Machine Girl Album Cover [WIP][C+C]

[Wanyo]

Well I was hoping to have more time to work on this before today but...life happens I guess? On the bright side/down side I didn't have my regular day job today so I put some serious time into roughing out some character ideas and shapes and messing with a few ideas(don't mind the crazy colors, just used large contrasts to get a lot of the shapes together). I also started messing around with background ideas, kinda wanted to get some water in there because a nice body of water always makes me happy. I have some more fun ideas for the BG like planes, boats, whatever crazy stuff pops into my mind.



I still might make Machine Girl a little larger even but I'm much happier with this pose than the crazy half "praise the sun" I had going on before.

Jams: I never knew about the Sukeban symbol, that's awesome that I was accidentally halfway there. I was definitely on the right path then, haha! I definitely prefer the longer skirt regaurdless, it just feels more tough/badass to me.

I definitely plan on doing something still with the gear, it's the most feedback I've gotten that it's hard to read at first glance. (though ironically everyone still calls it a gear when referring to it being hard to read) It's a bit odd but I'm a bit attached to making it weird & cartoony. I might have to try the multi-gear approach, I kinda like how it fits into the lower corner too, but I'm thinking it's too large in general and I'm hoping bringing the size down will help with the balance of it.

Decroded: I'm a bit worried about my time constraints, I think I need to get it done this week for him to launch his album but I'm definitely going to cram as much extra stuff in as I can, like you said I need to fully flesh out the important parts first.

I like the idea for the mask too, I'm going to have to give that a shot.

And for my Photoshop issue, re-installing it is on the list of things to do, but too many deadlines this week when it's just a minor annoyance in the grand scheme of things.

I think I post these things when I'm way too sleep deprived, though that seems to be the name of the game with taking on too many projects at once. Sorry always for everything not being 100% coherent or not having enough information.

[Wanyo]

I realized I forgot to come back across this topic with what I came up with to fill the piece all out. Things still aren't finalized on his end so maybe with some luck I can come back across this and give it a few more runs of changes. Thanks again everybody for the help! <3

[Decroded]

I still dont like how background characters compete with primary subject for visual priority, play with hues and saturation and contrast perhaps.
also too many poses leading the eye out of the sides instead of creating a rebounding focal point.

[Wanyo]

Hmm yes I see what you're saying, I was thinking more like a wave pushing the view out from the center but in the end I think it makes it more confusing for the eyes. The client wanted things really intense and vibrant but I think I took it a little too far and it hurt the comp too like you ere saying.

[Decroded]

Several ways to create intensity such as movement and repetition.
 Im amature in this area but u its worth doing a bit of reading about composition (sorry on my phone so no references handy) and how you can control the priority of one or more focal points.
Ive only glanced through material so I went for simple diagnal lines that point directly into the centre in my edit.
this perspective adds some grandure and intensity too to have all these lines radiating from her.
from there I would have added a few key things happening in the background, some kind of catastrophe or something.
plan out a scene and compose the elements around the place instead of dumping a bunch of similar sized and too-evenly spaced characters all into the same depth range as ur primary subject.
mixing the depths your elements allows u to use atmospheric perspective and shifts in lighting as well as size to control priority and ultimately lead the eye around the garden path and back to where it started if u want to...

[Cyangmou]

Two things I have to mention here

first it don't really looks like a group-image. The characters feel totally unrelated to each other, they don't interact and are all seperated from each other so all of them have nearly the same visual priority. you could cluster some of them together to achieve a smaller area of detail which makes the composition a lot easier to grasp.

Second thing is that I feel all of them are standing on a bridge like the one in the bg (blue arrow), the composition lines (red) which i drew in should usually hit a point at the horizon line, which means that the whole thing feels (at least to me) really off in terms off perspective