Messages

Igor, I checked out your website's sketch section. All items there are really top notch. I like your take on perspective. You distort it just enough to make it fun and entertaining. Sometimes people go nuts with wacky perspective and it's just hard on the eyes. You've got a unique take on it, and it's neat-o keen.

Here is Magintz' logo. I hope you like it. Ai, EPS, PSD versions of anything you need are available.

Thanks for the comments. I'll be redrawing this for the final, this was more of a test-shoot.

SteveMcCrea, I think you've got a point. The Mech would probablly move a lot more efficiently than this. I'll take that into consideration!

Igor, Gilbot, I definitely have a few inbetweens to throw at this piece in order to make it more fluid. As it is, there are only 4 keyframes to each step. I could easily need to double that based on the herky-jerky-ness it shows now.

[CLEAN LINE ART OF THE YEAR]

I've been trying to make a mech walk for between an hour and a half & two hours. I'm adding one inbetween frame to transition between the down and passing frames, but other than that, it's pretty complete.

I'm not trying to win the CLEAN LINE ART OF THE YEAR award, but am mostly looking for comments about the movement itself.



Thanks in advance!

Edit: For some reason, my gif animator sped this up about a 1/4 second per frame. It's fixed now, so if you've looked and were turned off, just refresh or empty your cache and all should be well.

I, for one, like it alot now. It was good before, but the changes to the arms look much more natural.

I hope you don't mind, but I had an idea for an edit to show you:

The overall feel of the character is neat-o. It makes me conjur up images of Flash Gordon.

As for the technical execution of it, it's an impressive first character to make. There are a couple of anatomy issues if you are looking for some nit picking.

Namely, his arms seem a little short and look as though they cut in kind of abruptly in an unnatural curve. I can't be sure, but it looks like his hands might be in his pockets in which case they are fine as is.

His ankles are a bit thick, but he is a beefy guy and I think they are passable as part of the style of the character.

My two cents.

About the only problem I see is that his arm looks slightly farther back in the front view than the side view. I'm really nit-picking there, though.

I like her breasts as they were. Hmm. That sounded better in my head than before I actually typed it.

Anyhow, real breasts start lower on the body and tend to have a bit more space between the cleavage than most seem to realize.

I blame Tomb Raider and it's ilk for the problem. Hollywood doesn't help, either.

You are looking at prime suspect #1 when it comes to adding 'please be harsh' to my work. It helps me improve to have others rip me apart (stylistically or when it comes to concepts as simple as my proportions or anatomy).

It could be seen as my call, though. Having put that addendum onto my posts I am, in essence, asking for it.

Conversely, that may not be what everyone is looking for. Just trying to play devil's advocate.

[GinnyW]

GinnyW, I have a few ideas for your logo, but I want to draw some sketches and post them rather than try to explain them. I can, and will, draw it for you as pixelart. That's absolutely fine.

Magintz, I have an idea for a logo that involves a planet with a big 'M' shaped sign eminating from it's north pole. Kinda hard to explian, but I think you'll dig it.

KANDY, BrainKandy immeditately makes me think of the Kids in the Hall movie of the same name. I'd like to draw a disembodied brain standing on a flexible nervous-system spinal cord kinda dealy eating some candy. I think it could work as a two color design. Red and black. Use shades of red for the pink of the brain and the stripes in the candy.

SSH, I haven't forgotton about your logo. I'm just trying to find some time to ink a sketch I came up with.

Minimi, I will try to come up with something for you later in the week. I have one logo that's ahead of you in the production line.

GinnyW, I can certainly come up with a few things for ya. It is possible to animate the vector logos. I make most of them in Flash, actually.

Also, if anyone else who has gotten a logo would like a FLASH or ILLUSTRATOR version of their logo, just let me know in this thread or a PM.

Sure, send me a scan of it to ray@penguinx.org.

Let me add some fuel to the fire, if I may (in a slightly off topic fashion).

I never got to go to art school. A lot of us who are mildly talented that didn't get a chance to go to art school wouldn't mind hearing when their work crosses the boundries of art theory.

I'd like to know if my inverse triangular compostion could be better accented through the use of truncated diagonals and negative space. I understand what that means and would not be offended in the least if someone 'in the know' dropped it on me...

I think, to most people here, I would be considered a noob. Especially since I don't have a published game and don't plan on working on one for about another four-to-six months.

You could have different scenes be diferent colored pieces of paper taped together at the edges. There could even be a sense of dread whenever an edge of paper was met... IE, will the character fall off?

So, you are proposing more of a 'concept art' and 'finished works' type of setup? That would be OK.

What about adding relatively commonplace beach items? Beach balls, volleyball net, chairs & towels, tiki huts, hotels, bars, seagulls, the sun... sail boats, docks...?

I can see how going from a black and white photo would create quite the challenge. Seeing that those flesh tones were improvised, I am impressed. The interesting thing about #1's foot is that I didn't notice it until I started to purposely nitpick the details. When you look at the image as a whole it looks, for lack of a better term, normal for the foot to be as it is. I guess in that sense you achieved your goal. Hope I wasn't too harsh - I really do like it a lot.

My budget was steering me towards a 9x12, as well. I've messed around with a 6x8 and it felt way too small for digital 'painting.'

In places, yes, it still looks like a rendered drawing if that is what you are asking.

Most notably, it's the highlights that give it away. The blue control panel on the left, and the 3/4 donut on the right are the two most obvious points, to me.  I think you either need to commit to 3D or 2D. Making one into the other confuses things a bit; it's hard to believe that the sky in the background belongs in the same universe as the donut and control panel. The juxtaposition of two different styles in the background itself looks to a bit much.

I wholeheartedly think that you can make 2D characters work on a 3D background, though. It's in the objects the character interacts with where that could get tricky.

I still like it, though, and think you should keep up with it. It's getting better each post.

Which Wacom did you buy? I'm looking into getting one soon, myself.

C&C on #1: On the overall picture, good use of colors. The flesh tones look pretty convincing. Some of the highlights look a little too pure white to me, but that has everything to do with the actual lighting at the scene.

Her left arm, north of the elbow, looks a little beefy. Her left foot looks a bit flat and spread out thin. Once again, this could just be the unique set of attributes of the model, etc. Sides, it's much better than I could do!

C&C on #2: Her ribs look as though they concave inward as they wrap around her side the way they are shaded. Her shoulder looks a bit too brown in the shadowy area. Like maybe there should be a bit more blending going on there.

The biggest problem I see is, if I were a beginner, I would have to hope that some of the elite users were spending time monitoring threads in the beginners forum if I wanted to gain some advanced insight into how I might improve.

I know, for one, I would likely end up monitoring both forums, because I like to help with paint-overs and the like for newbies. That's kind of a pain (for me, not necessarily for the community as a whole).