[Muzman]

first here's the pic so far

It will one day be a tossy computer version of this sketch: http://members.xoom.com/earthdefence/remi/FemaleThievesColour.jpg
A pic of a corner in a tavern where female rogues gather.
Before y'all comment I tell you the back story. To plot out the perspective I went to a 3d program first; that how the walls and floor came to be where they are. but then I decided it would be more interesting to use all the construction techniques that have been posted lately, and make it a kind of group scene like a painting from the 1800s.
So I, picked a focus point (a dagger being balanced on one of the girl's fingers) and started working it out from there, slowly getting rid of the old 3d base. Despite how it looks, it's actually going quite well; the top of the table is good. Where I ran into a little trouble was placing the table legs; they began throwing the walls out of whack. I knew this would happen and I haven't done them yet, but what I'm not sure about is how to proceed.
Should I do the walls and floor now? If so how should i plot them?
Or should I can the walls and worry about the figures?
I realise the origins of the pic have tripped me up a little, but that's part of the fun. So share anything you want about how you might do it/have done it.
thanks.

[freddy flicks stones]

Why am I up now? Can't sleep.
First, and foremost, get your scale working. No scale, strange size ratios all over the place...
With that, you can go two routes. One, build your scene entirely, then put figures in it, or start with a figure for your scale and action, then adapt everything else you want in the scene around that figure, or figures. If you plan on doing a complex scene with lots of elements, and lots of figures, worry about the details of the figures till later. Details include, is the anatomy right etc. I put it all in as I lay it out, but that is because I kinda have an idea ahead of time, and try to mold it first time through to get a gestural quality I may not get by doing a second pass at the drawing. Off track...
The figures are important and the details of the figure(s) are important, depending upon how much detail you choose to paint into the image. But, they can be something you might dwell on to get correct for quite a while, so get past that part of the image, and build your composition. And this includes everything in it, figures and all. But the figures only need to be simple manniquins to get the figure in the scene.
Then get that scale working. Use the key figure in the scene for that. He or she will be roughly 6' tall. A table is usually 28"-30+" high or almost half the height of the figure. See where I am going? The figure will help you get scale of all things in the scene. This is going to require a keen sense of perspective. Use the 3D program to lay out simple primitive shapes representing all the objects in the scene if you don't feel all that confident with your perspective work. They don't need to be completely modeled. Just get them in the world in the proper scale and location, get thecamera you think you want tosee the scene in, snapshot it, and use that as your template for the perspective grid. This could be called cheating, but you are still painting the scene, and expediating a process which might go on hold for quite a while if you haven't the confidence in one part of the whole process of art. Figures used to kill me, so I drew cartoons. Until I wanted to story tell visually. I didn't just want to be limited to my own limitations. And figure drawing suffered. It was difficult for me to even start drawing a scene if I knew the cast of characters I would be putting in it were grossly incorrect. My only solution to help me was to get the right information, apply it, and then try at that scene again. Maybe this time around I would have the confidence to go the whole nine.
Straying again, just helping build confidence in what you do
Now, to your image, is the one girl at the table a little girl? She seems a tad out of scale to the table. One big big thing I see her is something everyone is blind to unless they study the figure, and that is that the figure is a series of 3D forms in space, the figure sits in perspective too. When many people compose scenes for the first time, or for the umpteenth time without the right information, they tend to buld the world with depth and perspective receding respectively with the camera angle and eye level of the image. But they draw the fiugres flat, cartoony, no depth at all. You dont need to know muscles and such, just that the figure is a solid form. You can draw all the components of the figure in blocks,(pliable 2 x 4's) or spheres and pliable cylinders. Just see the figures the same way you see the tables, chairs, walls, doors,etc. Depth and dimension. Do this, and you should have little trouble lighting the scene primitively too. By this I mean just black and white at this point, not with complex gradation, bounce light, etc.
The next thing is the table. This is prompting me to get a quick and dirty little exercise for you guys in finding simple form first before articulating the objects. Only the exercise is going the other way. You'll see, very simple, or is it...? Is this table square, round, square with large rounded corners, oval?
Find the big shape first. In this case, you can do one of two things, start with a simple cylinder if this is a round table, and project it from the floor up to the top of the table. The feet of the table should not exceed this shape, not any further than thetable top unless you are designing it to for some functional reason. Then, draw a square into the circular surface with the four corners touching the surface of the circle. Draw an x into the box, or two diagonal lines going from corner to corner. If I had my scanner here at home, I would just draw this and send it through. Bare with me. Now you have a grid and you can project this down to the floor. where the four corners of the box are is where your talbe legs will start. If you want the slightly angled, slide them all equally up the diagonal lines toward where the two lines cross in the middle of the box. This will justify the angle where your legs will begin, and taper outward to the floor.
Or start with a cube in perspective at the height of the table, then draw a circle into the box top. This is now your table top in perspective.
Both these approaches are using very simple shapes to start with, which is what everythingis made of. This image looks like you might be winging the shape of the table.
If you are guessing at the shapes of anyobject in the scene, it is going tostand out like a sore thumb. Get in the practice of finding the big simple forms first, then detail second. Don't just go for it with no under layin unless you know your stuff and feel confident. And if you do have both these, you wont be winging it, you cant because you are following a correct approach to finding forms on a 2D picture plane.
Hope this helped a bit , I am tired now, maybe I can sleep finally, brain hurts...

[This message has been edited by freddy flicks stones (edited June 23, 2000).]

[Frost]

Hi Muzman. Very good idea to get critiques before you go any further, I should do the same.

The things that itch me about your pic so far are the shape of the table (which I believe we see too much the top of according to the angle), and the viewer position which is pretty much smack center of the pic having a near perfect vertical symmetry.

I guess what I would do (depending on how many people you want to fit in the pic in the end) is to crop out some of the dead space around and focus more on the people, probably not showing the floor at all and perhaps having a bit of ceiling - I think that would bring us closer and more intimate to these people you are portraying. Some shadowy foreground people at other tables might add a good sense of depth and liveliness.

You might want to look over Fred's and Samdragon's posts on image design and composition and pick out a design from the examples that would suit this scene in terms of balance and all, planning ahead -- it might help out before you get too deep into it and start regretting stuff afterwards.

Just a few personal ideas and suggestions. Good luck to you!

frost.

[Muzman]

thanks so much lads.
I think I should have scrapped the "construction lines" for the walls and floor before I posted. They're just traces of the original forms and not really connected to all the other lines on there.
About the figures; yes I would have planned them out in proper detail at some stage, but that is so painfully slow for me I always want to just Get Something On the PAge Right Now!!!! (you know the feeling I mean) and i just scribble. But as I planned it out more it became obvious that there was no route of least resistance; to draw a scene of eight characters and have them more or less equal (bad form I know. I wouldn't do it normally, but the task calls for it) needs some seriously in-depth plotting almost from the word go.
Some additional info: the table top is circular and supposed to be large enough to fit eight around (even though in the actual pic the characters will be scattered TV studio style, mostly on one side) and her on the right (Hanse) is six foot but will be leaning against the wall slightly (once I figure out where that's supposed to be).
I think I'll junk most of what's there, I'm just confusing myself too much with so much residual stuff still showing.
Thanks again!