[Brain]

I'm currently working on a pic for a competition, but faces aren't my forte, so I come for critism and help.




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Brain
http://brain.gamekey.com/

[Zor]

well here is my 2pence worth..

The 2 most important aspect of drawing a face is :-

1) Position of the facial elements
2) The light source

So far you "nearly have the first one correct" the eyes are ok (1 eye apart) - but the nose distance between the mouth is a lil bit long imo. (Its very hard to make a face look realistic if the proportions are out in the first place)

Your lips, as a basic guidline. most cases the bottom lip is larger than the top lip.

Hair line, give this guy a forehead and it will look better. atm the hair looks all to fluffy. (not really a problem though) shade the hair you do have on a new layer, then use a small brush (dotted) and set opacity on smudge tool to 80% and drag out the hair in small lines , this will give u the detail of basic hair, from then on you can shade and add further detail to it afterwards, (try that u will be suprised at the results)

at the moment the eyes are not set to the face, the left eye, try making that darker, and the pupils inside make them larger, or the iris around them smaller. darken the edges top and bottom of the actull eye socket, then cast shadows below, (if you can try and resample this image at say 3000 res, then zoom work on the eyes, then rescale again.

The shape of the nose is good, just need to be lit with the rest of the face.

Look at the pic, and the right side of the face (our right) the chin line going up to the ear is the wrong angle, the bottom of the chin needs to be curved more then go up more of a higher angle. but not too much higher., then cast a deep shadow on the neck.

The colour scheme is all wrong too..Blue eyes mainly go with Blonde or fair hair, as with the eyebrows. (there always (mostly) the same colour as the hair.

Try using Dark green or brown for the eyes.

Other than that, the pic is looking quite good,

Sorry if this is not what you wanted, and im not saying its bad, just offering my helpful advise where I think its needed.

Others may of course be able to help better than myself. but good luck!

Zor




[This message has been edited by Zor (edited May 09, 2000).]

[Oscar Alexander]

Though I never drew a photorealistic face before, here's what I would do:

• Work on the chin a little, it slanted backwards right now...
  
• The eyes (and left part of the face) need a lot more contrast/shading. Keep in mind that he's holding a huge lightsource.
  
• You could give him more character by darkening the eyebrows. Also, the eyebrows should start wide (near the nose), become even wider towards the curve and end narrow.
  
• The eyes are a little too blue. Try darkening them and add some highlights.
  
• Nose could be quite a lot bigger, and end lower than it does now. I'd make it cast a shadow on the left side of the face too...
  
• Lower lip needs some reshaping, looks like he's sucking it in
  
• Hair looks a little fuzzy... I don't know how to fix this, but try using a custom brush for that purpose (works for me).
  

I hope this helped...


[This message has been edited by Oscar Alexander (edited May 09, 2000).]

[n8]

That better not be the jedi comp from hyper that ive entered....if so ill KILL YOU!!!...hehe....just jokes......ive already posted my pic up to be critisised...errmm...mabey more shadows on his face sumwhere??..and and and...shadows in the ear....andandand more shadows around eyes...eyedunno...chek out my pic i posted sumwhere here...i think its on the previous page atm....that was part of my pic for the comp...the rest is a secret till i ...hopefully win...hehehe

[Fronzel]

Where is the homepage of that contest? Sorry if this has been posted somewhere, but I couldn't find anything...

[Tinusch]

Brain, it's looking good so far. My main criticism is just that the proportions of the face are off. You should have Stolln make you one of those quick proportion sketches he made once. Those are quite helpful in seeing where you need the features to go.

[jasonN]

What contest is this? Please tell me!

As for the face, just give him a typical tough guy face. You know, hard features, strong chin and eyebrows.

n8, Brain, please tell me what comp you're talking about!
-jason

[Brain]

Thanks every1 for the shweet advice, I'll take it into account and work on my pic some more.

n8: Yes, it is for the HYPER comp. @:-) Don't worry dude, there's 10 winners, plenty of breathing space. Good luck with it, by the by.

Fronzel and jasonN: I'm not sure if I should tell you, I've already got enough competition to go against (that's you n8!) Tis in HYPER, this month's ish.

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Brain
http://brain.gamekey.com/


[This message has been edited by Brain (edited May 10, 2000).]

[This message has been edited by Brain (edited May 10, 2000).]

[Brain]

Alrighty, I've edited it, and came out with a fairly swanky edition. @:-)



Feedback welcome.

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Brain
http://brain.gamekey.com/

[Zor]

ya, def looking better...
Dont forget the lips too, needs a firm black line in between.. also due to the laser thing, you may wanan do some green highlights on his face mebee?

But lookign much better than previous keep it up

Zor

[Fronzel]

Uhm..and where is the Hyper homepage? ))

And don't worry about cometition, I most likely wont even participate, and even if..*shrug*

[SaltyDog]

I want to know too!! Time to break out some Jedi Love (Salty Style!)throw up the url for the Hyper contest Brain

[Jabberwocky]

It's looking good, but the Iris needs to go all the way down there's no white between the bottom of the eye and the bottom of the iris. And the nose needs to face more to the right... it might just need alittle more shading.
A thing I found out that helps is take a picture of yourself or someone in the posture. So then you can see what it's suppose to look like in real life. If you do the picture thing you might want to put a light source on the side with the life saver, that will show you lighting.

[eclipse]

Where's this contest?

[Brain]

[Stolln]

Just when you thought you were done with constructive criticism.....

http://pages.prodigy.net/orion131/artstuff/jedi2.jpg

Anyway, I don't have very much time to explain this (sorry, I shall find some time if needed) but I'll try to sum it up.

Basically, I thought the neck was a little thick. Compared to the rest of his body, I don't think he would have this big of a neck. Hmm...ear was a tad small, it should line up about with the eyes, and bigger. Also, because there was no lighting in the rest of the picture, I thought the saber should give off more of a glow to increase atmospheric appeal.

Hmmm. I also thought the hands needed to be a bit bigger (or the head smaller). I thought the pose was pretty cool, although I saw you based his weight upon more on the opening in his shirt than on his spinal cord (the line I drew doesn't really make sense, since the spine is curved, rather than straight.) Oh yeah, I also drew a hair line just to connect the hair to the head....I dunno (just felt like drawing it )

Hmmm....I think it is a wonderful pic. And, don't listen to me either, I'm just a little retard who posts here.

Sorry for nit-picking.... ( I do that alot )

-Stolln

[Jeff The King]

one thing that i find sticks out in a lot of works here is the mixing of soft and hard lines or the obvious contrast between them. For me the clothes work because of the two tone style used but the face and head are so much softer, to make the whole picture fit you need more definition in the face, simplify in other words. Dose anyone agree that they see this a lot?? By the way, the second attemp is on the right track.

[Mozeman]

Brain;

I started out by breaking down your drawing into some basic shapes, to see what was working and what wasn't.

The head and neck in general really lack structure. I recommend going in and starting with some basic 3-dimensional shapes to get a good bead on what's going on with your pose.

Here is the breakdown I came up with:



The head: The face in general is too wide, the eyes, nose, and mouth are too high. The eyes, as a rule, are about half way down the head. The nose lacks structure and the mouth is slightly malformed. The hair and neck are a little off as well. The hair should have more form to it.

The pose itself seems to work pretty well, although my reworking had me switch hands on the light saber (I picked one up and realized that the hand placement as it is was awkward).

Here's a rough sketch of what I came up with. Upon starting over, I think I would have come up with a more dramatic stance and pushed the arms and pose so that the figure reads better - although the jedi robes make this problematic.



Lighting wise, you want to go with something more dramatic. You have a completely dark background and a glowing light saber, but the lighting on your character is completely neutral. The lighting doesn't seem to be motivated in any way.

Anyway, just some (I hope) constructive criticism. You should probably listen to some of the other more experienced guys as far as the coloring goes.

Hope this helps.


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Mozeman
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[email protected]
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[jasonN]

Hi Mozeman,
I know I'm not Brain, but your breakdown into individual elements helped me aswell, thanks for posting it!
I recall in one post that you stated you were an animator. Did you need to do some special illustration course, if so, what was it called? I really like your drawing style. Keep posting!

-jason

[spooge demon]

Here is my entry. I had a timer on 15 minutes. The drawing is a little screwed. i was after the feeling of the light from the sword reflecting on a sweaty face. The photo we are all working from didn't help much. I think that effect is about 20% there. In fact, I am breaking a rule that I usually bitch about, dark halftones in the lit side of the face. This makes for shiny looking people (death with women) but I wanted this one a little reflective.

Hey Fred and the Moze Bros, glad to hear someone else going on about the same crap I harp on.

[Mozeman]

Hey, Spooge;

WHATEVER!

15 minutes? What took you so long? Excellent as always.

As for the harping about the basics, I'm rather militant about some of this stuff, which is how I have been taught and which I find produces the best results. I wish no one HAD to harp about it. But I taught animation as well, so I guess it's an old habit.

Hey, JasonN;

I've taken lots of drawing courses. While I was training, I took life drawing courses and drew constantly. I also bought an annual pass to the zoo and went there on a weekly basis. While at Disney, I did regular drawing workshops.

Since I've been on my own, I haven't had the time I would like to devote to life drawing (and it shows!), but I hope to pick it back up as soon as I can.

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Mozeman
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[email protected]
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[Morganic]

brain: "Hi! Any comments on my jedi pic?"
spooge: "Nice, here's what I did in 15min"

It's pure pure evil

[29A]

Hey spooge, nice one. But seriously... that wasn't nice...

brain: mozeman is right... listen to him...

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I'm not defect!

[This message has been edited by 29A (edited May 11, 2000).]

[Brain]

School has consumed time lately and I haven't touched it too much, but I'll definately go back into it after more goodly advice.

Stolln: Thanx for the advice.
Mozeman: Thanx aswell, this'll definately help me in the long run.
Jedi Mullins: Impressive...most impressive. @:-)
Morganic: Agreed.

Oh, and I have tried adding glow and it just didn't look right... I might give it another go and get some crit on it.
Hear from me soon.

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Brain
http://brain.gamekey.com/

[AliasMoze]

Spooge,
Mozeman and I have been slapped around so much by Disney types for so long that we can't help but harp.

Your painting is nice. I've actually noticed how little glow the lightsabers in the movies seem to have. Obviously they're put in in post, so the filmmakers on set can do whatever looks good. Must be weird lighting it and having to make those decisions. Painting it too.

[freddy flicks stones]

first off, I'm not at work, and can't remember my password, so I had to create another form of the same name. To Spooge, Thanks...I think there needs to be more advice and encouragement, and less bashing and ranting. You obviously can't escape either, so I choose to help...AS for the fifteen minute wacom dance, very kick ass. It just goes to show, you get the shapes right, it's gonna look right, and you don't need to fudge the details...two thumbs up...

[spooge demon]

Hmm, thanks fred. Yah, if I am evil I can just go away and not bother anyone.

[micke]

Here's my try..
i have'nt been drawing freehand in a month or so.. My job only needs 3d-modelling at the moment and it's getting boring. So this
was fun to try.


I think the face i did turned out more like a samurai than a jedi...

-micke

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-Mikael Noguchi-

http://www.katode.org/noguchi/

[Frost]

Very nice as usual Micke. =)

[Brain]

Latest render:


Comments welcome.

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Brain
http://brain.gamekey.com/




[This message has been edited by Brain (edited May 12, 2000).]