Alco's Process Thread 2.0 (dirty tools!)

[AlcopopStar]

I was going to necro an old thread of mine (http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=17198.0) but it seems it's made it into good reads, and i'm nothing but happy about that.

So I suppose it's time for sketchthread 2.0, though things are a little less sketchy this time round so maybe process is a better word. The emphasis is changing a little in this one, as I'm making things a touch smaller and more focused on design. I really didn't like the space knight piece in that last thread, it's sheer size meant i spent waay to much time cleaning lines and it scared me away from the process for awhile, but I think i've broken back into things with this shifted direction.

Essentially i'm still trying to let a loose early sketching process generate a certain amount of workable chaos, or happy accidents. This is something I generally enjoy in mediums like ink, pencil or paint and I find this is a phenomena normally lost in pixel art. From that point I'm looking to focus on pallet and design and refine things into something more finished then I was previously going for.

Edit:
Current work



Spoiler

Okay, that aside, lets start with some gay


Current Edit:


Happy with this so far, but I've reached a bit of a dead end and I know it could be better. Crits/Edits welcome.

I've also got a WIP for something after the above piece, vaguely NSFW for anatomies sake, i'll add clothes later.
.
Current Edit:


I'de love to hear some thoughts.

Original Post

[cels]

Okay, that aside, lets start with some gay

Here's my critique.



Sorry. Bad jokes aside, this looks great. It's well beyond my level to critique this, so I only have some minor comments.

- I feel like the brunette's left arm looks very flat compared to other parts of this piece. There's a lot of detail on the blonde's chest, so it looks odd to have that whole limb just flat. Maybe you could apply more shadows using the same colour you've used on the brunette's neck, for example. It's especially strange that her left armpit area is relatively bright compared to her neck, I think.
- I know it's very hard to do eyes at this scale, but it doesn't quite look like the brunette is looking at the blonde. She seems to be looking at the ground, further to the right.
- I can't quite determine the direction of the light, but I kind of feel like the brunette's right arm should be casting a shadow somewhere, maybe on her right thigh.
- It kind of bothers me that the brunette's tights / pants look very flat compared to the very detailed, rich texture on the green textiles, the blonde's hair, etc.
- I'm not sure what the brunette has strapped to her back. Some kind of druid twigs, I guess. But in my eyes, they don't add much to this piece.

Feel free to ignore all of the above. Like I said, this is well above my level.

[32]

I think the perspective doesn't really match up on the blonde and the brunette, kinda looks like the brunette is leaning off to the side. I'd say the most important thing to nail is the eye contact which I'm also not seeing. I'd start with the head and work backwards personally. I think you could push the brunette in a lot lower and get her hands in a lot closer to the blonde's arms/ head to really sell the intensity/ intimacy, maybe even put her down on the forearms. Depends on what you're going for I guess but I'd say right now the body language of the two doesn't quite match up. All in all very nice though, looking forward to seeing where you take it

[lachrymose]

Sexy women whoo whooo!

The blonds right shoulder looks like its attached somewhere at her rip cage or is non-existent. Also, despite excellent shading the blonds right boob looks flat, which I think can be fixed by showing a separation of fabric and skin in that area.

[Night]

With the first one, as cels mentioned, her gaze doesn't look like it's fixated at the blonde, I feel like the over-usage of black might be the cause of this problem.

With the second one there are quite a bit of problems; mainly with the proportions and to a lesser degree with the anatomy itself.

First, the torso, it looks too long in comparison to the length of the legs and arms, so I shortened it (moved the pelvis up higher).
This actually fixed another problem in the process, by moving the pelvis up, I also moved the thighs up; resulting in them becoming longer. Beforehand they were too short in comparison to the length of the lower leg (the upper limb, in both the arm and leg, is noticeably longer than the lower limb, especially in the leg).

A bit more on the legs and pose in general. No offence, but it's a rather weird pose, with the pelvis being pulled that far forward, and the back bent pretty far backwards; I got a bit of contrapposto feel out this, mainly because of the hips' position, which would imply that the leg that is holding this figure up is the rear one, and the front one is the relaxed leg. So I went with that.

The second (or third) proportional problem here is the neck, I think I could have even went a pixel or two more in my own edit; but it should be slightly longer than what you've made it.

Now in the beginning of the post I mentioned the anatomy, but said it matters to a lesser extent than the proportions; reason being (the possibility) that you're not going with a realistic style so I don't want to press to much on that and delve into explanations (the main anatomical problems right now, regardless of style, are the arms and lower legs); despite this, I have marked some main muscle and bone lines in the edit (I made her look emaciated on purpose, to better emphasis on the bones and muscle groups. I don't expect you to follow suit with that kind of look  ), so feel free to ask me why I did something like I did, if you want.


edit*
oops, didn't notice that you said the second one is something you're going to work on after the first; kind of got the impression it's a double project or something, my bad. Hopefully though it can still come in handy later on.

[Ryumaru]

Yo,
You've always had an interesting and unique sense of design; definitely something that will take you far in any medium.

I only have a few points on how you design your figures. Your wrists and ankles are always unnaturally thin. This makes things look dainty, feminine etc, but sometimes you counteract that with quite bulky forms- either of these is fine on it's own, but together, they negate the benefits of each other and amplify the weaknesses somewhat.

Also, exaggerating things such as the joints or the bend in the legs can actually take away from the grace of a continuous line. With standing poses like this, its usually better to have these joints continue the rhythm rather than break it.

[AlcopopStar]

ooh so I got some really great feedback from you all thanks!

@Cel
Yes defiantly needs more gay in those areas lmao hrmm very good diagram I will have to work on that.  Patch Notes from your crits:
Added shading to brunettes arm
Hopefully met the gaze?
Light source is still a bit wacky but I tried adding a bit more depth and shadows in general
I really want the tights/pants to read well so I'm a bit concerned with overshading. I might add in a light pattern next tho.
Yeah the twig things are a little superfluousness, they are meant to be the ends of off druidic katanas. i'm 50/50 on them atm. Still thinking.

@32
Shifted the body of the blond and tired in general to get things more in perspective. Not going to do anything as dramatic as a large redraw unless it's really called for, but i'll keep your note about pushing the pose in mind.

@lachrymose
Tried to fix both those issues.



How's it looking? Should I add a background?

@ Ryu & Night

Dang thanks a ton for the edits, you both really nailed down on some of my bad habits, especially with wrists, ankles & pelvis, so i'll certainly be using these edits as a ref in the future.

I did work on some anatomy edits, but as i'm bringing some pretty big items of clothing I didn't focus too much on getting it 100% tight.

[Elk]

Hi you, I didn't want to bring myself to post as I was scared to only shoot out a oneliner and risk a ban or something

First, I want to say that I very much adore your lines (previous thread and current) great concepts

about this particullar concept theres one thing that has been bugging me for days, I think you'll immediately recognize where I'm coming from without any further explanation needed 



EDIT: I might also add that changing some parts on the face on the laying woman would compliment the depth a little more, as right now she looks rather flat

[AlcopopStar]

@Elk

I was trying my very best to ignore that but now you've gone and made me fix it! ;p

Also thank you for your nice words.

Here it is fixed with a few other changes (including the face).

Pretty much ready to call this done.

and here is a slightly updated princess

[AlcopopStar]

Okay,

There have been a few developments.

I've been playing around with process a touch, I wanted to experiment with combining both paintitool SAI and Pixels into the same work. Originally my thought was to transfer pallet and design from pixels to sai, but it ended up coming back when I started to play with fessler's index painting tech.

Things are still WIP (still have to refine the body). But here is some progress.



(index and refinement progress included for you puritans )