GR#227 - Light Cavalry - Anatomy, Sprite Process Thread

[Facet]

@Facet:
Now I am really interested, why you think Nights pose is actually more dynamic.
Also the way the gun is held in Nights sketch doesn't make any sense at all.
I am restricted on really active figure poses, because if I will use them later in a chatbox, you can imagine what happens.
And yeah, Of course I am acting in the poses.
The groups of muscles usually get more natural once soft gradients are applied. If we jus thave clear cut big clusters it always looks technical, but as stated: won't be visible at all. The most important thing is for me to find the anchor points for the clothes.
You could be reminded of Hogarth because of the overall proportions - I am going for idealized ones, not realistic ones.

er… I actually didn't mean to say specifically that either Night’s or Tim’s suggestions were more dynamic/correct or whatever; just affirming more broadly the idea that the long process you've gone through to get to that stage doesn't seem to be solving/refining a lot of the issues you might hope it to and instead is producing quite a bit of extraneous fiddly stuff (loads of full outlines and bones and muscles etc.) when the important stuff is pretty streamlined lines and masses.   

The latest looks better but I'm too tired to analyse.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Those are steps form soldiers "choreography"  for special occasions like burial or parade.

Spoiler

[Night]

@Night, made your pose, think it's not suited for the cavalry.
I want to have something more aggressive and fiery, since I can't have the horse in there because of the perspective lines, the pose should give that feeling.
It's a nice basic pose, maybe I will get back to it with another sprite which needs to have this silence and stiff attitude.

I didn't gave any thoughts to perspective, within the first sketches, as soon as I start with illustrating it, well I have to apply it I guess.

Fair enough, although I wouldn't necessarily call yours' aggressive; something like the berserker's concept art from WC2(http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20071011211852/wowwiki/images/9/93/Troll_Berserker.jpg) I would without question call aggressive. And I realise you're not going to make poses like these because it is supposed to be used while conversing with other people, and also would hurt the overall aesthetic of the other characters you've made; but I still feel inclined to mention it simply to compare.

About the perspective, that's exactly what I mean; I like the way you made those quick sketches much more, feels more natural (I especially like, the pose I've mentioned on my previous post, 31. It's just so lively and vibrant, obviously not fit for the type of stuff you're making now, but it looks better).

About the anatomy and all.
I know this isn't as important, but I think I have to mention it, just for future reference perhaps.

left: my pose, right: yours
The way he's positioned now really doesn't look right for several reason, one of them is the reason tim has mentioned, which is the displacement of the muscle groups. The other one would be the impression it gives off; with the way you've built his skeleton it gives a very unnatural looking pose, almost as if he's being pulled or pushed from the side. The explanation for this is simple:
1) His shoulder-line, or clavicles to be more specific, are unhindered while naturally you would lean a little for there to be a fold between the rib-cage and obliques.
2) The hip bone is way too rotated! Despite my own pose suffering from the same thing to an extent , it has the lean of the shoulder-line to compensate for that.

I've addressed the way you've made the upper body in a way that would suggest you're trying to make a contrapposto, although I doubt that was the intention. If the intention was for him to look like he's walking (which is the sense I get from looking at the leg placement), then the hip-line would be almost unaffected.

As for the limb lengths, his rear arm is a little too short (the bicep specifically) push it downwards a bit and slightly to the left and it'll be fine. The rear upper leg limb is too long (fix this by moving the whole leg, including lower limb, up), or at least seems like such because of what I mentioned with the hip-line.

The black silhouette looks fine (aside the things I've mentioned already with the limbs), just maybe make the upper half of the body bigger and wider (think lats and shoulders).


I was unsure about the gun holding position in my edit, so I searched in google and found this:
http://laststandonzombieisland.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/cavalier-with-musket.jpg
The way I drew it isn't correct, or probably not correct because I just based it off of my memory as opposed to directly using it as a reference.

[Cyangmou]

er… I actually didn't mean to say specifically that either Night’s or Tim’s suggestions were more dynamic/correct or whatever; just affirming more broadly the idea that the long process you've gone through to get to that stage doesn't seem to be solving/refining a lot of the issues you might hope it to and instead is producing quite a bit of extraneous fiddly stuff (loads of full outlines and bones and muscles etc.) when the important stuff is pretty streamlined lines and masses.   

The latest looks better but I'm too tired to analyse.

Within this topic the most important are streamlined lines and masses, that wasn't clear and was bad moderation from my side and the reason of the last post, that the whole thing can move on.
But as I have said this is the first time that I do this design process digitally, so I played a ot more around then I would have to, in order to find out how to go best over some steps, how careful I have to be and which things I shouldn't do. It's a new approach of working for me and I also enjoyed it a lot so far =)
This all might seem pointless at the moment, but I get the answers I want and it definitely will save me time in the long run once the new steps are refined enough.

On top of that it's also hard to find good poses within the restrictions.

@Night:
Yeah those poses won't work, although it's possible to place the characters more interesting than just a really stiff standing frame and give them some kind of unique shape and hand position that it's easy to tell them apart just from a quick look.
The overdrawn exaggerated poses aren't the thing I am making since it doesn't go along well with the render style I have chosen. YOu say it looks better, I say they would definitely look better as single artwork, but also work terrible within a static conversation screen.

About the anatomy: what we are talking now about the contraposto, the hip placement and the leg placement, can be brought down to the problems I had before. But now I can edit it right from the beginning.

the reference with the gun makes a lot more sense from the hand placement for sure.

WIll construct it from scratch streaming soon.

[jtfjtfjtf]

The pose reminds me of the Doryphoros of Polykeitos with the contrapposto, back leg lifting off the ground, and the piece resting on the shoulder, just with everything flipped. I think if you want more "attitude" with the pose you can try emphasizing the contrapposto, such as dipping his left shoulder more and having the straight leg lock more at the knee. Night's anatomy picture shows a good shoulder dip.

[pistachio]

It's good to see a lot of pros are back. I'm now working from an older XP/Vista laptop so no edits for now, sucks...

Heavy infantry was awesome in rendering/detail with a Fool or Bitmap Bros. vibe, I expect this turns out the same way.

What is as important as readability of a pose is intent or the idea. In order from the lineup: flirting, advancing, guarding. Basic, I could go into it. Verb and then added adjectives is a good place to start off.

This one is guarding like the Sturmkrähe, less formally, also disdainful/assertive or something like that.
Newer update with contrapposto is more stoic which is retained in the chatterbox cropping.
With the idea simplified and focused, the process is simplified and focused with less trial and error (guesswork of poses).

Wonky angles are still weakening the sense of balance/weight and forms: IMO that's more important than remembering 100's of muscles in perspective.
What Facet was probably talking about when he mentioned Hogarth is the emphasis on muscles and construction, but also the flatness and foreshortening problems: technically impressive but in a "gestalt" way lacking.

But the biggest fixated problem I see is the left shoulder is too low or pecs are out of perspective.

It's cool to plow through the piece now, but addressing this stuff head on in the future will lead to a more streamlined approach which sounds like what you're aiming for.

There is a book about FORCE: book and the site with some free short demo videos.
The examples are exaggerated (for animators primarily) and there are other books like it, Drawing Comics the Marvel Way is one, but a lot of this (simplifying graphic shapes and angles) applies to your case. Use it in gesture drawings if you can pick it up.

Looking forward to seeing the final armor design.

[lachrymose]

The gun sequence posted before is a part of the movement sequence necessary for the command "Left Shoulder Arms!". The command is given either from the position of attention, Right Shoulder or port arms. The number of steps or counts depends on the situation, but they are necessary for a unit as a whole to memorize in order to put on those flashy shows.

Source: Myself, veteran USAF. Also did some time in a base honour guard unit.

[Cyangmou]

completely went over it with night in the stream.
I decided to try the contraposto in the other direction, that it actually lines up in a different way.
Quite interesting to see, how the perspective grid affects things if they are getting mirrored.
Supportive leg is now the rear leg, playing leg now the front leg
The hand rests now on the hilt of the sword. Head is also turned in another direction.



thanks lachry for the explanation.
ah welcome back pistachio.

[AlcopopStar]

this is a fast redline, about two minutes, and possibly in a direction you do not really want to take the pose in, but that's not the point i'm trying to make.

You are clearly very skilled with anatomy, better then me, but i feel like your painstakingly procedural approach to building this figures, as impressive as it is, is draining the figure of it's gesture, weight and for lack of a better term, energy.

I think you need to loosed up. Slam down the weight, and flow through the motion. You can mess around with anatomical tweaks as much as you like, but at the end of the day the issue is more fundamental. I don't suggest you fix this issue overnight with this one picture, just that it's something to be aware of.

Glenn Vilppu's lifedrawing handbook and videos would be a good look in for this issue.

[yaomon17]

The back foot seems a bit short. The length from heel to toe should be approximately the same as the length from the elbow to the wrist.