AuthorTopic: Have you seen the Yellow Sign?  (Read 8988 times)

Offline Helm

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Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

on: November 24, 2005, 02:01:32 pm


self-portrait, that's the finished image above.

Steps:




step 1 was noreference, just clocking out shapes and where things would be, employed mirror for step two, lots of fixes, tweaks, and some light study. Step 3 is where I start clocking down colours, pretty ambitious colour theory employed, pep helped on irc. Step 4 and 5 are rendering rendering rendering. Step 6 is where the stencil yellow sign is applied, and that's it! Finished! This is a continuation of the 'every colour everywhere' colour theory I've stolen from Cyclone ( and well... Max Ernst, really ).

Comments and critique welcome, from blatant to nitpick, to style suggestions and what have you.  If something's really wrong, or a comment really illuminates, I'll go back and edit/fix.

Offline MadToaster

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Re: Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Reply #1 on: November 24, 2005, 02:09:22 pm
Really like the final product and showing the steps has given me some ideas. I've got nothing to criticize really but could you point out some resources on color theory? Everything I've done color related has been a lot of guess work.
« Last Edit: November 24, 2005, 02:21:40 pm by MadToaster »

Offline Helm

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Re: Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Reply #2 on: November 24, 2005, 02:39:52 pm
http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs092/VA10/HTML/GoethesTriangle.html

this thing above is real fun, I suggest you use it.

Now, it's still guesswork for me, but there are basic rules. I lack deep technical knowledge, but generally I avoid too much saturation in natural surfaces, ultra saturation is for plastic colour and human made reflectives, of which I don't draw much anyway. So as long as you keep saturation low, you pick a hue, any hue :P well whatever hue you think will make a good base. Let's say we're making a human face. A desaturated dry flesh tone will do. From there, we consider the lightsource tint. Lightsources have tints. daylight is bright yellow and reflective blues and what have you. Therefore we start making the shades go towards the yellow highlight we need. The darker shades should complement the yellow with the opposite colour in the colourwheel, in this case, purple. So darker shades mean less saturation, and towards purple. Lighter shades, more saturation ( naturally, but don't overdo it). That's pretty basic, and I've done the purple-flesh-yellow skin ramp for spritework for the last 3 years or something. However, here I have 16 shades, which is way more than I'd need for modest purple-flesh-yellows. so what do I do with intermediate shades? I decide to represent other parts of the colourwheel, do near neighbour tints. Now, this is a bit guesswork and a bit 'lol let's see how much we can cram into this thing lol!' but not as much as you'd think. For example, I selected mid-range pinks/oranges because I knew I'd need them for where the flesh is pink with sanguine humour so to speak, and greens because I wanted that sort of zombie thing going on. So when you have a few primary tints, and a few secondary tints, you try to bridge from one shade to the next, the fine art of minmaxing lightness/constrast/hue to have a servicable ramp. for example, when I entered the first orange on the cheek in step 3 after pep suggested oranges, I just selected the colour below (a blue shade) and shifted the hue to orange to see how it looks. However, this is not a finalized shade. For this shade to be used for maximal effect, it has to NOT be the same lightness and saturation as the shade below it, it needs to be lighter, or darker, even if it's by a little bit ( you can get shades to work with eachother even if they're 10 or 20 lightness apart if you tweak the saturation. It's really hit and miss here ) so it becomes part of the RAMP, not just an alternate tint to be used only here and there. My focus is on using all the colours everywhere, at this time in my pixel art path, therefore unifying the palette is no1 priority on any piece for me. This creates, however, baroque-ish and monochromatic pieces. everything just melts into itself, a wonderful flurry of colours. This is the effect I want, but others prefer segmented colours and more game-arty things. Look at the three blick coloured pieces by myself, tomi and pep. Look how Tomi made it into a game sprite, with 3 ramps ( blue, red, green ) pep applied his special stylistics with the bright but unified palette, and mine is sorta monochromatic, every colour everywhere...

hope the rambling helps. If you need any clarifications, ask.

Offline MadToaster

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Re: Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Reply #3 on: November 24, 2005, 02:54:33 pm
Thanks, Helm, appreciate the response. I'll spend some time digesting and I'ill get back to you if something is still fuzzy. Awesome link by the way.  ;D
« Last Edit: November 24, 2005, 02:56:25 pm by MadToaster »

Offline Skalle

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Re: Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Reply #4 on: November 24, 2005, 03:21:21 pm
Wow Helm, that's some nice info, and the pic also. Read all that text now, seems really interesting. Gotta try that sometime. Nice link with the "game" too.

Offline Kazuya Mochu

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Re: Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Reply #5 on: November 24, 2005, 03:24:08 pm
boy you are ugly!!!
lol
no just kidding. that really a cool piece. not only the coloring but the face expression. it's like you are the one taking the picture, not the viwer.

take care, and show more.

Kaz
Image size doesn't matter! It's what you do with your pixels that counts!

Offline Skipper

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Re: Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Reply #6 on: November 24, 2005, 05:14:25 pm
I'm always impressed at your ability to use really odd colors in places you wouldn't expect them, but make it look completely natural. 

My hat is off to you.

P.S. You look kinda like Bob Marley.  ;)

Offline Dan

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Re: Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Reply #7 on: November 24, 2005, 05:32:33 pm
Helm, Helm, Helm what can i say? That is out of this world man! This is truly inspirering! No crits from me. Well done! Love it!

Thanks,

Dan
That's the way the cookie crumbles. - Do the bug bob.     - Woot!

Offline Darion

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Re: Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Reply #8 on: November 24, 2005, 06:15:40 pm
The colors are so cool; it almost looks like gasoline when its on concrete. The facial structure is really good, but something changes from step 3 to 6.

The expression in three is definitely more lively than six. Its pretty hard to explain. It just isn't as obscure as step six. The nose is smaller in three, too, which I thought looked better. I know this is a self portrait, and the tweaks were probably intentional to capture yourself, but I thought three was more clear.

Don't get me wrong though, this is my favorite piece of yours now; its great, man. Its similar to the last piece you did, but so much better. The sign is a nice touch, too; it gives it spunk.

And because I always forget to spank: Make a game!

@darionmccoy

Offline David

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Re: Have you seen the Yellow Sign?

Reply #9 on: November 24, 2005, 06:23:53 pm
All of these things are just opinion as it is a face, and you really can't be "wrong." Still here are my gripes. The first thing that struck me was the brightness and shape of your eyes and the left eyebrow. The brightness seems a touch too much in my opinion. I always thought that eyebrows and eyelids provided a good amount of shadow on the eyes. The shape is really defined in post parts, but starts to bleed out into the rest of the face near the corners. I'm assuming this was done to indicate eyelashes, but the places without seem very blurry. The left eyebrow just seems to be a lot thinner than the other. Next I'll talk about the nose. The highlighted square near the top (which I've always wondered if it had a name) of the nose seems to be very prominent. I would try to soften the transitions leading to it. Your left nostril's highlight makes it appear as though it's very low and very close to the bridge of the nose. Almost like you're inhaling on just that side. You lips are also very heavily shaded making them look almost outlined. If you just broke that shadow near the bottom's corners it looks much more natural.

I love the coloring, and I myself have tried to use "every color," but to no end like this. Very well done.