AuthorTopic: [wip] Face  (Read 4765 times)

Offline Tourist

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 376
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile

[wip] Face

on: May 07, 2010, 10:48:31 pm
This will be part of a larger piece.  Lots of work left.  I'm starting on the hair next, the skullcap is just a placeholder.



Feedback is welcomed.

Tourist

Offline Tourist

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 376
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [wip] Face

Reply #1 on: May 09, 2010, 02:49:21 am
Update with some hair.  I did not get far.  This does not look good, I am laughing at myself as I post.  Off to dig up a hair tutorial and some references, so I can learn how to do this right.

The ear and blue side of face remain unfinished because the bluish light source will be sitting over there and I need to add that in before figuring how the shadows fall.

Also need to figure out what bluish light on red-brown hair looks like.  Dark gray maybe?



Tourist

Offline Tourist

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 376
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [wip] Face

Reply #2 on: May 10, 2010, 06:45:52 am
Ugh.  300 views and no comments.  Perhaps it's just dull?

Didn't get much done today, spent too much time playing a video game.  Started the second face while I practice hair.  This should end up with the two heads here and a hand holding the yellow light source off to the right.




Tourist
« Last Edit: May 10, 2010, 06:48:38 am by Tourist »

Offline Ultimaodin

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 99
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Unknown Artistry
    • View Profile

Re: [wip] Face

Reply #3 on: May 10, 2010, 01:47:29 pm
I'm liking the idea so far, the only reason I haven't commented yet is I've chosen to lurk more than I used to that and the fact the green zombie like face kind of wierds me out.
So even though I know they are place-hold colours it still puts me off replying.

Anyway I'm no sure but the lips look slightly odd to me. They feel offset. Then again I'm not great at anatomy so yeah.

Offline Tourist

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 376
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [wip] Face

Reply #4 on: May 12, 2010, 04:17:08 am
Thanks for the note about the lips.  I'll take another look at them when I get back to finishing the green face.

The following isn't enough progress to post for comments, but since I didn't put anything up yesterday I'll add it.  It's terrible at the moment. The whole mouth area needs to be redone, the hairline is off, and lots of fighting with the light source direction, and the colors are mono-hue.  The only thing that is working ok is the cheek on our left, more or less. 



So slow at this,
Tourist

Offline Mathias

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1797
  • Karma: +2/-0
  • Goodbye.
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/9542.htm
    • View Profile

Re: [wip] Face

Reply #5 on: May 12, 2010, 02:14:11 pm
Can you give us some background, some context? What is this? What's the desired end-result? It's just kinda random and weird right now.

She's got a dead zombie green face, yet has typical brown hair and is smiling. Random and weird I said . . . why do I think that? Why have I not been compelled to comment before now? I think it's because, like my comment about the strange skin color, implying undead or zombie or something, and the normal girl hair causes a confusing contrast that fights against really giving me any sort of pure impression or understanding of your work so far. So it confuses me, causing interest in it to escape me, even though I want to like it, I can't.
Now with the blue face taking shape, it's starting to turn into something. Still don't know what.

But do you understand what I mean? When you survey something, and you don't really get any sort of discernible vibe or emotion from it, you're not engaged by it. It holds no power. Here, I'm far from captivated. It's almost annoying to look at, because I can't reckon what it really is. It's conflicted in and of itself.

Hah, what ridiculous postbarf, but I hope you at least partially understand my POV now, since I expect others share it.



One thing I wish you would do is stop finely processing just pieces of this before you have the whole thing sketched out.
Don't you plan on drawing both figures' entire bodies? - your OP says it's part of a larger peice. By all means you should at this point already have rough lines establishing the basic shapes of everything. It's foolish to blindly micromanage just one little bit at a time. Give yourself an overview of this piece, in context, as you create it. Doing that guards against backtracking -  as you make progress you may get to a point where you suddenly realize you need to make a compositional change but it's too late for that, since doing so would mean having to re-work some areas you've preemptively refined too much. And that's painful! Especially when you could've easily avoided it had you just planned things better, with a complete rough draft done first, etc.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2010, 02:16:54 pm by Mathias »

Offline Tourist

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 376
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [wip] Face

Reply #6 on: May 23, 2010, 12:58:18 am
I took your advice and did a few sketches on paper to plan the thing out.  Then I wrote out what I thought the image would be about.  And then I didn't feel like working on it because it was all out in one form or another.  Ugh.  So it took me a week to get back to this piece.

I don't have a scanner so you can't see the crude layout sketches I did, but they look something like this:



It's a simple change of seasons.

The green head in the center isn't supposed to be a zombie, but have a nature aspect instead.  Green like plants and springtime.

The head on the left is ghostly and fading, icy cold like winter.

On the right, Spring's hand is reaching towards a bright glowing ball, the beginning of summer.

There's a lot of little stuff too.  At the risk of boring you (skip this paragraph if you want), Spring is looking at/reaching towards the start of summer like plants are drawn to the sun.  Winter has a hand clinging to the shoulder of Spring like snows cling to the ground.  Winter doesn't have a mouth because winter is a time of silence.  There is a subtext of the sin of vanity that I'm also trying to work in, but I'm not sure it's going to work out.

I was bothered that people thought that Spring was a zombie.  Was it the red eyes and lips?  I reworked the colors for her a bit.  Is this better or worse?  Should I try and work in some additional springtime elements like plant leaves or a flower in her hair to make it more explicit?  Suggestions are welcome.



Lots of work to go,
Tourist

Offline Reo

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 200
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • aka MechaBarbarian
    • MechaBarbarian
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/11318.htm
    • View Profile

Re: [wip] Face

Reply #7 on: May 23, 2010, 09:33:57 pm
I think the zombie part was more due to her being green  :P
If you want the colors to represent spring you should make them brighter and tint them more towards yellow, maybe add some flowers and the likes.

Offline Argyle

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 269
  • Karma: +1/-1
  • Futuristic beep boop.
    • argylebox
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/13899.htm
    • valsaurus
    • View Profile
    • ArgyleBox | Designs by Valouria Saurus (VERY OUTDATED)

Re: [wip] Face

Reply #8 on: May 24, 2010, 04:53:29 am
Yes, the context of it does not cry out that they are representing seasons at its current state.  I think before rendering everything into more detail, you should get the forms of the rest of the parts that will be in this picture laid out on a simple level of just sculpting out the pose with some defining simple shadows and highlighting that will define the rest.  Or even some line-art.  As it stands, before you showed that very low-res concept sketch, it just reads as a lady with a green head (akin to being a zombie without anything like leaves/foliage/flowers/anything apart from some rotting flesh in her mouth, that would only hurt your cause in that case but that's beside the point) with a blue floating head next to her.  My first guess might have been closer to Watchman fanart or something, not knowing who the bald blue person might be.   ;D

Hard to critique from here though.