AuthorTopic: [WIP] A gnome piece I need improvements on! Please help! :)  (Read 7118 times)

Offline Facet

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 425
  • Karma: +3/-0
    • View Profile

Re: A gnome piece I need improvements on! Please help! :)

Reply #10 on: January 22, 2014, 11:50:20 pm
Quote
But I was trying to avoid using different color of shades but I'm sure you just did that for the funs.
well you didn't actually mention that but I do like the flats myself.

Aggressive gnomes! Sleeping rough at the bottom of the garden for so long can take it's toll. The beard being so off centre looks a bit like it's being held there, or else picked up by the wind (although the hat's going the other way), I can see why you did it 'cos it'd obscure his front, but maybe there's another solution, I did a mid-motion thing.

Shouldn't the sack be the traditional red handkerchief bundle-on-a-stick?

Offline gnomey

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 16
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • :)
    • View Profile

Re: A gnome piece I need improvements on! Please help! :)

Reply #11 on: January 24, 2014, 12:45:49 am
I did more editing and changed the sword's angle and edited small pixels in some areas to improve better look!



and just to show you guys, this was my original drawing



I was going more for "serious" than aggressive. My original thought was that this particular gnome has been fighting the wilderness and has been roughed up by the nature and is ready for another wolf to come by.

Quote
Shouldn't the sack be the traditional red handkerchief bundle-on-a-stick?

I also thought about that but I don't know how well it will show with the red hat. Use the same color?

« Last Edit: January 24, 2014, 02:01:47 am by gnomey »

Offline Mathias

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

Re: A gnome piece I need improvements on! Please help! :)

Reply #12 on: January 27, 2014, 10:10:28 am
. . .
Quote
Shouldn't the sack be the traditional red handkerchief bundle-on-a-stick?

I also thought about that but I don't know how well it will show with the red hat. Use the same color?
. . .

He means a bindle.

Offline Probo

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 317
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] A gnome piece I need improvements on! Please help! :)

Reply #13 on: January 27, 2014, 03:39:46 pm
we call that a knapsack where im from, perhaps erroneously!

this gnome makes me think of those little dudes from GoldenAxe, he's grown up big but the sack stayed the same size :D

Offline gnomey

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 16
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • :)
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] A gnome piece I need improvements on! Please help! :)

Reply #14 on: January 27, 2014, 05:56:36 pm
hmm..



I knew what he meant but I didn't know how to do it without messing up his pose. Here is what I got, let me know if its better/worse.

Composition wise, I feel that the bindle makes the viewer's eye lean more to the right. The sack is getting a lot of attention to me. Let me know what I should change! (Also, his hands are kind of hard to see. Let me know what better colors I could use!)
« Last Edit: January 27, 2014, 05:58:31 pm by gnomey »

Offline Tapsu

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 37
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] A gnome piece I need improvements on! Please help! :)

Reply #15 on: January 27, 2014, 08:55:12 pm
If the beard was affected by the wind, I guess the tip of the beard would be affected most.
I see you have reduced the opposite bend in the hat, which in my opinion doesn't make the wind theory more correct at all.

I think I liked the first brown bundle best, without the stick. When you colored it red, my first thought would have been that it is a bloody heart.
In my eyes, the main problem is the stick.
I might suggest making the stick thinner and curved with the weight, making it look weaker, more like a straw than like a comparable weapon to the dagger (don't mind the rest, I got carried away, it looks more like "wolves, beware"):

Also, Do you really want the right hand elbow to be this sharp, or is it a sketching accident?
And to me the hands color does not look like a problem.

Another question is, the pose is extremely idle, why? Does the gnome have nothing to do? Maybe the head could be looking in a different direction than the body, like looking if there are wolves around, making it more dynamic, like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rembrandt_Harmensz._van_Rijn_035.jpg

For purists, the beard shape would probably also make more sense now, following the head looking left and right.

Edit: looked at some earlier post, where you mentioned animating it and maybe the previous suggestion was all wrong, so also did this pose for fun (based on a photograph of statue of Bruce Lee):
« Last Edit: January 27, 2014, 11:30:31 pm by Tapsu »

Offline PixelPiledriver

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 997
  • Karma: +6/-0
  • Yo!
    • View Profile
    • My Blog

Re: [WIP] A gnome piece I need improvements on! Please help! :)

Reply #16 on: January 27, 2014, 10:23:30 pm
Quote
I was going more for "serious" than aggressive. My original thought was that this particular gnome has been fighting the wilderness and has been roughed up by the nature and is ready for another wolf to come by.
There's very little visual evidence of this.
Give the viewer what you want them to see.




Even this could be pushed a lot further.
Most of your changes have been very minor.
You should really explore the design more.
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline Shanenopolis

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 34
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] A gnome piece I need improvements on! Please help! :)

Reply #17 on: January 28, 2014, 12:26:11 pm
PixelPiledriver: Your grizzled gnome is awesome. This character did not look interesting until now. He looks like a hobo fighting with a mangy sewer rat to protect his shopping cart. I love it!

Offline gnomey

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 16
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • :)
    • View Profile

Re: [WIP] A gnome piece I need improvements on! Please help! :)

Reply #18 on: January 29, 2014, 03:56:28 am
He looks like a hobo fighting with a mangy sewer rat to protect his shopping cart.

:(
Well, I'm still learning a lot at the moment as I am still in high school. Currently, I'm still a beginner and to my eyes, it looked good to me but I'm sure others see that my piece can have more improvements which was the reason why I came here. I treasure my piece more when I feel that it is successful in my own eyes but yet others don't because they can see a lot more work that could be done to it.

I used all of the suggestions together and made a mix of everything. I quite like this.