Official OT-Creativity Thread 2

[saimo]

saimo: foreshortening on the lower arm!!

The problem is not with the (foreshortening of the) lower arm, but with the whole arm (except the hand, which happens to be OK): it should be much thicker (maybe some 50%?) to match the proportions of the rest.
If I were an artist, I'd show graphically what I mean, but since I'm not, I have to leave it to your imagination

saimo

[Helm]

I beg to differ. Nothing as silly as taking post-art reference, but if it serves a purpose ok. Excuse awkward pose and stuff, it's difficult to photograph exact angles with a timer.


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The issue is mostly of visual illusion. The high-contrast Gestalt style of rendering in this piece destroys middle shading (which one would use to sculpt the arm into appearing foreshortened, especially at the top of the hand and the far end of the connection between upper and lower arm), and as such the foreshortened arm appears flat. I am not sure if I should, and how I should, address such a problem without compromising the rendering choice.

edit: this pondering led to edit above anyway. Tell me if things look clearer and if the hand trick worked.

[willfaulds]

Super butcher edit.

No reasoning or theory other than it didn't look right or comfortable to me (i think his near shoulder also looks raised which adds to the feeling of discomfort):

EDIT: i think i prefer hand 1


(an issue at the elbow joint but shows you the direction i'd go)

[Helm]

thanks for the eidt, willfaulds! I do not want to artificially straighten the hand out because it makes the pose a bit wooden. I know it might read better but body language is all I've got with these series.

[saimo]

The issue is mostly of visual illusion. The high-contrast Gestalt style of rendering in this piece destroys middle shading (which one would use to sculpt the arm into appearing foreshortened, especially at the top of the hand and the far end of the connection between upper and lower arm), and as such the foreshortened arm appears flat. I am not sure if I should, and how I should, address such a problem without compromising the rendering choice.

edit: this pondering led to edit above anyway. Tell me if things look clearer and if the hand trick worked.

To me the problem is not with the foreshortening itself, but rather with the whole arm. I think I know now what did not look right to me in the original picture:

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, so that the arm was effectively reduced to just the bright part. However, even now that I consciously understand the shapes, still my perception is affected by the undersized-arm visual effect. Maybe it is because there should be no shadow (i.e. dark part) on the upper arm. I think willfaulds has done a good job towards a solution of the problem (although I'd rather avoid the vertical outline and let the volume be implied by the shadow of the elbow).
As for you new edit, the shadow on the hand looks inconsistent with the page it is holding - now that I think about it, shadows don't look consistent everywhere... if I have time, I'll explain better what I mean later (sorry, I'm in a hurry ).

saimo

[Helm]

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'm a pretty slim man as you see.

[skw]

The expression is to signify distress intentfully, it's not dramatic for no reason. The reason is long to explain right here but I will if you want.

go on, if you have time. I'd gladly listen.

I always value emotional factor in works of art, but I think you should really go for something like on the willfaulds' edit. IMO, it doesn't spoil the body language at all and still fits into the 'distress' pattern of emotional behavior. I am way slimmer person than you are, but when trying to make the original pose before the mirror myself I was feeling quite uncomfortable (that the pose is not possible to adopt can be seen on the post-ref photo as well).

anyway,

here goes my crude M$paint edit-of-the-willfaulds'-edit (being out of bandwidth I am inclined to use a secondary station with no painting software installed at all), that makes the pose even more wooden:

• the torso is now bent a little backward, as he was leaning forward too much (which stands for 'absorbed' B-L, I guess),
• slightly less accentuated T-shirt folds (they made its tonality a bit inconsistent IMO),
• his left leg might be moved forward more, just to keep the pose standing firm (since there's no ground beneath, it should be pretty solid).

I don't know if that's of any use, though. I suck at giving good critique and I give it sparsely. I really like the characters so far; could you tell us what you made that wraparound cover for?

[Helm]

The series will form a cover for a collection of comic strips (full pages and strips in fact) I did for a greek newspaper circa 2006-7. Most pages/strips are self-contained, with very few recurring characters. The 8 on the cover are some of the more emblematic ones. The character is reading the last paper in which I were to have one of my comics featured but was instead pulled, signalling the end of that job. The comic that wasn't published starred a helm avatar/mouthpiece so I am not just plastering my likeness of the cover (in the back cover actually) just out of an egomaniac whim. For a person that has drawn themselves as often as I have, I really never got much enjoyment out of it.

Hope this makes sense.

There will be another edit soon. Thank you for your critique. I will amend the position of the arm as you guys suggested even against my personal preference, though I still see no need to beef up the imaginary helm muscles.

[SolidIdea]

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Just to address my point though it's faulty

[ptoing]

As far as the looking down goes I think the original is better. It looks like he looked at it, was shocked because of what he saw/read/whatever and then let his arms sink a bit and now is starring into nowhere in shock.

Also Helm, that one will be ass to colour for me ; 3 ;

But I think the colouration will have to be holistic, once all 7 are done.