basically what ive tried to do is use 16 colors (actually ive only used 15 so far) to create the illusion of dozens of colors.  I also wanted to take a break from the anime-styled game art ive been doing and go back to realism for a trip.  the palette has some new colors too, since i had to choose carefully.  if people are wondering, im not going to dither this piece because i felt that the texture was undesireable and it destroyed the 'shininess' by shattering highlights.  may ill work it into the shadows, but i think this one is going to stay as blocks of color without too much blending (though i tried to fit as much textures as i could, probably could have done more...)

concerns? critiques? random comments?

btw colors are keeping with my view of the world as being highly saturated an composed of all colors woven together.  im open to suggested changes, but i want to keep the saturation levels pretty high

[Dhaos]

That is sweet. The colors you used gave a truly bronze feel to it. Did you use a reference? As far as criting, his collar (> side) and his necklace could use some AA from your other tones, some of their edges are quite sharp (near white to that purple tone you used for example). Also is that a scar over his eye? That is still so freaking awesome though >_<...

[Godslayer]

The colors you've used are stunning. One thing I see is that his nose seems to break the perspective. It looks as though we're viewing it from straight on. If his head was tilted, both his nostrils would not have the same proportions.

[ndchristie]

angle nose...smooth necklace and collar.....got it (i think also i managed to shrink the collar on that side, so i need to edit to make it bigger anyway)

when i get a few more suggestions ill make an edit, thanks guys

EIDT: forgot to mention, i used a sketch i did in trig today as a reference.  here it is:
no reference for the sketch, just boredom.  also i wasnt really trying to follow the sketch, i more started with it and went from there

[vedsten]

sweeeet, excellent texture and colors, just brilliant. I pretty much love everything about it, espec. the hair, very well done!

The cheek looks a bit strange, theat dark path looks a bit overdone, works better in your sketch.

Anyhow, great work

[alkaline]

Ooh. I love it. Yeah, fix the nose, it looks like it's facing the wrong way. And the brightest colors on the face is too bright for my tastes, but if you want it that way sure ok.

[Tremulant]

I saw this almost as soon as you posted, and didn't want to reply without having at least some minor crit to bring to the table. A truly stunning piece, phenomenal colour choice, excellent metallic effect... you get where I'm heading. Pure love.

Two very minor crits, one of which is the nose, and Godslayer already mentioned that. The other is more of a concern than a crit, really, and it involves your choice of purple as a near dark. Given your obvious understanding of colour, I'll assume it was an intentional aesthetic choice, but after some minor playing, I found that, for me, a dark teal helps maintain more of a bronzy look.

In all seriousness, though, you know a helluva lot more about colour than me, so I wouldn't take this suggestion too seriously.

[setz]

The head seems almost too round, and the nose looks out of perspective [already said; but it's the first thing I noticed]

Other than that it's spectacular the green comes out a bit harsh and not nearly as subtle as the rest of the random colors [well, they may not be random, but I suppose to me they are]. Pretty lovely

[Turbo]

Fenomenal. I though i was looking at a photo at a first glance. I find it hard to believe you did the surface without reference, but i'll believe nonetheless.

[ndchristie]

ok, im getting a lot of the same suggestions on pixeljoint too, thanks everybody for taking the time, ill try to get an edit done this afternoon addressing:

back of head is too round/elongated   -   needs shrinking
nose is broken to the left our right   -   needs redrawing
scar is hard to identify   -   needs cleaning
necklace and callar as jagged   -   needs smoothing and some redrawing
left cheek is too pronounced   -   needs to be brought back in a little

if i missed any suggestions, just let me know

@ trem: realistically, a dark teal does work better, but i like having blues in the shadows, and its also to make sure theres a representation of a blue color in this.  in the edit, ill post 2 versions and we can see what people like more (since art is about looking good to the viewer)

[ndchristie]

bump = edit #1

tried to address as many issues as i could, though i sorta ignored the necklace and collar for the moment because im more concerned about getting the face right (and i got bored ), and as that implies im going to take this through at least another round of comments before i do the final edit

new <----> old

     
with the alternately colored one based on trem's suggestion (i think this is what he ment):


are there any major issues with this that people can see? did i fail to fix things?  any new concerns? im really wanting to get this right since its my first real attempt at semi-realism in pixels

[Darion]

Really cool. Loving the colors.

The only thing I see is ... well, he doesn't really appear to have many features that a black person would have. If you removed the bronze render and added a black, or either white skintone render, it really would not make much of a difference. The only suggestin i can give you is trial and error; once you render him white and he looks like an albino, you'll have it. I'm only telling you this because you described this as a bronze statue, but of a black man; i think its necessary to be able to tell even with a bronze render.

Again, beautiful job.

[ndchristie]

yes, thats something i have trouble with, since i dont actually remember the last time i saw a black man in real life.  black kids my age, but not an adult.  i hope that i dont offend anyone, but the fact is that i worked only from the general concepts of a broad nose, larger lips, afro-type hair, and round ears, which i honestly dont even know to be anything but a stereotype.  if anyone has any suggestions, im open to them, ive grown up surrounded by a bunch of white people drawing white people >.<

[Xion]

Lips still aren't big enough. It looks like he's sucking his lower lip in. Make the lower lip a bit bigger. Also, I don't think his nose is wide enough. Nostrils need to be large. You know, to take in lots of air. We blacks like our air.

Oh, and I really like the old purple better than that teal, though that may be because the teal isn't dark enough.

[Sohashu]

The ear is too small. 

[Ari]

Oh man... You amaze me man. So much talent. Very good job! It's mind boggling lol.

[Andy Tran]

 Kick ass art there Adrias. Everyone's gotta try something new.

[big brother]

I made this little image from blackman22kp.png colors (since I couldn't open the others) as an example of color cannabalization.

You've used 13 colors to make 8 tones (I'm not counting black, since you only used it as a background). The tone on the farthest right could be contested, but bear with me for now.


I did a little experiment below, using 8 of your colors to represent 8 tones. The flat-looking thing is a cross ramp, which shows intersections of the colors. To the right of it, I've applied each ramp to its own sphere. This shows how we can make 8 colors look like 5 separate ramps of unique shades.

[ndchristie]

in this case, i feel that all (or at least most) of the colors have been necessary not for rendering, but for differentiating between warm and cool portions of the image, the interplay of which gives it its 'life'.  since the entire portion is composed of the same material, i dont really need to make separate color ramps.  perhaps you could explain what you were trying to show?

[miascugh]

just popping in to say that this is top notch and you get an A. it definitely conveys the metallic surface you were going for, eye-candy. especially the nice overall contrast is something i hardly ever get together

big brother, while probably not too relevant to this piece here, very nice and interesting. you don't happen to have a website/portfolio/criminal record online by any chance, i'm most intrigued by most of your work

[.TakaM]

very nice, dont really have anything to add that hasnt already been said

[Helm]

 

facial anatomy crits mostly. I like the colors and the bronze effect