[Phyrexial]

The last time I posted a pic of my own here, I was in a hurry and I broke alot of the rules I'm supposed to follow if I want to learn anything. Well, this time I tried to do something a bit more of my own and following most of those rules. No filters used, no smudging, no reference pic to use the eyedropper on, etc. I hope I'm making progress.

In any case, here's my guy with a sword. He's really unfinished right now. He doesn't even have a face or a mask or anything. I figure if I can get some c&c early in the development of this pic, perhaps it will be a bit easier later on.



I want to make his armored more layered, right now it looks like a bunch of flat plates with lines on them. I also would like to make that armor a bit more metallic and shiney. Anything else you guys want to do to the armor, go ahead, the more ideas the better. Any ideas for a face/helmet/hair style etc would be welcomed as well.

[Phyrexial]

He really needed a face:

[Phyrexial]

I think my webspace is down right now, I apologize.

[Smurf]

Perhaps if you put a shadow under most of the parts? To make them look risen up. And in pleated armor like that the more its bent the more they should be sticking out because each peice doesnt bend that much. I hope that makes sense.
_________________
Meep -It pwnz you.

[Matthew]

Hey Phyrexial.

I had some time before simpson goes on the air so I thought I was gonna do an over-paint for you, I hope it is ok.
I like the idea you have here with the lightsaber man, you wondered about texture or more metal like material so the over-paint shows you one way how you could do it.
I know there are some people that doesn�t like this idea with small strokes but sometimes they can give texture to a material.
In the over-paint I used some small black or dark strokes over the armour, if you do like that you can afterwards apply a Sharpen filter once or twice to get a more rough surface.



I hope some of it helped
Keep it up
Matthew

P.S. I hope we will see some robots from you. :)

[Phyrexial]

Cool guys, thanks! Big thanks to Matthew for the overpaint, very stylish.

I'm still tweaking this guy back and forth trying to figure out where I want to go with him so hopefully I'll have some more concepts to show you guys soon.

P.S: Yeah, I want to try my hand with robots soon, but like all my other work I get frustrated fast and I scrap the work in about ooo... 5 minutes.

[Drew]

The problem with making texture out of scribbles is that it looks like scribbles instead of texture. Before you reach that point, make sure that your lighting is consistant. To make the lines on the armor in the original picture looks more like part of the figure, you need to work on perspective. Think of all of the limbs as cylinders. I see that you started to do that somewhat, keep practising.

As for reference, please, feel free to use it! However, just look at the colors, textures, shapes, and forms. Don't use the eyedropper or trace. You can use reference from several different things, it doesn't have to be someone wearing armor in a similar pose. Use and action figure and a desk lamp for lighting, a muscle mag for anatomy, metal for armor texture, etc.

It looks like you've got the right idea, just keep practicing!

[Phyrexial]

I've been toying with this pic for awhile and I'm curious how best to use the overpaint that Matthew did. I like the slight changes he made to the pose, but I don't know how to go about making the changes. Should I just scrap the current arms and repaint them? I usually have trouble making position changes or anatomical changes after I've set down the linework. Should I start again from scratch and redo the linework?

[Matthew]

Hey

Well that depends on if you want the character to have lines or if you just want to show the forms on the character. If you choose form you can just add shadow to change an arm and then move the lightsource to get the arm where you want it.
For the lines you can erase the lines where you want to have the changes and re-draw the thing that needs retouching.
Let us see where you are now with the picture and I think we can help you more.

Also the things Drew talked about is good and there are some sites that shows that kind of thing, one of them is Fineart but I don�t know if that site is up again yet. Anyway I post the url�s below here.

http://www.polykarbon.com

http://www.fineart.sk

Polykarbon shows that cylinder-build but it is easy to get stuck in that kind of way to build characters but it is a good start, check the tutorials.
After a while when doing a lot of characters you start to be able to think all around the object, then you will be more aware of the perspective so perspective lessons is good too. You can find that stuff on fineart in the Loomis books if they are up and maybe you already know about the sites too.
Ok back to the song Amsterdam with Guster
*Matthew rocks in front of the computer* :)

I hope something helped
Keep it up. :)
Matthew

[Phyrexial]

Yeah, I've been reading some of the stuff in polycarbon for awhile now and it helps. I just can't seem to grasp some of the more technical stuff on fineart. I'll try to put something together to give you guys an idea of where I am so far. (I've been working then scrapping this pic over and over again)

[amichaels]

Another good resource is books. There's lots of non technical anatomy books at your loacl bookstore. The ones by Burne Hogarth are excellent, I've been using them for a while now. Also, if you live near an art supply store you can get yourself a little wooden poseable dummy. Mine sits on my desk. There's also hands, horses and a few other types.
OR if you have a digital camera, you can get someone to pose for you and use that as a refference.

[Phyrexial]

Well, this is what I have so far.



The shoulders still looks really weird and I'm thinking about scrapping that form of armor for something I can do with a bit more ease. I can't seem to get the shading on them right. The chest area is a mess right now, I'll fix that up soon. (I hope)

@Matthew: I hope you don't mind that I traced the outline of your overpaint to get the pose correctly. I tried just doing from memory but after about 3 hours or so, I couldn't get it to look right. >_< I spent about an hour trying to recreate your moon also before I gave up. I'll work on moons seperately later. I've been studying some of the results of the "Skies" DrawClub and I think I'll get the hang out it soon. I know I borrowed heavily from your overpaint, but I painted the entire figure again from scratch minus the sword so I hope I kinda make up for swiping your BG. Forgive me.

Would you mind giving me some hints on how you did the new BG? I can kinda see my old BG in your overpaint. Kinda. It looks like you just darkened it, but I tried that and it still didn't look right.

@Drew: After staring at the lines on the shoulder pad and getting my sister to pose with a string on her shoulder I fixed the direction of the lines. As far as the textures go, I'm clueless. I'll go try to find some tutorials on that.

Thanks everyone for your input!

[Matthew]

Hey

I am totally ok with it and I don�t mind.
for the Bg I used the Burn tool and also smudged some of it to erase the detail in the background.
If you do a character and have a background you don�t want the background to caught too much of the attention.
The moon was made with an airbrush, I aribrushed the moon with white and made the craters with black and the opacity set to low.
Still thou, his right leg is a bit off and it was like that in my over-paint too.
Let me know if you wanna have some more tips or over-paints.

see you
Matthew

[Citizen Cow]

This Thread KICKS ASS!

Keep up the great work EVERYONE!!

[Pro]

Hello Phyrexial-


I thought I would add my two cents to this. I feel you need to concentrate more on value and form. Make a rock hard decision as to what the shapes will be and describe them by using planes, values, and edges. Here is a quick paint over that may help my vague explanation.


_________________
Online portfolio: www.gregpro.com

[Matthew]

I was gonna respond to this earlier but my monitor crashed.

Pro - Some nice stuff there, I like how you setup the values to the left, I should do that more often too.

Citizen - thank you for your irony, instead of complaining on everyone feel free to add some advice instead.

Later
Matthew

[Citizen Cow]

Good Point Matthew!
YOU ROCK!@

Here is my advice -
Forget armor. Forget light sources. Forget Photoshop.

Pick up a pencil and paper and an anatomy book. Learn how to draw a shoulder correctly before throwing a Slab of armor over it. Practice form and weight distribution.

You can play with color all you want for fun. If you are serious about this then take two giant steps back and start with the basics. Start with anatomy, still lifes, etc, then follow up with Value, darks lights, creating depth, then move on to color theory, light source all that jazz.

Overpainting this is like buying shoes for a legless man. Your hearts in the right place, but it is just a waste of time.

Pros overpaint is Spot On. But he also changed the entire form and pose. If the pose and form are wrong, then maybe the LIGHT SOURCE isnt the issue that we should be focusing on.

Horse -- > Cart.


Thanks For the Nudge Matthew!!

[Phyrexial]

Sorry I didn't reply sooner, I've been touring a couple colleges in upstate NY.

Yeah, I know I really should be more sure of where I want armor and what kind as well. I've been kind of unsure and I guess thats showing alot. I'll be sure to define it alot more next time.

@Pro: Thanks very much for that overpaint and the pointers. I'll be sure to add some of that stuff you drew on the sides to my process when I paint next. Also, like I said above I'll try to define the objects/shapes/etc more.

@Citizen Cow: I guess I should go back to just reading tutorials. I just don't have the time to just sit down with anatomy books though. I'm a computer science major and have never taken any classes on this kind of stuff unless you count high school art which a monkey with a pen taped to its tail could pass. Just about all the stuff you mentioned is latin to me. I just kind of picked this up as a hobby so the amount of time I can devote to this is limited. With the time I do spend on this I prefer to just sketch alot in PS7 as it saves paper and undoing errors just seems easier. Also I want to get my hands more used to the Wacom pen. From here on in though I'll try to devote that time more to reading again.

I guess I'll just save the contents of this thread for future reference and scrap this drawing since it apparently sucks and no on wanted to tell me. I'll come back when I have something a bit more substantial to show.

[piter]

hey phyrexial,

what citizen cow said has a lot of merit, but i think it is also too black and white. for someone like you who does not have a lot of time to devote to art, i believe you are on the right track with simply having fun with it. there is a lot to be said for that; you don't want to kill your motivation for doing art in the first place, which too much serious theory (without any of the satisfaction you get from art in the first place) can do. i would try to maintain a balance between working on fundamentals and doing the fun stuff. keep up the good work.

p

[Citizen Cow]

WELCOME TO SIJUN FORUMS!! HAVE FUN WITH ART!

* No Skill Required

I am in the same situation. I work full time, am a Husband and have a child on the way ( YAY SPERM!) So art is a hobby I dropped a LONG time ago and have been playing with off and on for the past year.
You can search these boards DAY AND NIGHT and never find anything Ive done. I believe this is a place for serious artists. I come here to see serious artists. I come here to apply the critiques others get on thier work to mine.

This leads me back to my patronizing sarcastic post.
If its a hobby and its one you want to suck at, then continue. If its a hobby and it is serious enough that you are taking the time to work on something, upload it, post it and ask ten thousand people to view it and give their opinion.. then please, for the love of god, take the time to do things right.

I dont want to kill anyones motivation. I just miss SIJUN FORUMS.

SO balance your Fundamentals with fun stuff all day and night. I do as well. My point is never stop what your doing, do things right. Otherwise all your efforts are wasted.

[Critical Pete]

Citizen Cow: Don't have a cow, man. This isn't the Salon... Anyway, if you are looking for serious artists this isn't the best place to look. Most of the people here are illustrators. I would call very few artists. Even people with outstanding technical skill like Craig Mullins aren't the best examples of artists. Artists have something to say with their work. I think you meant to say that you come to Sijun Forums to be blown away by the pretty pictures and technical mastery showcased here. But I have to say I agree with you for the most part, just that I think your idea of what this place is a tad bit deluded.

Phyrexial: Listen to piter...

[Citizen Cow]

[Critical Pete]

Actually I've been browsing Sijun for many years now... But only recently did I bother to create an account.

Thanks for jumping to conclusions and totally sidestepping what I said though.

[Tinusch]

*unnecessary rant*

[Drew]

Cow never claimed to be looking for serious artsy fartsy types. He just states that if someone is going to take the time to work on a painting, upload it to a server and then make a link to it asking for help on a site with around 10,000 users, they should perhaps take the time to make sure that they know the basics of art and have put forth their best effort.

A word on tutorials. If you are learning art through them exclusively, you are wasting your time. Though some are extremely helpful, for the most part they do not address the basics of art that a beginner so badly needs. Learning how to import clean linework into Photoshop, or how to make realistic hair, or anything like that is near useless to someone who doesn't understand anatomy, color theory, line weight, etc. If you have the time to read and follow along with a tutorial, you have the time to study color theory and work on anatomy.

[Critical Pete]

[Drew]

Since I disagree with most of what you said I won't drag this out any more.

[Phyrexial]

I don't mean to prolong this thread and I wasn't planning on posting again until I had something a bit more worth showing (or had more questions) but I noticed you guys said that tutorials are basically useless without knowledge of anatomy, color theory, and line weight to name a few. I'm guessing these topics are a bit too broad to explain in this thread but could you point me in the right direction then? I would assume I could find things on this stuff in tutorials, but that wouldn't make sense based on what you said. Anatomy I'm guessing books and/or using models. Color theory I'm completely in the dark on. I thought I saw something about line weight once in a tutorial.

[Critical Pete]

http://www.sumaleth.com/links/

You should find what you're looking for there. There are also many books out there which cover colour theory and anatomy. [/url]

[Citizen Cow]

Phys Attitude is excellent and that goes a long way.
I agree with alot of what everyone is saying in this thread.
The bottom line is, practicing color and shading, values and such when you do not know basic anatomy is a HUGE waste of time. If time is precious and lacking, I would think this is important.
Matthew has come a LONG way. His colors are better, shading and values are coming along. Yet he still draws all 5 fingers the same length? All his shoulders appear broken and the faces need alot of work too. All that time spent coloring and shading is wasted because you are coloring and shading an extremely poor drawing. Its like putting a $4,000.00 paint job on a 75 rusted Yugo with one door.
As far as posting this art - My thought process is, If your not going to take the time to learn art in a way that makes sense and insist on making it almost impossible to truely be a good artist then why should everyone have to take the time to click your post? reply when you whine because no one commented? Listen to you get blasted when you critique a well known artist on how to develop his shading better...

Art is supposed to be free and flowing and all that great jazzy stuff. I agree whole heartedly. I scribble all day. I draw some terrible crap and have a great time doing it. then I throw the paper out. I dont scan it and post it.
The problem is you cant draw a freaking Garfield Cartoon without knowing Anatomy and thats what most people fail to see when getting offended by these comments.

Everyone keep up the great work! In all seriousness. Theres nothing I like to see more then someone improving and genuinly taking the time to do so.

Sometimes the smoke up the ass bit doesnt REALLY help someone to improve.

SUMAS LINKS ARE GOLDEN!!!!!