AuthorTopic: Official Off-Topic Thread  (Read 244049 times)

Offline AdamAtomic

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1188
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • natural born medic
    • View Profile
    • Adam Atomic

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #580 on: June 03, 2007, 12:27:02 am
haha!   for reals?  alright, you asked for it (they're nothing compared to kumazemi or soren's work tho):


features: SNOT (studs not on top) basics


features: retractable wings/landing gear for proper docking


features: more SNOT, curved surfaces

If you want to see some real LEGO action though, this guy is my fav: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44124312001@N01/

Offline Helm

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

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #581 on: June 03, 2007, 12:38:21 am
I thought your bike destroyed everything until I saw... ROBOTS

Offline huZba

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 409
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • MekaSkull
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/19396.htm
    • huzba
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #582 on: June 03, 2007, 07:43:52 am
Hey i think i've seen those legos of yours posted in some imageboard before. I guess you're pretty famous then. Care to share some insight on those things? Like how much parts you have, where you get them and how you approach this kind of creations. Or do you just use whatever pieces you might have? Seems like the soren guy has one BILLION lego pieces. The robots are really impressive. Most of them very poseable.

I've tried to make a mech few times but they all became very flimsy, ugly and broke easily.

Offline junkboy

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 270
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • jnkboy
    • jnkboy
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #583 on: June 03, 2007, 09:11:35 am
I know some of you guys are into older b&w comics and pulp art, so I wanted to let you know that I just got Vol. 1 of Xenozoic Tales, and its totally friggin sweet.  That's it!

Excellent choice, sir! Xenozoic Tales is without a doubt my all-time favourite comic book. Here's hoping Mark Schultz gets off his ass and continues with it this century..

Oh, and nice LEGO's!

Offline AdamAtomic

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1188
  • Karma: +0/-0
  • natural born medic
    • View Profile
    • Adam Atomic

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #584 on: June 04, 2007, 02:28:58 am
junkboy - yeah XT kinda blew me away.  I don't think you could get away with getting a comic like that published anymore...he walks such a thin line between absurdity on one side, and just plain cheesy corniness on the other, but he almost never falters.  It's such a blast!

huzba - apparently a lot of Soren's designs are not particularly "solid" either - they're all legit, but they're pretty fragile.  And yes, he has basically a billion pieces.  I usually work on micro stuff because I don't have nearly enough pieces to have the right colors where I want them on larger designs.  Plus micros are fast - more like sketches.  Each of those ships only took an hour or two each.  I'm a big believer in staying creative in lots of mediums, I think there's a lot of cross-pollination and new ideas that can come out of that, so I try to bust out the LEGO whenever I can to help keep those ideas fresh.  I haven't actually bricked anything in a looong time though, lousy dayjob...

Offline Snippa

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 133
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #585 on: June 04, 2007, 04:02:10 am
man, some of soren's stuff he's made is sick..
If I could have made some of those when I was playin with legos... holy shit lol
Probably would have had me playing with them for another year or so.
I stopped building with my massive amount of legos when I turned 15... still have em though, infact, I found something I made in a box a few days ago.
I don't think anything I ever made could compare to some of these things soren made, but I made good use of my imagination.

Adam - I had the same problem as far as colored pieces go. I often ended up using all sorts of colors to build something...

Offline Krut

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 82
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #586 on: June 05, 2007, 08:00:00 pm
Im having a very difficult time trying to give out critique, also, its been a while since i wrote in-depth.
I find myself looking at a bunch of threads, where i could see stuff improved, writing half a paragraph and then deleting it.

I think i could help sometimes; In some cases the stuff that "I" think could be improved, i just re-think about them, and get to the conclusion that maybe its just a matter of style, or where they are directing the piece to....and in other cases i see some very "basic" (for lack of a better word) notions of art...you know people just getting into drawing and shit, and finding pixels as a medium.

Ive seen posts of Helm or Ptoinger with stuff like "Go draw in pencil, or study anatomy, or stick more closely to real anatomy first or... whatever" wich i agree its still valid...but....
the big ass BUT...

I still think its wrong in both cases; In one side we are excluding a group of people, that maybe have found in pixels, a medium in wich they can express themselves; we also know that in base to a particular medium, you extend and apply that particular medium knowledge to the others; hence some of the stuff you learn in pixels help you out on hand drawing, painting, and whatever.
If they chose pixels, as the medium, we shouldnt  send them to fuck themselves, and learn to draw on paper first.
I think one should (hippie corny shit on its way) embrace and nature that person, that may be just either expresing themselves, or naturing a talent.

In other cases, we see people that i would dare to say, make conscious "mistakes", wich may in lots of cases make the piece look weird to some members, thus, they say "hey, you gotta change that or whatever, is weird, odd, not anatomically correct",; To me, being anatomically correct is nothing to write home about, if i wanted an exact replica, i wouldnt say go study anatomy, id say, go grab a fucking camera and take a picture.

Granted, it does play a role, but it doesnt determinate the "play". We should construct their anatomy knowledge according to their current direction/style or vision, and not building it all on top of the same ground; i think it would serve on more people with different styles and "takes" on maybe the same aspect.... In a world where everything looks like something already done...i think maybe thats the direction we should take.

Dunno, maybe im just rambling and talking nonsense....anyone else have something to share on this topic?

Offline Conzeit

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1448
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Camus
    • conzeit
    • View Profile
    • CONZEIT

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #587 on: June 05, 2007, 08:23:59 pm

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I had been hoping a smiley template contest like this happened so I could propose an ingenious smiley template for THE LONGEST TIME

and now I missed it because of my STUPID STUPID isp fluking on me for a whole freakin month  :'(

in short  :yell:
« Last Edit: June 05, 2007, 08:29:09 pm by Conceit »

Offline Helm

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

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #588 on: June 05, 2007, 08:27:12 pm
Quote
In one side we are excluding a group of people, that maybe have found in pixels, a medium in wich they can express themselves;

Totally, and more power to them. If they ask for critique however, they are saying "I value informed opinions on how I can make my art better, please give such to me". Now, most people will like proper anatomy and proper color theory and and and. I agree that some people with quirky styles, if they were to take such advice, would lose their quirkyness perhaps. In such cases, people should stick to their self-expression through pixel art and not ask for critique, but just showcase their work. Through sheer repetition of the same mistakes, the pixelation users - like any critique-based community - have created a 'good pixel art in twelve steps' sorta program. Good traditional skills, good color selection, few colors, good aa, good dithering, good animation, there you go. This is essentially cookie-cutter. However when this is applied to a user with a clear sense of personal want and a drive to better theirselves, they can both filter out what they don't need from the process, and also grow without losing themselves to the will of a forum. It's up to them. Nobody ever died from getting critique, you know?

Quote
If they chose pixels, as the medium, we shouldnt  send them to fuck themselves, and learn to draw on paper first.

Pixels is just a medium. I don't send people to pencilwork because pencils are awesome, but just because they force you to deal with various fundamentals of art, like good volumetrics and such. You can get lost in the world of the few pixels and never progress as an artist macroscopically, so to speak. It really isn't a good medium on which to become a good artist! Pixels should come after traditional studies. So we're not saying 'go use your pencils because that's what you deserve' we're saying 'learn anatomy, learn volumes, learn lights, go study real life, go draw a building and a telephone' more or less. Can you draw a building in pixel art when you're not looking at it? I guess with photo reference you sorta can, but it's really good practise to go out there with a drawing pad and draw things around you from odd angles you choose, not that you found on google image search.

Quote
I think one should (hippie corny shit on its way) embrace and nature that person, that may be just either expresing themselves, or naturing a talent.

I embrace the most odd and nonsensical art you'd want. But if the artist asks me for my opinion on how to make something better, I will give them my opinion on how to make things better. Sometimes I have nothing to say (there's a lot of threads I don't reply to you'll notice) but if I do have something to say, it is usually because the artist hasn't 'sold' be with his quirky style. Perhaps you and I have different thresholds on what sort of 'quirky' art we can take. Perhaps you see something with burn-retina colors and jaggy lines and unfinished and you go 'oh how wonderful and individual this is'. Sometimes I do this as well, but not very often. You shouldn't feel like other people who have different tolerances than you are just hard-asses out to destroy individual styles. We wouldn't tell Gustav Klimt to mind his selout, man. But there aren't many Gustav Klimts around here in this forum...

Quote
In other cases, we see people that i would dare to say, make conscious "mistakes"

I'd guess in 95% of these cases where you say they're conscious choices, they're just things they tried, failed, and decided 'this is now a choice!'. Not many Klimts around...

eventhough, if someone is a Klimt and they do things 'wrong' in purpose, me or anyone else telling them we feel they're making mistakes won't really make them change their mind. If you do something 'wrong' on purpose, you've heard it all before a million times, they can tell you to do it right once more and it still won't phase you, you'll stick to your guns.

Quote
To me, being anatomically correct is nothing to write home about

Actually it's very difficult, so I'd definately write home to dad to let him know I could now draw a human being half-decently, so now I can concentrate on not having to do that anymore.

Quote
if i wanted an exact replica

There is no exact replica. You are not a photography camera. Even a photo is not reality, it is a distilment of a specific point in time, a specific point of view, under specific lighting conditions. It will never happen again just like that, it is an artistic result. Choice and intuition conspire unfathomably to create a piece of art that is as highly individual as your fingerprint. Just because someone has learned to draw anatomically correct doesn't mean he draws out leonardo vitruvian man charts. It's just an asset that makes his art easier to the eye of the viewer because they can follow the human form smoothly. They still infuse their art with their personal charges just as well as the random-unfinished-jaggy-pixel artist does.

We don't want to stifle individuality here. It's a critique board, one is asked to find potential flow-breaking errors here. Art is not science, everybody might have different opinions as to what breaks flow, but it has been documented that generic opinions do converge towards methods of construction, of color usage, of implementations of symbols that read better and convey specific moods. Most people will agree warmer colors are 'nearer' and that having secondary areas of interest complement the center-stage symbol, so on. Just because someone is trying to retain his individual eye on art doesn't mean he should knee-jerk against any of that. As I said, no matter what they do, when they sit down and choice and intuition conspire, what will result will be singular art anyway.

Offline Krut

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 82
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: Official Off-Topic Thread

Reply #589 on: June 05, 2007, 08:56:42 pm
 I dont know if you missunderstood or i explain like shit (prolly the latter); Obviously if we are here, its for critique what i meant was, that maybe critique should be directed toward the style a person is going for; trying to build upon that.

Why keep trying to build up art on proper anatomy....i know is a shitty example, but is the first thing that i though of : Tim burton, Nightmare before christmas is a great movie (personally) and a marvelous art direction.

Now, ive seen the sketches of that motherfucker, the guy probably doesnt know correct human anatomy, hasnt seen correct anatomy and doesnt give a fuck about it, yet some amazing shit comes out of it...

So, if tim burton would have come here years and years ago, asking for critique, i would think that maybe it would have been better telling him, dunno, build upon this and that...instead of; you know, grab an anatomy book, coz thats not how you draw humans.

"Better" is not "anatomically correct".

We are all here to improve, lets improve upon their take.

As to write home about being able to being able to draw the human body...please make sure you tell your dad, when you finally think you got there, that you are now part of the select group of 328946329874 millions and millions of people that have been capable and have being doing it for thousand of years...
Im not really in the art medium nowadays, so this doesnt apply, but i would write home and feel comfortable when i have something of mine so unique that stands on its own, because my friend...creating something new is whats priceless; there wont be another "Helm" not because he knew how to draw the human body, but because he had something unique about him in his moment, he build upon a new "current".