AuthorTopic: Christmas Competition Mockup  (Read 9594 times)

Offline Zenobia

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Christmas Competition Mockup

on: December 03, 2007, 04:11:51 pm
*takes a deep breath* I admit I am slightly scared to have this torn to pieces, but there's no other way to improve.

Anyway, this is my first ever try at a mockup and it's been great fun, only, I failed with the characters. I'm not really looking for critique on the top part, but those characters down there, they really bug me. I was going for a chibi anime sort of thing, but they just look creepy and awkward.
I'm obviously having a lot of trouble with the hands (and thus arms), so it'd be great if someone could tell me how to fix that (so far people only agreed they need to be fixed, but no one can quite explain how).
And then there's the other things of course like eyes, mouth, depth, the shading of the clothes, the light coming from the magic, etc. I -know- what's wrong, I just don't know what to do about it?

Right, also, the stupid swirls at the bottom are actually the character's names and they're supposed to be a mystery. Just saying, because they've been mistaken for terrible clouds.
Lets' see, what else. I'm also not too happy with the potion bottles and the shading on the kraken, the dithery stuff on the clouds and the big visible difference between the light and dark blue in the dark part of the sky.

I've evidently spent a lot of time on this already, but I've run out of solutions to my problems.
Ok, that should be enough explanation.
edit: and it's not my secret santa ^^; it for the competition thingie by Shonegold at dA, because I needed some distraction anyways.

Offline Feron

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Re: Christmas Competition Mockup

Reply #1 on: December 03, 2007, 05:33:43 pm
the iso bit needs a Lot of Contrast!!

Offline tocky

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Re: Christmas Competition Mockup

Reply #2 on: December 03, 2007, 06:14:31 pm
I think you're terribly underestimating the importance of things like eyebrows, ears, shoulders and noses.

This edit is heaps messy, but it shows what I mean.



I also want to do a pallete edit, but I ought to go to bed. I fully expect someone will post a better one than I could do by the time I'm back here tomorrow, though.

Offline Zenobia

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Re: Christmas Competition Mockup

Reply #3 on: December 03, 2007, 06:50:58 pm
I edited the shoulders, the ears and I tried the eyebrows. Did it work at all? I couldn't create any acceptable noses...
(I could swear they had ears at some point, I don't have a clue what I did to them along the way.)



Also, a palette edit is fine, but I do kind of like my icy world as it is...

Offline ilkke

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Re: Christmas Competition Mockup

Reply #4 on: December 03, 2007, 07:47:05 pm
Then just make the colors softer on the bottom part :D
i

Offline miscdude

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Re: Christmas Competition Mockup

Reply #5 on: December 03, 2007, 07:57:22 pm
I think the biggest problems with your people is the lack of facial structure, and that the way that their heads are shaded make them look like their heads are coin-shaped.

smaller problems;
the person on the right's thumb was where his pinky would be O_O
theyhadnonoses-i tried showing a way that would be simple to do ^^
aside from the person on the left's hand's shading, the hands were perfect to me.
the eyebrows didn't read as eyebrows when they were the same color as the eyes.
the lips of the people made it look like they were severely de-hydrated, because they were blue o_o
thats about all ^_^
i really love the clouds on the right  :D

Offline tocky

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Re: Christmas Competition Mockup

Reply #6 on: December 04, 2007, 04:03:14 am
I think you have some serious palette troubles (only one real skintone, ramps that don't work, etc) that you can fix without switching out the icyness...

I shifted the middle cyans and purples so they'd fit next to each other better (in the hair), and also darkened them (not strictly neccessary, but it makes the eyes and hair show up a lot better, the palette needs contrast) changed the hard orange to a darker pink (for skintones) and the darkest blue to a purpley colour (because it's pretty).

(actually, I can see now that the top half of your mockup probably needs that hard orange for its border, I should've held onto the whole picture while I was messing with the pallete. but you need a real skin-shadowtone, as well. Probably it wouldn't hurt to have an extra colour on the pallete.)

Offline Zenobia

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Re: Christmas Competition Mockup

Reply #7 on: December 04, 2007, 06:27:15 am
Ah that looks better.
I went wrong with the palette because I did the top part of the thing first. I should have started out the other way around I see.
I'll try to edit when I get back from school.

Offline arzosah

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Re: Christmas Competition Mockup

Reply #8 on: December 04, 2007, 07:47:16 am
I know eyebrows and noses are important and stuff - but I actually think that with the eyebrows they look ugly XD The gilr looks almost angry >_> Maybe it's because the eyebrows are too far down. I'll try to make an edit and see.

As for the hand, I've already made an edit of the girls hand holding the axe (it's an axe, right?) but I know you said it was something wrong with the arm - I promise I will look at that too.
As for the boy's hand. I still don't know how to fix it... Something about it bugs me but I haven't figured out what yet.


The bottles look fatter on the day site O.o


(is his name Pocas?)


edit:
okay, so I went for an edit. I've edited her hand (the old edit) and edited the arm slightly. I've also made a new potion bottle but it looks ugly so you can ignore it XD
I've also added eyebrows and noses and I was evil and edited the eyes a little :P Felt like if I was editing the faces so much could I go all the way instead hehe. Personally do I think the characters get sort of destroyed with the noses... So I went and googled some chibis and noted that half of them don't have noses. So I think it's up to you if you want noses or not.

   

(I've used the new palette btw)
« Last Edit: December 04, 2007, 08:40:00 am by arzosah »

yosh64

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Re: Christmas Competition Mockup

Reply #9 on: December 04, 2007, 09:51:29 am
hey

@tocky: Your first edit really made me laugh, the girl looked so angry, when it's such a day of happiness ;). But yea, I do agree about the eyebrows and such :), just checkout the Mii's on the Nintendo Wii :).

Hmm, I do like tocky's latest edit to the palette :), and how the mouth and such is better defined and the highlights of the hair less bright and such, but I prefer the colors of Zenobia's santa hat :). I also like both tocky's and Zenobia's eyebrows, but I think tocky's latest edit of the girl's eyebrows still looks a tad angry. Also, I don't like arzosah's edit of the girl so much, as I think she doesn't look so inocent :\.

Finally I must say I prefer them without the noses, as I like the clean space and I think they look more inocent or something.

Hmm, I think things look a bit sketchy or something. It's like everything is fighting to be in the foreground, so I think you need to better define the lighting and such, and lose some details or something.

Anyhows I think that's it for now, keep at it :).

edit
I was just thinking, they seem like they are more like taking part in witch craft, rather than christmas miracle sorta things :\. Hmm, and I'm not sure what that rod thing is that she is holding? and if it's a weapon? and if so, then why would she have a weapon on such a day as christmas?

cyas
« Last Edit: December 04, 2007, 10:17:10 am by yosh64 »