AuthorTopic: Official OT-Creativity Thread 1  (Read 403244 times)

Offline pkmays

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 336
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • dawn patrole mole
    • View Profile

Re: Official Pixelation OT-Creativity Thread

Reply #120 on: November 24, 2006, 10:03:04 am
Yes, the ears are uneven. Will fix. I'd love to get a full critique from you, but in a more appropriate location. Say, ConceptArt.org? And I'm not interested in politics, if that's what the dA remark is referring to.

Offline Helm

  • Moderator
  • 0110
  • *
  • Posts: 5159
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Asides-Bsides

Re: Official Pixelation OT-Creativity Thread

Reply #121 on: November 24, 2006, 10:17:11 am
I sadly don't frequent any other critique forums than this and certainly not unrestricted photoshop level fora, since I don't consider myself equipped or good enough to rub shoulders with the type of renderers they've got there. I'm a comic book artist, not an illustrator, it would be a diversion that would hurt my -sequential- work to focus on concepting and render quality at this stage. (Also, I am easily tired of "girl + gun + mecha - underwear" type of artwork and if I were to critique it for a long time I'd just sound embittered and annoying)

That being said, I can see things worth discussing in your piece, a few of them technical, a few of them conceptual, and a few as you say... political. I dunno.

Offline pkmays

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 336
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • dawn patrole mole
    • View Profile

Re: Official Pixelation OT-Creativity Thread

Reply #122 on: November 24, 2006, 10:55:11 am
You'll make an absolutely stellar crotchety old man one day.

Anyway, this whole conversation is the result of a mistake on my part. My comment, "Gee, thanks. But uh, what about the painting?" was meant to look as though I misinterpreted Ryumaru's comment "lookin real sexy, pkmays." as "[you are] lookin real sexy, pkmays." It probably would have been clearer had I replied with something more like "Gee, I'm flattered you feel that way about me, but I was actually wondering what you thought about the painting." Alas, foresight is a bitch, and instead of creating a humorous and whimsical dialog in which Ryumaru defends his sexual preferences (which as I understand is generally held to be a source of endless amusement among the 13-30 year old male populace), here I am authoring a semi-apologetic blurb of one who's carefully laid plans have gone awry (which, while mildly funny in it's own right, draws it's humor at my expense, rather than at Ryumaru's. In this way, my plan has essentially backfired, leaving me even more the fool had I simply continued to capitalize on Helm's misinterpretation of my original reply and continued steering the dialog towards a critique request). If I had the chance to do it all over again, I would want do the wise thing. Instead of inserting a quick and cheap smart-ass quip, I would have turned off my monitor and curled up with a good book or worked on improving my Algebra. Once again life has thrown me what I thought to be lemons, but what I hoped would be a cool refreshing pitcher of ice cold lemonade was in fact, warm...bitter...pee pee.

And so I leave you for now, humiliated, ashamed, and utterly defeated.

Offline Helm

  • Moderator
  • 0110
  • *
  • Posts: 5159
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • Asides-Bsides

Re: Official Pixelation OT-Creativity Thread

Reply #123 on: November 24, 2006, 01:28:00 pm
...but you *are* sexy!

EDIT: enough fucking around. Critique it is.



http://www.locustleaves.com/anatomydevil.psd if you need it.

From the top:

A: face is on a different perspective plane than the body in your piece. Given the underlying structure of the perspective, it would have to be tiled up more, likeso. Don't worry about realistic...er facial anatomy, this is just to explain the effect, I'm not telling you to draw it like that in the end. Now, to be fair, besides the tilt, the face would also have to be SCEWED a lot, on the same vanishing point that the rest of the body adheres to. Why didn't I do this? Because especially with women faces, it's difficult. Especially on long shot where facial characteristics are difficult to capture in few lines.

B: The collarkbones were misplaced in your original I think, given again, the pretty drastic perspective. The way the neck connects to the collarbones is important to mind, too.

C: find navel, it is two heads lower than the head, extend line to arm, that is where the joint is. Give or take for stylistics

D : that arm is difficult for me. My mind wants to go 'underutilized! but hell, what to do with it? I'm not good enough to answer.

E: I understand it may be stylistic choice, but that hand was way too low.

F: knees are hard. I'm just point it out.

G: Now here is where I don't know if you're making mistakes or if it's just unfinished. Anyway, take special attention to how the body shifts weight and maintains balance where it meets the ground. When you've rendered this more it will be easier to tell what you've got going on, but there's a chance you've made the shins too long (about half a head too long).

That's about anatomy. I have a bit of a problem with the center of gravity, she seems a bit weightless... a bit, fashion-show catwalk girl in etherial mid-stride, maybe that's the style you wanted, and she's not human so...

About rendering, from the places where it is more worked, I can tell it is good, very oily, very Painterly, a lot of people are doing that same technique, but we said, you don't care about politics. I like this, the biggest issue is that the face needs to be reintroduced in the same perspective to keep it cohesive.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2006, 02:14:13 pm by Helm »

Offline Checkworth

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 51
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Official Pixelation OT-Creativity Thread

Reply #124 on: November 24, 2006, 06:14:08 pm
Your quip made sense to *me*.  :lol:

Offline pkmays

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 336
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • dawn patrole mole
    • View Profile

Re: Official Pixelation OT-Creativity Thread

Reply #125 on: November 24, 2006, 08:41:16 pm
I see the problem with the face. I drew the chin as if her head where angled down, but here nose is drawn as if here head where angled up. It's also not centered to her face. Redrawing the nose should fix it.

Collar bones where WAY off, repositioned.

I've always had problems with elongating anatomy too much, it's not a stylistic decision. I'll be shortening the neck, arms, thighs, and shins.

The foreground arm is in a precarious position. I think it'll be very close and slightly in front of her hip. It's best to clearly convey it's position in space and avoid ambiguity. Having the arm cast a shadow on the hip might help.

Thanks for reminding me where the naval is, I used to have it memorized, but I've grown some mental cobwebs over the past couple of years.

Still looks slightly unbalanced. I'll probably move her back leg in to make it look more like a sexy strut. Cheesy? Maybe.

Technique. I'm actually not too fond of the style. I've got a general mental picture of what I want to achieve eventually. Broad, bold paint strokes, less blending, much more saturation and contrast. I'm sick and tired of seeing bland pastel renderings! But really, the whole story behind this piece was that I've had Painter sitting dormant on my PC for over half a year, initially dejected because of it's clunky UI. I'm trying to get past the programs flaws and concentrate on it's incredible brush engine. Once I get comfortable with this blasted thing, I can move away from the easy blendy smeary oily style.

[edit]

Arms are still too long. Will be moving hands up and shortening humerus.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2006, 08:53:51 pm by pkmays »

Offline surt

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 570
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Meat by-product
    • not_surt
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/2254.htm
    • View Profile
    • Uninhabitant

Re: Official Pixelation OT-Creativity Thread

Reply #126 on: November 25, 2006, 01:58:24 am
Still haven't got around to finishing coding a proper gallery, so I've hacked out a cheap static gallery. As well as being no web programmer, I am also no web designer, but hopefully it is functional and bugless. Within that context any crits would be good.

Also reworked some old pieces a little when seeing the heinous colour counts.

I stole the javascript zooming code from here, I presume its still the stuff ZeroByte made available (all links I could find to the original posting were dead), and that its okay for me to use, if not please let me know.

http://surtspixels.googlepages.com/index.html

Offline pkmays

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 336
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • dawn patrole mole
    • View Profile

Re: Official Pixelation OT-Creativity Thread

Reply #127 on: November 25, 2006, 02:30:26 am
Hate the colors. Way too much saturation on the background. Reminds me of early '90s birth of the Internet web pages. Desaturate and darken some, should make it look much more professional.

Offline surt

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 570
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Meat by-product
    • not_surt
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/2254.htm
    • View Profile
    • Uninhabitant

Re: Official Pixelation OT-Creativity Thread

Reply #128 on: November 25, 2006, 02:41:08 am
Okay all background colours desat and darkend.

Offline Zach

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 405
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • Bear
    • View Profile

Re: Official Pixelation OT-Creativity Thread

Reply #129 on: November 25, 2006, 03:40:24 am


doomed cover ripoff, check it.


JUNK:


EAT PUNAJI  BECAUSE IT'S GOOD AND TASTY