[WIP] Cyberpunk Menu: Muscular System

[Corinthian Baby]

Finished the figure, working on background. Decided to go for an abstract beat up/grainy circuit board. It's a bit cliche but it's cool and I think it fits. My main concern is that the colors are too similiar to the figure, or that the bg will be too detailed and detract attention.

refs:
http://media.photobucket.com/image/cyberpunk%20background/arcanepalette/boardbg1.jpg

http://static-p4.fotolia.com/jpg/00/06/19/49/400_F_6194905_5Tj2L1nz9P4TJDNy7499EhkJGLQN45nz.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Surface_Mount_Components.jpg

[Helm]

Did you notice the figure is about 5 heads tall? You could either shrink the head about 20%, or elongate the torso, give him a pelvis and such.

[Corinthian Baby]

Made his head smaller by 2 pixels on the X and Y axis. I think it is more correct, however, it makes his arms look disproportionate a bit. I'm also having trouble because I'm not sure if there will be too much detail directly behind the figure, or if the purple is a good contrast.

I am thinking of making an aura around him to separate it with the bg.

[Helm]

forearms are too beefy and long, lower arms are too short. If you're working from reference, you need to train your eyeballing skills.

[Corinthian Baby]

Hmm, ok played around with the arms a bit, looks more correct, but maybe something is still off. I think I made his right tricept/shoulder a little too small when trying to unwiden his neck muscles a bit.

Other than that, I would just have to finish his hand and this would be done. The ref is in the first post.

[Mathias]

For your UI/diagram concept I'd hoped you'd take a higher conceptual angle, rather than a generic depthless circuit board background, though it is well done, nice and dingy and everything. If you take a look at some of HR Giger's machinery, you start to see how it's possible to twist and contort metallic forms into very interesting shapes, though more typical factory machinery may be better reference, depending on what approach you want to take.





Rather than sticking your human figure in the foreground, separated from his abstract space-filling background, something more custom - like your same figure, but stuck into a machine conforming to the shape of a human (there was a sarcophagus in Blade 1 or 2 that was like this I think . . . to an extent) with various random machinery comprising it. Some light ambient animations could really make sell it.

Anatomy man is look pretty cool now, good job.

[EyeCraft]

Giger reference! Good idea. I have that second image as a poster next to my computer 

I agree completely with Mathias, you need to integrate your character with the environment. Now that I think about it, it doesn't really make sense to me having the character standing in front of a circuit board. I mean, even just in terms of scale is doesn't make sense. A focus on machinery and screens/electronics would allow people's brains to connect the character and the background because the scale is the same.

[Corinthian Baby]

I wish you had posted some of these refs earlier. And the problem is not so much scale, as the BG was intended to be abstract, not literal. The reason for the aura is to separate the figure from the environment, so there could be a nice contrast, and the details of the bg/figure would not be lost when they came together. But yeah I really like that first ref, I'm wondering if it's worth redoing in a similiar style. I think those colors would work as well. If I went with a light chrome blue/white like that, it may be enough to keep the contrast intact.

I'll consider it.

[CrazyMLC]

It looks very good, but the hands are unusually small.

[Mathias]

Giger reference! Good idea. I have that second image as a poster next to my computer. . .

Sweet, I have those big format necronomicon books, I & II, featuring most of Giger's famous ones. Hours of entertainment. Here's a nifty site concerning the Brain Salad Surgery cover.

I wish you had posted some of these refs earlier. And the problem is not so much scale, as the BG was intended to be abstract, not literal. The reason for the aura is to separate the figure from the environment, so there could be a nice contrast, and the details of the bg/figure would not be lost when they came together. But yeah I really like that first ref, I'm wondering if it's worth redoing in a similiar style. I think those colors would work as well. If I went with a light chrome blue/white like that, it may be enough to keep the contrast intact.

I'll consider it.

(yep, your bg is obviously meant to be an abstraction, just meant to convey digital/electronic/technology)

Dang, I wish I would've been more mindful of this then. From experience, I know it gets harder and harder to spend time on something once you've already spent so much, considering a re-do can be painful! Just think ROI - will the Return On Investment be worth the amount of time you've spent so far PLUS the amount of time it'll take you to pull off the machinery concept or will the time be better spent elsehow?
Don't underestimate Giger's genius, his stuff is nearly impossible to replicate, all I meant was for you to be inspired towards doing some custom tangible physical machinery. I don't think it should be nearly as macabre as Giger's stuff.