MONSTERWORK SHOP - FINAL VERSION DUE TONIGHT (MONDAY)

[Andail]

Ok, new update as of May 17th
[imgzoom]http://esseb.com/andail/graphics/floating6.png[/imgzoom]
I really wish I had picked some photo references early on for the biker rider, because now he's looking pretty generic. Ah well.
I changed the woman so that she's no longer aiming at the monster, because that was, as Loominous pointed out, looking a bit futile, if not silly. Now she's just posing with a really big gun, I think. All this is a bit retro-cheesy, but I kind of like it The vehicle looks odd because it was resized and hasn't been refined since. Will work on it later (not much of a motor person...)
Added a sun in the background, and plenty of highlights on the bike riders to make them stand out better. There's still too much grey areas, which gives the picture a certain dullness, so I will either add more colours or smear out everything to give the picture some kind of motion blur effect

[selmiak]

@ProgZmax: maybe you should paint the reflection of the light from the lighthouse in a different angle as it now is in line with the rifle and my first though was smoke from the gun
Except this inline stuff is planned, reading about all the golden ratios and magic thirds and stuff, but now seems like a time to change this painlessly.

[Ryan Timothy B]

Progz: I really have troubles with the perspective and overall lines pointing everywhere. The one aiming from gun barrel to lighthouse (I'm not sure what that is exactly?), the lighthouse beam, and then the electrical bolts coming from the wizard dude. Overall it's a pretty dark piece and not much for back lighting.

I tried to add a bright edge on the horizon, changed that really wonky perspective on the cliff (and the shooters angle, which is still off - but I got lazy). I tried to add a strong edge lighting on the monster to really define his shape. Some fog separating the mountains and water. I mostly just played around giving me the excuse to dust off my tablet (literally, it was VERY dusty!).


(Quick paint over edit of Progz's image)

[Misj']

Every good story* needs some kind of a villain...and it's clearly not going to be my monster (let's face it, just because you're born a monster doesn't mean you're evil). So I started to do some rough sketches on my elder monk, because I think that by now it is obvious that he was going to be the antagonist (the beast to my monster, so to speak).



Also, I wanted to play around with some (oily) brushes that I have absolutely/obviously no experience with.



* even the love-story this is turning into (this scene actually depicts the first time the future lovers meet...which explains the role the guy hiding behind the pillar will have later on in the story). Yeah I know it's not scary and monsterish...but I have no control over where the characters take me.

[kaput]

Misj, sounds like a whole Frankenstein thing by the way you explain it. Sure, your monster isn't scary but, by definition - it is a 'monster'. It looks to me like she (I presume it is a she) is attacking these arrogant humans because they interfere with her lair - or maybe she has a baby she is protecting?

Either way, It's hard to find a 'bad guy' here, but is there really need for one? Who defines a 'monster' anyway? It's a very nice piece of art

You guys have all done a really cool (good) job and I look forward to see where this is going.

Edit: As far as criticism goes:

Andail - when you posted your sketch on 13 May - the monster seemed to have a more organic expression. I can remember being mostly impressed by this, it just looked so real. I fear you might have lost that a little.

Kasander - Your monster is amazing but I think you lost detail around the eyes lately - in order to create a 'crazed' and feral monster, I am sure you will agree the eyes are key.

Nice work.

[Cerno]

Andail: Somehow you slipped through my comments in my big comments post, so fortunately I found something to say now
First of all, awesome lighting and mood of the scene. The empty streets make this appear like a struggle between the monster and the two people on the bike who seem to be humanity's only hope. Or even both of them are among the last survivors of the monster's attack on the city. Excellent.
For critique, I, too, liked the 1st week version of the monster better. It was more threatening and I really dig the insect look of it. I also liked the version where the woman was turning around to the monster. I understand that you don't want her to aim at it, but if you turned her around that would make the scene a lot more dynamic and would establish a connection between monster and humans, maybe like they narrowly escaped the monster's destruction of their city.

Kasander: Awesome input, thanks a lot! Now I feel really bad for not trying the 3/4 perspective. . I'll see whether I can fit it in somewhere this weekend.
I think I somewhat tried to go into that direction: The legs in the back stretch out further than the ones in front and the head is slightly turned. So maybe I just didn't manage to turn them quite enough. Also, the monster appears to be on the same depth level as the wizard, while it should be more in the background, as the cliff is pointing slightly into the image. I think the 3/4 perspective would achieve that, but I am not sure if I can pull it off.
Anyway, drawing these kind of perspectives is quite a challenge for beginner me, although I guess I'd feel pretty confident drawing a two-point perspective image of cuboids.

[miguel]

Miguel:  Is the light house easier to see now?  I'm still not finished with it.

Progz, yup. Somehow the lighthouse is the last thing I do notice in your picture. Maybe it's me. But the angle on the cliff is what you should really change.

[waheela]

Thanks for the feedback, Snarky, Kasander, and Andail!

Just for some clarification, in case people weren't aware, my pic is based off this story:

LISTEN HERE.
Skip to about the 1/5 mark to listen to the story if you're interested.

Here's an update of my progress...
(Original post updated.)



Something about that clenched hand doesn't look right to me. Maybe it's the coloring? Any thoughts, guys?

[kaput]

Something about that clenched hand doesn't look right to me. Maybe it's the coloring? Any thoughts, guys?

The hands are too puny for the character - if he was to throw a punch with those hands? Think about it. With those hands he looks like the geek in his tribe. As a wise man once said : "Look at these hands, these are hard working hands".

Especially since he looks like he just chowed down on someone! The colours are very nice and it's all beginning to bring the imagery to life.

[waheela]

Hmmm, yeah, I could make the monster's hands bigger, but I was referring to the clenched human hand.

[kaput]

The clenched human hand looks great! You just have to round it more and be sure not to cut off the outline like you have around the surrounding thumb area - it looks jagged 

[miguel]

Update 11, 18 May 2013

[imgzoom]http://i293.photobucket.com/albums/mm54/miguel20000/step10_8x6_zps0d8ab7c7.png[/imgzoom]

Critique please!

[Mordalles]

Week 2 Step 2
im still playing/fighting around with values and forms, and possible backdrops. some sort of temples in the background, with man made pillars in the tunnel. still very much loosely painted monster with details lacking. at the moment its mostly shadows, light still has to be added. light is coming from top right corner, kinda behind the monster. that shell is giving me nightmares. 

[Cerno]

Week 2 Step 3

Okay, finally I would like to take a round trip commenting on all the awesome and helpful comments, before moving on to lighting and color.
Phew, it's become quite a lot. Thanks again to everyone.

waheela

the wings look a little off to me. One is outstretched and one appears to be bent. I know the eagles below have nothing to do with your dragon per se, but I think they're good references in the way that you get an idea of what a winged animal looks like before landing or "pouncing" on something.

I redid the wings completely. Also thanks to your very helpful references, I was able to improve the claws. Actually gave him four while I was at it.

Shrink the wizard and plateau to a smaller size and move them down a bit. I think this will make the dragon look more gigantic and threatening. By moving the plateau down a little too, you will have more space to stretch out the legs and open the talons a bit more.

I did what you suggested, if only a little. By moving the dragon into the corner a bit and increasing its size, the size difference between the protagonists feels better now.

loominous

Atm I think the biggest thing to experiment with is the angle of the whole scene, making it less side view and flat and more 3/4 and with depth.

I see how that is a problem, but at my current level I just can't pull it off. Played around with some 3/4 sketches last night, but failed when I tried to make the arms reach towards the screen as would be required by such a pose. I think I need some more training with geometric shapes before I feel confident enough to attempt such a pose in 3/4. Thanks a lot, I can picture in my mind how your suggestion would greatly improve the scene.

While doing so, you could try pushing the values more, making things close the darkest, and the things furthest away brighter with very little contrast. Lastly, I'd try to achieve a nice focal point in the image, using values/lighting, where you choose a spot which you think is the most important/interesting, and making sure if pops out.

That was immensely helpful advice and I tried that in my next step, possibly not strong enough tough. The focal point would naturally be the dragon, as the wizard is much too small. Could you please give me a follow-up comment on your lighting suggestion to see whether this goes in the right direction?

dactylopus

I see is that the bottom claws are somewhat unreadable.  I would definitely take a look at those eagle pictures

I agree. I changed them, thanks for the advice.

SookieSock

What is the wizard doing? Is he is welcoming the dragon as a servant or is he fighting it? At this stage It could go either way. Also the background itself ends in a line with a very flat ‘horizon'. That's ok if we are in a cavern bit if this is outside it needs to extend off in to the distance.

By now I want the wizard to be on a quest to actually tame a dragon, which is obviously something very brave/stupid and could be the last thing he does. I wonder whether I will be able to project that into the image. I also tried to improve the background. Better?

cat

I'm not too fond of the feet, though. They look like they belong to someone else. One suggestion for the next stage: Define your light source and see, where there will be shadows.

I agree that the feet sucked. Better now?
For the light source, I want the scene to be lighted from the bottom volcano with a diffuse lighting from the other volcanoes. I also want the wizard's spell to be a light source. I tried to capture that in my next step.

Mordalles

All I can think is the wings itself. I'm no expert in wings, but I would think that when something flies his two wings will stay in line together to keep balance.

I agree, that was taken from mixing the bat reference with a dragon reference and did not really work. Now I completely changed the wings.

Misj'

I think the monster itself is interesting...weird, but interesting; but I would look into his anatomy a bit. This could also help make his pose a little more threatening and dynamic. I like the wizard, and - to me at least - he steals the scene. I think his pose and the directional line towards the monster are strong, and I would build the image around that (rather than around the monster).

Thanks a lot for that idea, I think it might look awesome. Unfortunately I don't see me doing that without completely redrawing everything and I can't find the time to do that. Sorry, but I'll have to give that one a pass although I really like the idea.

Kasander

When you'll have your dragon's pose set, you could try to visually empower/amplify his 'attacking stance' by trying to give the background behind it a shape that somehow resembles a triangle pointed at the wizard (you can do that by shaping the rocks or volcanos or... I'll just leave it to you). Pointed shapes in composition, when facing each other, create a feeling of tension. Well, that's something to consider for later.

That's immensely helpful advice, thank you. I tried to give the dragon a somewhat triangular shape, but somehow I feel that it's not strong enough.

Apart from boosting the dynamic/expression of the painting, the 'triangle versus triangle' or the 'triangle versus circle' could become a sort of archetypical clash, for example like between the fire-breathing-dragon and water-elemental-mage. It's just one of the possibilities. From my experience I know that adding some meaning (even if it's a kind of coloristic meaning) makes one's work more powerful. So that's another thing for you to consider.

See my next step, the whole scene is very fire-oriented, which is natural since the wizard is entering the dragon's domain. While I don't envision the wizard to conjure up a water spell, the spell's color reflects the contrast between the two. Does that make sense?

One more thing to consider: As it is with miguel's monster, your dragon's upper limbs seems to me to be 'too human'. I think you could try to make them more reptile-like. Try looking for photographic references of dinosaurs, crocodiles, or perhaps some other animal that somehow resembles a dragon in this aspect and could lend your monster a pair of hands

I agree, the hands were a weak point. Now I went the easy route and just copied the feet. That works for me, but might be a bit too boring.

ThreeOhFour

I like how much action your scene has, but I think your mountains are all very low and flat. Some further height variation in that background would be lovely!

I agree. Better? I'll try to use values to make them appear at different distances from the viewer.

Selmiak

The left side of the dragon wing looks a bit short and unthreatening compared to the other side. The legs seem to have one limb too much, except this is the unnatural monstery look you are going for, then flesh it out and make it look really disturbing  I don't quite know what the circle in the topleft will become but I like beeing surprised... sometimes.

I agree on the wings and changed them, thanks. The legs are supposed to look like that, I wanted to do double joints on purpose, maybe I can improve on them though. What about the last sketch, better? The thing in the top left was supposed to be a sun, which my wife commented looked like in a child's drawing. Since I moved the dragon there, the sun had to go. Good riddance, stupid sun.

Andail

Hm, this monster hasn't found a natural pose yet. There's something with his wings and posture not really adding up. I would experiment more with his pose before moving on to shading and texturing.

Are you referring to my end of week 1 sketch or the more recent one? I hope the current one is better in that regard since I decided to keep the pose as it is (except minor tweaks)

Snarky

Having all the limbs in front of the body like that looks a bit ungainly, and it doesn't create any clear lines to provide a sense of movement. To underscore the mammalian nature of the monster, maybe make the face even more bull-like?

Same question as to Andail
I hope I can get a sense of movement through details, although that might be too late
I was thinking about changing some details on the head, let's see whether I can manage to do that when I start on the details.

[Cerno]

Week 2 Step 3

So I tried to get a feel about lighting and colors with a very rough sketch. It might have been a good idea to do lighting and color separately though.



After Kasander's hint about adding some meaning through colors I drew the whole scene in reds, lighted from below and colored the wizard's spell in blues to underline his foreignness in this envionment. Just realized that the mountains would need different shades of grey to give them a better impression of depth.

After loominous's hints about contrast, I scaled down the image to thumbnail size:



I can see that the dragon takes the focus as it should but the smoke has too much contrast and competes too much. My decreasing the contrast here, I hope to get the background volcanoes to actually feel like a background, the same goes for the mountain range. Also the central volcano at the bottom as well as the wizard's cliff is almost invisible. This has to change.

[Cerno]

waheela: Love the bloody snout, adds a lot of believability to the scene.

Awesome human hand by the way. I think the problem with it might be that its pose is quite uncomfortable. Try to hold your hand like this, it should strain the tendons in the back. If you can, maybe try to get the wrist straight instead of bent?

Also I fear that Lord Jagged still looks a bit pot-bellied. No idea what I'm talking about, but shouldn't his lower belly (where it is close to the table) be less in the shadows? What casts that shadow? It can't be the table if the light is coming from behind the protagonist's head, so I think it might enforce the impression that a large belly casts it. Does that make any sense?

[dactylopus]

I haven't had much time to work on my monster this week, but I will get an update done.

I've been looking at all of the input, and you guys have some really good ideas.

Also, I really like where some of you are going with this.  I think everyone has improved their pieces this week, from what I've seen.  I'll provide more insight later, but for now:

Cerno: I like where this is going.  You've got a good handle on the color, I really like the choices you've made.  The blue contrasts nicely with the reds.  Perhaps using more reds in the smoke would help.

Mordalles: I can see where you're having trouble on the shell.  It doesn't look like it matches with the light source.  It looks like it is lit from the side instead.  Adjusting the angle of the shading might help.

Miguel: I really like the new setting you've got him in.  The scene seems to make more sense and feel more natural now.

waheela: The shading on the gut looks a little pillowy, but he is looking a lot better.

Misj': I'm looking forward to seeing that villain in the scene, and I hope that you'll be experimenting more with those brushes.  It looks rather nice.

Again, I'll give some more feedback later when I have the time.

[ThreeOhFour]

Been too long since I touched this, but made some time to work on it tonight. His right arm will have to be completely repainted, I really dislike how it looks, otherwise I'm steadily making progress.

Half size:

[Mordalles]

That looks great, ben304! love the ribcage and mouth areas. and the lighting!

did a bit more experimenting  with my monster and background, and started with some of the details on the face.

[selmiak]

wow, extremely cool shell and creepy front feet. But maybe try to shorten the lower torso to make the long neck pop out more. will post a wip later...