Improving my skills...

[skw]

Yarr! Remember my lastest grunt's portrait? Here's another one, now introducing RAIDER unit. Everything drawn by pencil and coloured in Paint Shop Pro 7. As in the previous one, as well this time I tried a cyberpunkish (surrealistic) style.



Yes, it's a next picture of the whole series, but this one's a lots better (at least that I think). Anyway, it'd be great to see your C&C here. Whaddya say?

Hit Ctrl+F5 to refresh.

~Xarkh

[Chicky]

Really like it! Great improvement!

reminds me of this guy

[skw]

Thanks Chicky! Where you found "that guy"?

[LGM]

You're getting substantially better.

[LGM]

<umm... Whoops>

[Ozwalled]

While this one is a lot better, I'm still finding it tough to tell just what I'm looking at for some parts.

I'm pretty sure I'm seeing what you're trying to convery this time an awful lot better though.

With this one, the major problem I had (or maybe have) looking at it is that there's confusion in the "face" which can be off-putting. Mostly, it's a bit difficult to tell at a glance what part the "eyes" are.

Nevertheless, I like the colours you used in this one a lot and it has an more painted look, which I find more successful that the harsh sketchy stye you'd used in that last one.

I'm not crazy with how the way the "fin" thing on the top of the head was shaded though, mostly because it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the picture all that well.

Again, sorry if I'm sounding too harsh.

[LilBlueSmurf]

I think it looks just like what you ment it to.  And the "fin" on the head is a mohawk.  I also had no problem telling where the eyes are in the mask.  The only thing you might try next time is focusing on a single lightsource.  It is obviosly not nessesary as this looks good, but in games portraits tend to usually only have 1 signifigant light source without a lot of refraction.  This one looks like it has 1 light to the upper right, then a lesser but still signifigant one to the left.  But yeah, nice, and much better than your last.

[TheYak]

My eyes puzzled over the details of this one for awhile.  The overall style, palette and concept are cool, but I'm having difficulty picking out the features.

It would help dramatically if you didn't shade each component as an individual but shaded as a whole.  Like someone else mentioned, a primary lightsource for the full object is more the norm.  If you used a secondary light, then you could use that to bring out some of the detail while maintaining consistency in the geometry.   Maybe it's just a matter of taste or my lack of imagination, since some people seem to see it just fine.

[Chicky]

The guy is a grunt from the game 'halo'


not that it matters, it's not a great likeness.

[skw]

Thanks for the comments and critique. Harsh or not, I want to hear the truth and enjoy that you draw your attention and notice every single detail.

Heh, heh. I wanted to make his face off-putting and creepy so yer on the beam, Ozwalled. These gleaming visors (above that things, which look like an eyeholes) meant to be at the eye line. Following the quote of LilBlueSmurf: "the "fin" on the head is a mohawk", exactly -- I've spoken about the cyberpunkish style.

And yea, I had some troubles with shading. You see, the main lightsource is placed in middle-right part of the picture and these eye visors (of which I said before) generate another, weaker one. Right, YakSpit, I shaded every part separately. It'd be great to see some of yours paintovers, I just don't know how to do it correctly.

~Xarkh

[loominous]

Some crude modifications:

x2


I think the main problem is values. The lightsource is undefined and along with the muddy strokes makes it hard to read and not very convincing.

Getting the values down early on will save you an incredible amount of work, energy that you can spend on getting the details down in the latest stages. One of the most common quite fatal mistakes made is to start detailing right after the sketch is made.

When laying down values, try to reduce the shapes to simple primitives and look up how these look when light hits them. It's worth taking a look at this even if you think you know how light hits a ball for instance, since many have the misconception that it's similar to a circular gradient.

This will rid you of problems found in this image such as similar values on both sides of the head, that is, if you sample the values on the left and right side, they are quite identical. The head can be reduced to a squashed ball and if look at a ball lit up by a main lightsource (often referred to as 'key light') you'll notice that the values on the side in shadow are substantially darker than on the opposite side. If this fact isn't taken into consideration, the object will seem flat and quite often dull.

Another way to approach lighting objects is imagining looking at the object from the lightsource's position. Everything you can see from that position should be lit, everything else should be in shadow (which means it should be black unless: the area is lit up by another lightsource or bouncing light, which is pretty much always the case). The lit areas will have different intensities depending on how directly the light hits them. For instance, if it's a ball, the edges will be hit by light but much less than the center surface.

Lastly, there's highlights, which exist if the surface is reflective and works like a more or less clean mirror. This means that their position will depend on from which angle you're looking at the object, and like a mirror, the light will bounce off the object into the eye of the viewer, more or less intact; if the surface is clean, reflective and flat, the lightsource will simply be mirrored intact (you can see the lamp/candle/whatever in the surface), and if the surface is dirty, hardly reflective and deformed, the lightsource will be scattered and vague. Highlights might be the most missused part of all of this and more often than not screw up objects rather than improve them.

Anyway, I like your strokes and textures, apart from the mudiness, and the design is imaginative, but like the last piece it falls quite heavily on its values. On the upside it got more seperated from the background this time but I'd skip the bluriness.

Here's the messy photoshop file incase you have the prog

I made this image a while ago for another nitpick, but it might be helpful for you too:

[Ozwalled]

Oh -- when I said "off-putting" I meant more along the lines of "ugh. what am I looking at/ frustration" more so that "creepy/ disturbing". Sometimes when people realize that they're SUPPOSED to be looking at a face but can't really find it for sure, I think they can get that feeling.

After looking at it for a couple of seconds, I was able to probably figure out that the "goggles" were the face's eyes, but was still looking and wondering at the semi-circlish shape apve and the sideways pear shape below.

Loominous's edit helps that some for me for some reason, probably because it takes my eyes off that semi-circle above the goggles.

[TheYak]

And yea, I had some troubles with shading. You see, the main lightsource is placed in middle-right part of the picture and these eye visors (of which I said before) generate another, weaker one. Right, YakSpit, I shaded every part separately. It'd be great to see some of yours paintovers, I just don't know how to do it correctly.

Loominous elaborated on what I was saying nicely, and executed a paint-over with far more skill than I could ever muster.  Somehow, I can see the pic clearly now after having seen the dimensions in higher contrast. 

[LilBlueSmurf]

I have to disagree with loomious on this one.  Yes, those "corrections" make the art look more realistic and give it more depth, but I think that other some small lighting issues, which are not really issues, just preferance, this is a great piece of work.  It is not ment to be perfect, more like a kind of washed out grafitti.  I wish I could remember the artists name, but I know there is at least one very well known artist whose work this looks very much like, and it is sci/fi post apocalyptic as well.  I think the details you added, as well as sharper highlights and contrast take away from what it is ment to look like.  It is supposed to be muddy and rough looking, there are supposed to be some little misplaced lights/darks and things are ment to look flat compared to more realistic art.  Sorry, kind of made that long, but I think that the changes you suggest completely change the style of the art.

It is kinda like trying to say something from a "B" movie should be more realistic, even though the title is "Genetically Enginered Killer Pink Rabbits from the Dark Side of Gorgath."  If you saw cutting edge SFX and A-list actors in that you'd be suprised as hell and they probably would take away, rather than help the movie... "B" movies are SUPPOSED to be cheesy, just like this art is supposed be rough, muddy, a bit flat, and most qualities of "fine art".

If I'm wrong Xarkh correct me, but I believe you accomplished what you set out to do.

[skw]

Interesting remark, LilBlueSmurf.

Well, to put it simple, my jaw has just fallen down the ground when I saw that loominous' paintover (tack igen foer er hjaelp). Probably I'll make an another, a little "fixed" version, but don't know whether I can handle so complex performances... and I haven't got a tablet.

On the other hand I still like my outgoing work.