[Merekat]

That's IT. NO more mouse cgs for me. I'm done. This took 30-40 hours (I stopped counting past 30) and though I'm happy with it, the time and inconvenience finally caught up with me. I'm going to buy a tablet within a month, and do that head tutorial of Craig's and finally be able to practice my hand skills when I practice my Photoshop skills.

In the meanwhile, I'm sure you've heard about this contest I held in the Megatokyo.com art forum for the peeps there. I gave them lineart, and they colored it. The winner got my version personalized to them. (well, it sounded like a good prize at the time) You've seen Aiee's and Cicinimo's... well, Cicinimo won! ;} So I personalized it to him.

You remember his assassin pic? Well...



The graffiti above Jhenna says: Aim High: the stupid stand up.

The far wall has his online name, and says 'block 15', designating his age.

As for the poster, it says: "Assassins Guild. We Want You! (dead)" and the little caption you can't read over his shoulder says 'join the assassins guild'.

I was going for a bit of a WWI old propaganda feel to the poster, based on Cicinimo's assassin pic. Here's the poster:



Do you like it?

[Magicman]

amazing... i love the water and the boots. the atmosphere takes very deep and dark this reminds me in quake. the textures on the walls have a nice lightning.

you have done this with a mouse? ...WOW.

[Radiater]

Sweet! Wow! Awesome!

[Zidji]

That's... that's... that's just plain amazing , and with a mouse?

damn...

/ Zidji

[artifish]

very nice- the look under the water is cool!

[NukleoN]

SWEET! Love the Assasins guild poster too, nice underwater FX..like the light around the corner as well..looks like a search or spotlight.

[patrick]

AWESOME!!! Simply Awesome!! I love the thin red beam aimed at her jugular. Nice touch, says she never saw it coming.
if you had made it a 3 point triangle patern, it could be a predator about to add to his collection.

[SpiralEye]

Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaang Skippy. I didn't even notice the laser dot until patrick pointed it out. Fer cool.

[dr . bang]

Holly Sh*t !!!!!!

[Cicinimo]

So cool, so cool. I know, I've told you how much I like it, but again, its awesome. And not just because its personalized to me. Its amazing in general.

I do have a critique comment. As cool as your pictures are, in my opinion, they would be even more awesome if your backgrounds were large-scale and epic. The sewer and water all look cool and realistic, dont get me wrong. But what if your characters were in an environment like:
this

Your capable of scenes like this I'm sure. Just my opinion.

[IEatLitleBabies]

Man thats SWEET! Something that you dont really notice is the laser on her neck, thats pretty sweet overall, great work...
Bob

[Collosimo]

That's so cool. I really love the detail that has gone into the environment.. it is so inspiring, makes you fell as if you are there, and that you know exactly the situation. The simple details like chipped concrete, mould, graffiti, an air vent, pipes... etc... it is so descriptive. I really want to try an environment now, without a character at all!... this could be so much fun.

[Snake Grunger]

Little repaint.. I didn't touch much of the anatomy/perspective, except I made the hand a teeny weeny bit bigger and her left bottom-leg was too long (I think). Light was the main issue in this image I think.. Make sure you get all the basics figured out before you invest too much time on a picture.



[ June 02, 2001: Message edited by: Snake Grunger ]

[Cicinimo]

I dont mean to be mean snake grunger, but I think Merekat did have the basics down here. She had a human reference, so she would be the one to know the width and shape of the human's face. To be honest, I dont find the lighting improved. Its kind of you to do a repaint, but saying Mere has missed some of the basics is going a little to far...

[Snake Grunger]

I guess I should explain in more words what I feel needs to be said about this image. This points directly to Mereket, who gave out troumendous effort into creating this, it is only fair that I try to help her out, and to Cininimo, don't worry, you're not mean. You just need a little lesson.

This is not my opinion. This is the truth, unless proven wrong.



I used four colors to display the different lights that feature on Merekat's image. Please read what is said on the image. There are two big light sources in this picture, one from the back/left part of the picture, and one from behind the camera, on the right-most part of the picture, apparently underwater.

LEFT PART:
Lighting

OK. For light #1, the light hits the right-most parts of her body: face, knee, hip, arm. But it also hits equally on her CHEEK, which is facing away from the light, which I tried to correct by darkening. If you compare the intensity of the light on her arm/face to her knee, it's definitly not strong enough. Her left shoulderpad is also receiving strong light, even though it's totally hidden by her chest, in a dark corner so to speak.

I also drew two shadow-casting references for her CHIN and RIGHT-LEG. This means that, according to the direction of the light source, the shadow would be casted from that edge-line. Meaning that, her hand, which is behind her knee (from Light #1's point of view), her hand should be very dark and only lit by feeble bouncing light. On this image, we see it lit as though nothing was blocking the light's path. Same thing goes for her neck. Too much light down there!

Then comes the underwater light. The two blue arrows I put are because I think the light is too strong in these areas, as though light wouldn't reach that far (it would, but not as intense..) It is diffused. Sure, it's interesting to draw it, but not that much I assume. I remember Craig saying a few things on how to exagerate certain things in order to "make sure" the viewer notices what you are trying to point out. In this case, making objects near the light LIGHTER, and objects far away from the light just lit a teensy-weensy bit can give an interesting effect I think, which is what I tried to do in the repaint.

I also thought light from #1 would be bounced on the water becoming light #2 because of the water's color, to then hit her right-leg. There's also a shadow casting line for her left foot. "Shadow, show us the shadow!", said the viewer's eye.

RIGHT PART:
Anatomy

I didn't work too much on drawing a skeleton for this figure, but I did it simply to show how LONG her left-lower leg is, and how SHORT her left rear-arm is. (Maybe I placed the elbow wrong, but it just goes to show that the arm itself is too short). I know Merekat really wanted to play with the perspective of this image, high-five for that, but it's details like this that can make the difference between 0 and 1.

I'll stop my rambling now. Hope this was useful/not too painful.

I don't know what artistic values Merekat wanted to apply here, I'm just commenting on what I'm SEEING right now, as a rendering of a human female in an environment. This is the artist that I am.

[samdragon]

Great work Merekat!
I can see the issues with the lighting, but I think the use of your "sculptural" lighting works very well with this. Sometimes "artistic license" makes for a more interesting picture.
This image reminds me of Rick Berry's work. IF you get a chance, look for some of his work.

I hope you show us some more work. Great stuff!

[KeLLuSioN]

it's beautiful. i love the atmosphere... it's great.... proves that the mouse isn't an excuse....takes a little longer, but again, a great result

[creepfever]

This is great Francis , purely mouse and photoshop eh ?

[Zenzuke]

Well' I've read somewhere "It's right if it looks right" and well, I think merekat's image DID worked very well, no need to apply scientific lightning at all. But the lightning study you did was wonderful Snake Grunger.

[Akolyte]

Damn, that's kickass. Nice crit Snake...it's good having people like you showing us the right from wrong.

[Cicinimo]

Okeedokee, snake. I'm gonna debate with yah, but this a friendly art debate here. Don’t take what I say personal . *cracks knuckles* (hehehe, I get a kick out of these)

Your diagram is mostly accurate, but it hinges on a few wrong assumptions:

First, you point out that the light from the flashlight would bounce directly to Jhenna. Physics say, however that the light will bounce off at the same angle it went on at. Judging by the spread of the spot light to the left, its safe to assume that the light came in at approximately 30+/- degrees (heh, gotta love numbers, eh?). This would mean that the light would come off the surface at the same angle. In order for Jhenna to receive any substantial lighting, there would have to be a wall running parallel to the one she is leaning against. This would make it perpendicular to the wall the light is hitting. Because of this, light would be bouncing off the first wall at 30 degrees, then bouncing off the perpendicular wall at 60 degrees (hey, I got a B in geometry this year, but I still learned some stuff). Now, if you follow all this, the conclusion would be that Jhenna would be receiving substantial light not only from behind, but diagnol to her front. Still, its likely that there is a dim side lighting from a similar direction, perhapse a distant lamp. Point being: there is any number of ways that this orange lighting could be possible.
(diagram)
Now, about that green side light. You’ve stated yourself that the light could very well be underwater. Notice the waves in the water; the irregularity. As you well know, water disorts light in a number of ways, with physics I wouldn’t even try to tackle. Saying that light would be hitting certain locations with any amount of certainty is absurd. Green light could be dancing all over the underside of Jhenna.

Finally, I’d point out that a simple directional representation of light cannot be securely rested on as definite precision. So many other factors play a part in the distortion and relocation of light that claiming a light source to be too indefinitely strong in one location is foolish; in such a case where there is a large margin for exception due to an indistinct light source. (:-/, that probably sounded retarded, but my English teacher would be proud ;-)

Thanks for letting me rant ;-). I promise it’s all in fun. I’m not out to prove a point (well, not viciously anyways). Tell me how I’m wrong!

[ June 02, 2001: Message edited by: Cicinimo ]

[Snake Grunger]

Very well said, Cicinimo. I wonder what made me think otherwise, but now you have shed light on once was ignorance in my soul. I can't thank you enough, and Merekat should be equally thankful, because you have filled her thread with such tremendous knowledge and proven facts.

But, this reminds me of a class I had 2 years ago in college. One of my teachers spoke about this light theory he had, that light wasn't necessarily just a photon, but a sparkle carried by a little fairy that no human microscope could possibly imagine seeing. Those fairies would travel around, carrying their little shiny sparkle, at such a speed that even the Road Runner can't keep up (now that's fast!). The master of all that is light, Misako-jiji, leads those little fairies using these 10 commandments:

1: One shall not eat apples.
(Because, originally, apples were meant only for bears.)
2: One shall not be two.
(Well, obviously because "one" is not "two".)
3: One shall hit walls and bounce in an equal angle.
(What you proved to us tonight.)
4: You shall lose speed when penetrating different environments.
(That's called REFRACTION.)
5: Thou shalt drink Coca-Cola.
(Misako-jiji HATES Pepsi.)
6: Give me 1 million dollars.
(What are you waiting for?)
7: I shall write a seventh commandment.
(Speaks for itself.)
8: Hmmm, organized crime.
(Whatever that means.)
9: Now where's my damn pencil.
(George, He lost his pencil again!)
10: Ok, here it is.
(Few, he found it. Good grace!)

By following these rules, the fairies then carry the sparkles from the Magical Kingdom (a.k.a. light-source) to the treasure caves (the eyes of people), where they can enjoy fun social activities and drink lots of orange juice. The fairies then came upon water, before penetrating it, they decided to analyze what was going on:

When penetrating water, light slows down, like so:



And when it comes out, it gains back it's normal speed. BUT, when light (already in the water) hits the surface with a large angle, something else happens:



According to the principle of refraction, if the light is coming from underwater, light will not be seen coming out of the water if the angle is more than 48.6� (I love numbers, too). If the water is shallow, the light source would then have to be very close to the girl. The light wouldn't be able to spread itself and a bright circle would be visible on the water's surface. And not only would there be a spot on the surface, we'd also see a lit "cone", because light would hit particles that are suspended in the water. The hypothesis of an underwater light is thus out of the question. Light doesn't surely hit any specific spots, but the CHANCES of light hitting spots further away from the water surface are minimal compared to the chances of light hitting parts close to the water. And since water is an unstable surface, the light hitting it is sent in multiple directions, thus even though the light hits even surfaces, the light/dark spots will never be even.


I recognize the law you are mentioning, saying light bounces at an equal angle on a surface. Nevertheless, if you have a keen eye, you may already have noticed that walls are seldom made of mirrors. The walls depicted by our friend are of no exception to that fact. If they were mirrors, I would have had to admit that your arguments were flawless. However, simple notions concerning concrete, bricks and most construction material are sufficient to concede that �specular reflection� doesn't apply to them on a macroscopic scale.



A ray of light hitting the wall may then by reflected with an angle going from +90� to �90� (the normal with this surface being the referential). According to the second diagram (based on my own qualitative observation), it becomes then totally possible that my initial explanation is right.



But then, your hypothesis concerning a second wall always stands. Yet, we may take into account that beam of light bouncing on a dark surface looses an important amount of brightness, let's say 50% of it. According to my very amateur calculations, 50% of the light will be susceptible to reach the woman on the first wall. In addition to this, a ray of light bouncing on the first wall, if it has an angle of refraction superior or equal to 75�, will bounce on the part of the second wall propitious to give us an angle in agreement with my lighting theory. Hence, 15�/180� = 8%, halved = 4%. 50% + 4% gives us 54%. Then, a ray of light bouncing on the first wall, if it has an angle of refraction from, let say, 35� to 85�, will bounce on the part of the second wall propitious to give us angle in agreement with your lighting theory. Hence, 50�/180� = 27%, halved = 14%. The light coming from the angle you suggested would therefore be near to 4 times lesser the one coming from the angle I suggested. In conclusion, my theory on light diffusion explains why she is lit in the way I showed (I only had 66% in statistics class, but hey! what's a percentage to me?).

Welp, I have now told you how you are wrong. (that probably sounded retarded, but my physics teacher would be proud)

[ June 03, 2001: Message edited by: Snake Grunger ]

[Merekat]

WOW.

I go away for a couple days and I come back to all this!!! This is phenominal!! THANK YOU for all the wonderful constructive criticism, Snake. And THANK YOU Jaime for going to bat in my stead with equally wonderful crit! ;}

heheh. As for the reflective light, and the physics lessons, I completely agree. THAT part I made up, so it's perfectly able to be off. I don't know such studies for that, I was trained in a graphic design majoy, and never had a perspective lesson, anatomy lesson, or fine arts painting lesson. NOT trying to excuse myself, just explaining that I may not know some things that quite well MIGHT be basics. I'm just doing the best I can with what I have, and trying to learn as much as possible. With wonderful crits like these, it's a much faster prospect. ;} THANK YOU.

OH, but there's a couple things about this pic: here's the photo reference:



now, I did do a couple things with her face to make a few changes, but mostly, I really referred to her.

I suppose my big thing here might be that I didn't take into account that flashlight source. I knew it was going to be there, but since the main source was towards her, I forgot about that one, and that is unusual for me. So, you are right. But Cici's physics work, though I must admit, were not the original intention.

The reflective light, as I said, I made up as best I could. Taking reference to the reflected light shown from the wall behind her and from the light-colored object that's to the right you can't see.

But this is why I did things I did. Now, please indulge me once more, though you've done so much to help me so far, knowing this new information, did I really mess up?

Obviously something must be off, else you wouldn't crit it so to begin with. What did I miss?

Thanks again, guys! I'm learning so much in this forum. Thank you! ;}

[piro]

Heya Merekat, i finally managed to find my way over here...

(btw, this really is her last work with a mouse. I saw the box with the 9x12 tablet with my own eyes yesterday ^^)

as always, impressive work. I should have saved you some cash and gave you my tablet :P

One of the things that i wonder about, regarding the discussion about light and shadow directions is - if we were true to the light source origin, wouldn't too much detail on the figure fall into shadow in such a way that the figure would be hard to discern? Is there any validity to 'tweaking' the reality of a lighting situation to maintain the desired effect? (for instance, in film, you will often see the 'lighting' change when they turn out the lights - the main lights go off, and rather than total darkness, you get these dimmer, bluish lights that come on ^_^)

of course, comming from someone who works only in pencil (oh gee! masking! i didnt know you could do that in photoshop!) its a moot point for my own work because my lighting is always from the upper left. :P

piro

[eric_morrell]

you know this argument reminds me of those Time magazine ads where they would have the big picture and just a little bit of it was cropped witht the time logo around it. The point is that there is no human way to predict any type of natural force at this time. We can only guess and at the same time when making movies we add lights where lights don't belong. But thats ok because as long as our eye accepts it, it doesn't matter. We dont' know if someone is holding flashlights outside of the edge of the picture. There is no way anyone can argue with an artist about lights. Every lighting condition is possible with enough artificial lighting. ok I'm done.

[schabe]

very great picture.
so much details, great colors, great drawing and done with mouse... just awesome.
interesting commentars here, btw

[Lunatique]

If this is your mouse-painting, your tablet painting will be deadly. Can't wait to see!

[nova]

Wow.. those colors are really keen. I like everything about this image. Your work on that savannah girl was frickin' awesome too.

(jeez.. I have so much more to go )

[exo13]

Woah. That image rocks. Honestly, I didn't notice problems with light sources and shading and whatever. The story that the piece clearly portrays is what caught my attension. Nice detail.

[elam]

Not to be a dick or anything, but Snake, you might want to apply your vast knowlege of lighting and anatomy principles to your own paintings(below)




That painting is the shit M. How long did it take you? And are you a sadomasochist, using a mouse?!

[ June 03, 2001: Message edited by: elam ]

[ June 03, 2001: Message edited by: elam ]