[Muzman]

Short answer; lots. Gimee the long answer.



( btw; I have a pretty good idea, but I want to hear what you lot see and how you'd fix it)

cheers

[Shiro_tengu]

Its a hard one to make a comment on because I am unsure if he's human or alien ( I mean no offence by that, just sometimes people draw humanoid aliens and just like startrek or whatever they are very close to human).

I like your sence of color range. I like the expression on his face. The picture interests me. It makes me want to know who he is and why he appears to be in an assembly of some kind. Its very interesting.

If hes human, I would suggest that maybe the skin looks a little chalky or pasty. A small bit of reworking would correct the problem.

Also, my eye is drawn to the ear-piece. I think perhaps the elipse is a little too narrow at its equator.

I would also like to see the neck just slightly shorter.

Its a very nice picture, I look forward to seeing it complete.

[MadHatter]

the eyes are a bit 'flat'...
Try adding moer contrast in the shadows around them....

[eyewoo]

The neck... Think it is too wide or thick. Before moving ahead, it should be worked out better. Think it should also be toned down as it is too bright and sort'a pops out at you...

fleabrain...

[Pigeon]

Hi Muzman,

What seems most off to me is the helmet. It looks like a long helmet, but I think it should be foreshortened even more. It pops out too much to the side. If it's actually a wide helmet, and currently foreshortened correctly, I think a little bit of helmet would peek out on the other side of his head.

Either it's his helmet or his eyes that need to change.

Dean

[Golongria]

Hmm...I can't explain things well, so I took it into photoshop and did some editing...and well here you go: oh yeah, ignore the eyes and the changes to his right cheek, I just fixed the nose (it looked wrong to me) and I fixed the lips (they were sloping down incorrectly on his left side)

Hope it helped.
-Matt
Edit: stupid geocities...and I didn't quite fix the lips totally, the left side needs to come up a bit more.

[ August 06, 2001: Message edited by: Golongria ]

[dr . bang]

for some reason, i really love his nose!

[geoman2k]

i don't wanna sound like a hard-on or anything.... but
i just wanna say that i like the original more than the paintover.

[S4Sb]

the problem here is that you didn't understand 3 d. Try to thik of things 3d dimensional and not like shapes

[Shiro_tengu]

I don't have a problem with the original nose.

[Golongria]

hey, I said it looked wrong to me...I can see the shape working, it's just something about how it was defined that struck me as odd...perhaps it is because the nose had such definition that it seemed to come out wierd in comparison to the rather 2d looking eyes...but whatever, that's my perspective.
-Matt

[Muzman]

Hey all. thanks for looking.
Pretty much everything on my list was covered by Pigeon, Shiro_tengu and fleabrain (yay! /me puts on "not insane" T-shirt). Neck too long (tall). The front and the sides of the head are at something like 110 degrees to each other instead of 90. He is a human though, wearing a weird helmet/headdress thing (rather like a character from Thief 2).
I dunno what's wrong with the eyes; I liked them (ok, so they're completely fudged and lacking structure anywhere but the eyeballs themselves, but hey). The face itself seems ok though (the eyes are at the right horizontal alignment/tilt in relation to the helmet brow I think)
I guess I have to shorten my boss helmet then. Serves me right I suppose. But the devil is always in the detail for me. Sketches are generally ok. Or if they're off I can't see it until it starts looking more finished.

[Muzman]

Well here we all are again. Is this any better dy'a think?



I'm not so sure

[Vesuvius]

karras is more of a sniveling weakling

[Waldo]

I haven't read through all of the previous responses so I apologize if I am repeating anyone elses suggestions.
Mine would be that the reduction in head size works better, but you should work on cleaning up the planes of the face. A very tricky task at times because there are so many. Also cleaning up and defining your edges would kick it up a notch, too. You have ambient light that highlights the eyes well, but I feel should be accentuated more and that would increase attention to your center of focus. Decreasing the highlight at the back of the helmet would also help with that. You should have your center of attention on the eyes in this piece (IMO). Also, the entire head looks like it was pasted onto the garment. A highlight that rolls with the lip of the neck of the garment along with a reflective shadow on the neck would help set it within better. Hope some of any of that made sense...

My 2 cents that may be worth Jack Squat and hopefully no offense was taken, just trying to help with my observations.

Cheers.

[Muzman]

wow, I let this one sink a little long there.
Thanks Waldo. Ths is a bit I chopped out of a larger piece and tried to iron out a few recurring technical problems. I'm not all that interested in making it into a portait proper, or anything like that. So, perspective, lighting etc is what I'm most interested in.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Concerning highlights and shadows, perspective etc, I did a little overpaint (focused on the face), hope you don't mind.

[Muzman]

interesting! (and may I commend you highly on your lips, sir. Not that that's the only good thing about it mind).
I think the major problem is the headress. I need to plan the design better. I mean really plan it too. Top and side projections of how it fits the head etc. The original pic is still closest to how I want it, with the fins being grooves rather than protrusions. I think that means I really have to redo the head to fit it, and not the other way around. Whatya' think?

[Steven Stahlberg]

Thanks.
Well since you asked about the headress, I went back and did more overpainting on the same image, see above in my previous post. (Just to save space on my server.)
I'm not sure what shape you wanted for it exactly, since it's so dark and I don't have a sideview, but I adressed the perspective of it anyway. Mainly I think the spacing and shapes of the spines was a bit off. I went a lite Giger-crazy on the lower back part, sorry.

I still haven't nailed the perspective of course - I can see that there's something wrong with the eyes, but I can't seem to get it right. This kind of 3/4 view has always been the very hardest for me. [sigh] Well maybe tomorrow I'll see what it is, sometimes it helps to go away and come back.

[ October 27, 2001: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[Muzman]

nice. You're right about the perspective though. Something funny about the eyes. One eyesocket needs shifting somehow. But I think this shows more that such troubles are indemic to the picture.
You got the headdress pretty good though (even though the desgn isn't quite what I was driving for), it was getting fairly gigerish down that back bit anyway.
cheers

[c]

i think the head is fine for the most part. if you define the clavicle and neck a bit better i think it will click better.

[ixs]

muz, yer lips are saggy on the far end. the poor thing looks like he's had a stroke. they eyes look like he's had a real bad night and kinda painted "on"; there's not a convincing transition from the eyeball to the cheek.

and in general the face lighting is flat.

[that last overwork: the far eye is too high up]