[exo13]

Hey all.

This is some stuff I found while digging through my hard drive. Before trashing it, I was wondering if any of you think that I should try and salvage any of these. Please forgive me for posting these all at once, and for their rough, unprofessional state.

This image is wallpaper I was working. In case you couldn't tell, it depicts characters from the game Deus Ex. Needles to say, I need work on my painting tecnique and my faces.



This next image is of the character, Paul Atreides from Frank Herbert's novel, Dune.



This next image took me about ten minutes to make. I didn't see much going for it but I couldn't bare to delete it either. I call, "Human scratching post" and for obvious reasons.



This last image may look familiar. That's because I posted it earlier. Since none of you responded, I'm going to take it, that you didn't like it much.



...Anyway, let me know what you think. I'd appriciate it. Don't spare any honest criticism either.

[Siftland]

I think the second image is the most powerful...and it might be cool if you keep the sepia color scheme. I'd suggest putting him in a scene with a foreground and background. Eliminate the pin-up nature of the guy and create an environment with regards to composition, lighting, all that jazz.

[Steven Stahlberg]

The first one isn't really a single image, but a collage of many. It could be 'saved' if you wanted to do the work (cleaning up lines and perspective, making decisions about the light sources, detailing, etc), but first you must decide if you want to. If not, don't just delete it, print it out and store it somewhere, together with other sketches or roughs.
To make it work compositionally you must choose one of those faces to be the focus, not one in the center and not one at the edges, but somewhere inbetween. Bump up the contrast on that one face, and lessen the importance of the others by lowering contrast, either color, tonal, textural, or all three.

The second one is the best, nice work. The crotch/hip area needs to come down a lot, the legs being too long right now. Be a bit more stringent on the face, use guide lines drawn by a ruler if necessary to find the perspective - the eyes aren't level with each other. The jaw on the head on the left should probably be bigger.

The third one - well it needs more defining and detail I think, check out Wayne Barlowe's aliens for some ideas. The composition would be improved by bringing the human more into the image, away from the edges. Also maybe explain (visually) why he's still standing even though he seems dead or badly wounded.

The last one has cool colors and a cool compositional idea, but the spaces between the tree trunks (and the trunks) are too regular. Check out some reference of real trees, or even better, go outside to sketch!
The rest of it is a bit too dark, at least on my monitor.

Steven

[ June 12, 2001: Message edited by: Steven Stahlberg ]

[exo13]

I actually must admit, I wasn't planning on abandoning the last image. But I do see what you mean in terms of it being too dark.

I think that the only way I can save it though, is to delete the layer with the tree trunks are on all together. The leaves are actually on the canvas with the sky (probably a mistake, but it was the only way I could use water colors with Painter). The shadows of the trees are also way off. There are shadows for branches that don't even exist! I probably should have fixed that before posting it.

I will probably redo that tyranosaurus too. The colors should be more flat, the perspective is all off, it's lacks a level of detail that I'd personally expect from miself... that, and it looks at me funny.

The image I made of Paul Atreides is just one of many portraits I've made of characters from Dune. I scanned it in and began tweaking it simply for my amusement. I don't know if it has any real potential on a scene since it's not really that dianamic. I just figured that it would be my crack at costume design (being the stillsuit). I will clean it up though, thanks for the encouragement Steven(...I'm not worthy)

As for the "Human Scratching-post" I think that I'll just end up starting over. I have a quick sketch that I was working from. I was going to make it the foreground of a larger, landscape type piece. The little carved up gay in a spacesuit would be leaning up against a blood-smeared boulder while the alien, menacingly lurched over him.

The Deus Ex image was the first one on the chopping-block for me. I just wanted to do something really good but gave up not even half way. Before I tweak the lighting and contrast of any of it, I need to finish it first. The reason that I became so frustrated with it was because I just can't manage to create a real acrilic type brush even with all of those options in Painter (if anyone knows where I can download one, it'd be a great help.) Essentially, I need a brush that lays down a solig color but can easily blend with colors on the same layer by applying lighter strokes. I don't want any dark build-up with the layering of strokes.

Thank you for your help. When I make the improvements, I will probably do it in a sepperate thread for each one. I will most likly have to abandon one or more though, at least untill I finish school for the year.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Just to clarify what I meant about the trees, a quick sketch over your image, hope you don't mind. I think this is a question of 'varying variation', a concept I try to develop more on my website, in the howto section. Chinese and japanese artists are masters at this kind of 'fake randomness' that is meant to imitate nature - though of course mother nature does it even better.



Oh and for a master at the head-collage type of composition check out Drew Struzan.

[smalls]

i like that one guy's trees at the end of the post.. well it WAS the end.. keke...Steven Stahlberg was his name.. w00t

anyway

i like your neat drawings too exo13..

[exo13]

Wow, Steven. You nailed it right on the head. I can see that sometimes detail is a bad thing, but I couldn't manage to do something like that. You just made a perfect example of the brush I'm trying to build in Painter. I like especially the background you added, simply by cooling down the greens and painting lighter strokes over the horizon.

The dinosaur you see onm mine, I was thinking about replkacing it with something that resembles that spinosaurus that I posted in an earlier thread. What do you think?

Any way, Thanks a lot for the help, and for taking the time show me a great example. By the way, if anyone else thinks that they can help me by somehow altering what I've already done, feel free and thanks in advance. Believe me, I really am trying to do something that looks professional.

[Steven Stahlberg]

Thanks. I didn't build a special brush though, I used a default hardedged one and just dotted some light green over the dark colors already there. It's a really simple and fun way to do dark trees against a bright background.
In fact when I have a choice as to which goes on top and which goes on the bottom, I always try to put the lighter color over the darker.

About the dinosaur, I didn't see the spinosaur. What was the name of the thread, and in which forum?

Steven

[exo13]

The original post is long dead, at least I haven't checked it in a while. I'll post it here for you. This image, I as well consider to be crap. I don't think it would take to much to save it though. Tell me what you think.



It seems that every time I look at it, I can see a hundred things that are wrong with it. When I fix those hundred things, I see thousands more and so on. This is the latest version I made before almost going on the brink of requiring Valium. (yeah, I'm exaggerating...but damn, it got frustrating)

-N.D. Hill

[Steven Stahlberg]

Hey, don't be too hard on yourself, it's a good painting of a dino, I don't know if you're referring to technical/scientific facts that may be wrong, if so I don't much care, what matters more to me is the look. And I really like the way the 2 'hands' are different, and the 2 feet also - excellent posing. The only thing would be the slightly soft, blurry, freehand-airbrush feeling to the redering of the forms. For instance the lighting could be a bit stronger and more decisive, maybe even sunlight, and the muscles could be more defined. In this case I might look for references of race horses, they have marvellously developed and visible muscles.

About your original question, if this guy should be substituted, I think it might be really cool to see the sunlight glow through the thin parts of his back-spine thing.

Steven

[exo13]

I'm glad you liked the dino (again, I'm not worthy) I was actually refering to the design more than the actual image. Since the ground on the background image slopes down slightly, I don't think it would be appropriate for me to put a perfect profile angle of the subject on there. I was thinking about maybe still having him look like he's just trotting towards the camera. I was also thinking about make the initial dinosaur's size much bigger in relation to the first draft of the image. I think that too much of the background is empty and boring.

Here's the latest version Steven. I hope this is better. I still need to work on the randomness that you explained. This is just a redone version of the rough draft. The second rough draft I guess.



I hope you like it. I like it a little more anyway. I know that the little dino in the bottom right corner has too much highlight though. Also, something about the shadows being cast by trees on this image really bother me. I was also thinking of adding more roughness to the ground. I don't want it to look so smooth, like a texture to a video game environment. Maybe I should flatten the tones a little so one wouldn't expect the detail. I suppose that I could go over it with a plain hardege brush like you mentioned.

I also added a little moss to the trees.

[exo13]

Hey all.

This is what I meant on substituing the spinosaurus. As you can see, it's much larger and maybe a little more dynamic than the original.

While I was making the black sketch you see here, I bagan to think that he looked a little too angry for dino walking in an empty area. Since I didn't want to erase the expression, I decided that it might be cool to add something in the foreground that might be pissing him off. In this case, I made it another spinosaurus. I know it looks a little comical now, but I just wanted you to get the idea.

Tell me what you think. I'd appriciate any and all imput



[ June 14, 2001: Message edited by: exo13 ]