Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

[saimo]

Now I understand that the part I have marked in red is the back part of the arm, whereas I originally interpreted it as the back/side part of the T-shirt

No that was indeed the back of the t-shirt/hair, not the back of the arm. I think you've been conditioned by too much beefcake, saimo

I hope I'm not!

I'm a pretty slim man as you see.

Well, as skinny as you can be, I'm still under the impression that you are not *that* skinny. To check whether it's a problem with my perception, I cut your arm from the reference picture and rotated it as needed to fit it to your drawing (I did not need to rescale as the photograph scale was practically perfect - I guess that was intentional of you):

Both the upper and the lower arm look undersized (the lower one more because it is partially obscured by the shadow). Moreover, the perspective in the photograph is not exactly the same of the drawing: had it been the same, the upper arm would have looked even thicker.
I don't want you to look beefed up, but I don't think you want to look underfed

That said, I'm not sure whether also your shoulders/chest need a little retouching... and the neck maybe could be made just a little longer without losing the distressful expression. But perhaps these last considerations would change once a more natural arm is in place.

saimo

[Indigo]

whoa... very very good critique going on in this thread.  This makes me very happy, as usually this thread becomes more of a gallery.  Keep it up guys.

I could also use some critique at the moment.  I pulled an all nighter and this came out...



Someone said it kinda looked like a frog. I somewhat agree. It was a refreshing dive into CG work which I've been neglecting. I wanted to give it a natural anatomic flow (to some extent) with various animals as inspiration. More progress to follow

Progress WIPS:
http://danfessler.com/dump/armor1.jpg
http://danfessler.com/dump/armor2.jpg

I'm intending to keep this drawing very loose, with lots of straight lines/angles - not like my usual stuff. And yeah, the hands are a bit wack right now. I'll fix it.

[Willows]

Wonderful edit, SolidIdea! The only thing I'd add to what you've shown is that the shoulders seem real hunched. Take a look at your reference compared to your drawing; In your drawing the top of your shoulders are along the same horizontal imaginary line as the bottom of your chin, whereas in your reference it's not even close, even if you were looking down.

Also, I agree with the looking at the paper (Which, come to think of it, looks more like a menu from a restaurant based on how tall it seems compared to how wide)... looking at the paper rather than looking beyond it, as the looking beyond it looks more like he's seen something that's offended him in the distance, and has yet to read the paper.

Indigo, fucking solid, man. Feet don't seem to be on the same plane, but that's a very small complaint

P.S. way to find a magazine that says SCIENCE on it, helm

[Opacus]

Indigo: As usual fucking awesome. But I'd really like you seeing add backgrounds to your stuff, you rarelly seem to do that

[Helm]

Thank you all for your wonderful critique! I will transpost the helm dude to the anatomy thread when I am less tired.



Newest helmdude and now robotboy. I took a lot of advice on helmdude as far as arm positioning went and it turns out you guys are totally right. The arm was too tucked in on the shoulder, too close to the ribcage and the wrapping of the t-shirt before suggested an uncomfortably high armpit. Various little nitpicks have been adressed (leg length etc) and I went ahead and applied the lightsource to the face properly (duh, I don't know why I had forgotten about that).

My recent stuff is all smooth inking with pens and soft tips so I wante the robot to be more oldschool, more like I used to ink pre-digitally, so the pen has a square end and lots and lots of crosshatching. I think the contrast is a cool effect.

Alright, 4 people down, halfway. 4 more to go. Next two are a couple so that'll be fun.

Indigo, really fun design and nice colors on your robot. Is this for an assignment? I think you should fully render every little bit about this, don't go 'half-finished concept art look' on it!

[Larwick]

Helm and Indigo, really inspiring robots! I wish i could say something more constructive but i really just wanted to give some recognition.
Helm i notice how meaningful your crosshatch-shading-strokes seem on that robot piece, giving signs of notches in the metal or suchlike rather than a simple rough texture all over (which is probably what i would have done...).

Oh just noticed, the head of the robot, even though i originally saw it as a purposeful thing (giving it a head-on view) looks strange once i took into consideration the neck piece coming out of the body at the certain angle (even though the eyes are nicely circular). The top of the head should probably be visible, unless it is actually really thin and/or there's some kind of pivot on the top of the neck. Although i don't think it's very obvious.
It actually seems to look fine as it is atm though, aesthetically speaking.

[Helm]

Thanks for the comments. As you say, it's an aesthetic thing, I like the red robot head to be as symbolic as I can get away with. Plus it's not really out of proportion, given the neck-torso angle is a bit extreme and could be tucked in a bit more.

As to robot and machinery texture in inking etc I suggest you check out the work of Yukito Kishiro 

[Ben2theEdge]

I painted a thing.

Concept art for Skeletroids, woo!

[Conzeit]

whoops...just noticed helm's response to what I say.

the percieved irony was that Moore usually fills his comics with textboxes, and the style of your helm is quite obviously inspired by LLoyd. now I demand you all laugh really hard 

[Helm]

Moore usually does a great job of not making the words hurt the art. I wouldn't say I am very inspired by Lloyd, most of my influences are not from America. This high contrast style where gaps are left for the brain to interpret has been carried to its logical heights by A.Breccia, an Argentinian comic artist I an very influenced by. He also high-scored comics in every other conceivable way in the 50's and 60's, the same time the American industry was pushing out juvenile garbage superheroes for the most part.

Also, not to be a pendant, but I don't see any irony going on in there.