[agent44]

I just finished this one today. I'm pleased with how it turned out, but I am noticing a few areas I don't like. I'm also not a big fan of short hair on women, but if your an astronaut secret agent it's best if you keep it short. Anyway, let me know what you think.


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agent44

[Jezebel]

YES! I love your work so much Agent44! This is my fav of your last two girls (although I loved those adorable freckles on the last one)

Great stuff =)

-Beth

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Take off your clothes. It's OK - I'm an artist.

[url=http://div.dyndns.org/FOO!]http://div.dyndns.org/FOO![/url]
http://div.dyndns.org/beth/photography

[Chapel]

These are pretty awesome agent. The only thing is that helmet looks sweet, but if it was that shiney you would think a little reflection would pop up on it.

[-marty-]

thats awesome stuff, so fresh looking. i checked your website a few days ago. In the five or so pics ive seen of yours the characters were just standing there, I think you could do some real cool dynamic agent action scenes. I also like short hair on women but not when it looks real flat on the skull, thats just personal taste though. I love the way you do belts and buckles the texture is cool. do you use a wacom?

[Darrin]

Looks nice, easily as good as the last two agents. That view port on the helmet looks absolutly fantastic, thats really what I love about this one.

One thing that Liquid pointed out in the last crit though, is that you draw the girl's face so long. The space between the nose and lip needs to be smaller by a good centameter, maybe two. The strong chin wouldnt be so bad if you just closed the gap between the lips and nose.

Other then that these have been fantastic character shots. With so many, one can only wonder if you plan on doing anything with them

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I smile every day and I die every night.

[craig]

From a technical standpoint...the thingy that Chapel said. Otherwise, awesome, love the red beltage, 27 is the babraham lincolnest of them all, so far, and I can't wait to see agent 28 and I will stop now because this is a runonsentenceandiamoutofbreath........
peace

[Lukias]

Lucious....mmmmm

Fuck me, that helmet is fantasmical(aswell as the rest).
How do you turn these out so fast?.

Gorgeous pic/chick agent44, keep going ya'here.

PS I like the little raised edges around the sewn flag....subtle and effective.....didn't think I'd see it did ya?.

[Sergenth]

This woman must be from the future... cause she looks like a Russian lady, but she's wearing a USA suit... do your characters go up to the international space station? I'm also guessing she's a data communication spy satellite engineer while she's not being a hot and intriguing secret agent.

This is great like the other pics, even cleaner lines than the first! Great detailing and coloring.

Though, I think the skintone of the face is a little too olive-toned (somebody's been reading the Never-Ending Story...)

Fix it easy by using color 215,112,74 over the face with the airbrush and setting the layer to Hue and set the opacity of the layer to 70% or so. That should correct the green!

[Liquid!]

Nice pic! You're on a roll. Damn these make me want to do an E.V.E pic, sort of in this style, with a bunch of teched-out gadgets attached to her!

The costume designs are very strong and so is your overall design sense for the pieces. I definitely like the graphic stuff in the BG better than the plain white ones from before. Gives the whole thing a nice feeling.

One thing though, how did you do the TEXTURE on the red belt?

Keep up the great work!
-c


PS: This reminds me very much of a japanese artist named Katsuya Terada, if you haven't seen his stuff you should check it out. The guy rules.

[This message has been edited by Liquid! (edited January 23, 2001).]

[Psionic]

Another awesome pic, I love everything about this one. Very Slick!!!!

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Psionic: Digital Artwork and Forums

[Flinthawk]

Yep, another awesome agent44 pic. Great stuff man, really like the raised edges here and there and the functionality of the overall suit.

On the texture, I'm thinking there're a couple ways you might be doing that. One would be to make a black n white bump map that you use with the Texturizer filter after lasso-ing areas off. Either that or you do it by hand but it looks too clean and regular to not be done using a quick and easy method. But like people have said, that texture looks great.

-Flinthawk

[Kjetil Nystuen]

Hi agent44,

You have been productive lately, great work!

I really like her suit. It looks like the ones NASA uses today, but a lot more slim and elegant. It looks kind of futuristic, and very believeable. When a dozen space stations are orbiting around earth, this are the suits all the sexy babes will wear. haha!

-Kjetil

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Kjetilsplace

[Joachim]

yup, I agree with the others, you have done a lot of really nice character drawings lately. I'm really impressed with how you implement details and make them look natural without getting the picture looking too technical....hmm, did that make sense ?

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www.JoachimArt.com

[nil900]

...excellent...

[Jaymo]

Brilliant! There is only one thing I can crit, but that's a matter of taste: I don't think the rather cyberpunkish binary/pixel-background fits the agent theme very well. But apart from that lil nitpicking it kicks ass. Lovely details.

[mykscholze]

Fabulous....Please show us more!!!

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| | Michael Scholze | |

[Chapel]

I didn't even notice the texture on the red belt to Liquid! mentioned it. That IS cool.

These pics remind me a little of Joe Chiodo. I actually got his book "The Art of Joe Chiodo" yesterday. Awesome book. You might like it agent.

[JeffTheKing]

Some of the best Texture work I have ever seen!!!

[Bubonic]

Great picture agent, you keep putting these things out like once a day. hehe, they still look amazing though..

Only that bugs me is the left hip, looks a bit too angular..

and i like your digital numeric backgrounds.. You ever think of trying to adding a real background with a scene and stuff, so you get your point across about your character better.. For example.. you could have a launch pad in the bg at night..

that would totally change the whole look and feel of the pic, and would give you a better lightsource to work from..

Don't take it like i don't like your art right now, because it rocks! your painting of skin tones and textures is really cool.. You got the whole foreground thing down.. Just suggesting you should put more focus in the bg too..

[agent44]

Thanks for the comments everyone.

Chapel-I didn't think of that, but looking at it now I still think keeping it simple would be best.

-marty- I think I'll give it a shot.

Darrin-I don't really have any plans right now for them, maybe in the future.

Lukias- glad you caught that.

Sergenth- I love the backgound info you've come up with. Thanks for the coloring advice. I'll give it a shot.

Liquid!-I LOVE KATSUYA TERADA! although some of his work is questionable, it looks great. Definately an influence.

As for the belt, it's simple. I scaned in a strap from a picture of a swat guy. then I color selected just the high lights. I made a new layer and used the selction as a mask. I just lightly airbrushed over it and cleaned it up with the eraser.

Bubonic- Maybe someday I'll have real backgrounds, I'm working up to that point.

[Speve-o-matic]

Nice nice nice. Loving all your stuff Agent!

One point, Bubonic said it though, I'd prefer to see you do some 'real' backgrounds, but I suppose these are character concepts. Oh well.

Like everyone, love that belt.

- Steve

[Chapel]

Hey Jake I know you don't want to change it but I did this real quick just to see what it would look like.



Eh.. you maybe right.

[Cougar]

I liek the shading on the spacesuit

[Liquid!]

quote:

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Originally posted by agent44:


Liquid!-I LOVE KATSUYA TERADA! although some of his work is questionable, it looks great. Definately an influence.

As for the belt, it's simple. I scaned in a strap from a picture of a swat guy. then I color selected just the high lights. I made a new layer and used the selction as a mask. I just lightly airbrushed over it and cleaned it up with the eraser.

---

lol. I thought I saw the influence! Glad I'm not the only guy who loves his stuff. As you said not everything necessarily, but the great majority.

Doing the texture the way you are is a good idea, since it gives you total control over your base/Highlight colors. I also think that when you're being a bit more airbrushy in your rendering that it really adds that much more to the pics if you put a little texture in. This looks much better than the "halfbaked" attempts by Shirow in Intron Depot 2... Great artist, but a computer in the wrong hands is a dangerous tool... [yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm donning the Asbestos suit as we speak.... ]

-c

[agent44]

Chapel- that looks pretty good, but wouldn't that part of the helmet be reflecting out where the veiwer is. I'm not sure.

Liquid!- "halfbaked" is the perfect word. However, Shirow put out a calendar that has some art a bit better than in intron 2. You can check it out here: intron-x
personally, I think he's improved some.

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agent44

[Chapel]

agent: To tell you the truth.. I don't know. I haven't put much thought in to it. You are probably right.

[Liquid!]

BTW, Chapel, while I think what you've added makes logically sense, I think its a stronger piece without the reflection. This is one of those times, where I think the artistic license of "ignoring" what really would happen works much better.

Over the years there have been COUNTLESS times when other colorists/hopefuls would triumphantly exclaim that a particular shadow wasn't "correct", or lighting wasn't making sense, or a color wouldn't do a particular thing under these particular conditions. However, more often than not they are missing the point. The point isn't to strive for photorealism (That's why we've invented cameras), but to interpret and create the most effective visuals in your own eyes. Some of the greatest artist have told me, "Hey I know it doesn't make sense, BUT it looks cool this way..."

Anyhow, sorry about the rant. Not really directed at you, but felt this might be a good thread that illustrates that point a bit.

Fine. Just call me crazy...

-c

PS: Some of those pieces in the calendar look awesome.... guess a call to my local japanese store is in order...

[This message has been edited by Liquid! (edited January 24, 2001).]

[Jaymo]

Chapel: You did a "flat mirror" reflection on that helmet. You would have to distort it spherically to match the shape of the helmet. You could play with parts of the pic as a reflection mapping on a 100% reflective sphere in a 3D program to create a compositing layer.
Just a thought...

[LordArioch]

Not everything has to be photorealistic, you know. This is an abstract, comic-style piece.

I love the texture on the straps, really great. Left thumb looks to me like it might be a little short, though.

I agree with Liquid about Shirow going waaaay overboard with the CG textures in Intron Depot 2. In addition to being just plain cheezy, too much texturing can overload the composition of the figures, and it a lot of those pics you have to look really hard to see what's going on in the picture.

[This message has been edited by LordArioch (edited January 24, 2001).]

[Freddio]

yep ..

I dig the first reflection..