04-02-2013, 07:29 PM
Well I've been in an art slump for the last two days, so no progress on mine and probably won't get these finished to deadline (will still continue on for a hopeful folio piece regardless). So I thought I would help others out with some crit. If anyone wants crit on their stuff just PM me or add me on Skype (monkeybread) and I'd be happy to give you my opinions :)
@SimonPalmer. Great progress! I know this is kinda late in the game, but I'd say you need to bring in more hyena design elements into the human form. Right now from her earings which are the most visible, I'd almost say she was going to transform into a boar or an elephant (great idea with the tusk earings though!) It's probably late in the game, but yeah, maybe changing those earrings to hyena jaw bones and some hyena relateds tatoos or something?
@Victor: I love your prep work. It may be a bit hard to match the three characters in their transformed states to the other cards, so yeah definitely use colour cues I'd say to tie them together and the cards together. Perhaps they each have slightly different schemes that distinguish them clearly? Your design work and comps are awesome, so just keep going man!
@Nemanjas: Great work on the render. I find that the arm holding the cleaver thing needs reworking anatomically. It is suffering form "rubber bones" syndrome, the biceps and upper arm seem a bit too pronounced, the forearm musculature isn't correct (check ref). The hand holding the sword is really wide and the angle of it is so extreme it really makes it seem like he is just about to lose the sword. Suggest rotating shifting the sword up slightly
@andreitabacaru I think you've got some nice comps going there. My take on the armour showcase thing was that we were to show armour design more on the human form and then do what we could for the beast form. Lots of people are going for less armour on the beasts, so I'd say just go with what you have. I don't know much about card art, but many cards seem to be 3/4 or even less of the figure so I guess don't be swayed by having to show every single detail of the armour. Just highlight the key points that tie the cards together in your comps...That's my 2 cents anyway. Also it seems that execution is less important than the idea for these, so just nail your concepts.
@Nikt I think it is a good idea to bring in more warm accents because at the moment your piece is mostly quite blue and gray and needs some colour vibrancy to bring it some life; So your idea of warms is good but I think you may have to think about how you integrate it a little better into the piece to not look so added on. Do some studies to help you see what illuminated steam looks like and perhaps using warm accents on the blade and other parts of the armour might be a way to create some vibrancy and contrast to your colour scheme. Overall I think your piece needs work in values to create depth. It may be too late to do that in this piece, but basically you want to create some distance between the BG and the figure and to show form; you could try lightening the background and maybe bringing a bit more cool into it. Also really think about how the lighting would affect all your forms. Considering there is moonlight at the back this could be your cool secondary light source and he should have some rim lighting on his form, and maybe the primary source of light could be originating from him as warm "magical" light or from something off screen. You basically need to bring some complementary colours into the piece and really think about how light hits form to show the volumes of the objects. Lighting and still life studies are the way to go to improve in this area.
Hope that helps people, even if I can't help myself!
@SimonPalmer. Great progress! I know this is kinda late in the game, but I'd say you need to bring in more hyena design elements into the human form. Right now from her earings which are the most visible, I'd almost say she was going to transform into a boar or an elephant (great idea with the tusk earings though!) It's probably late in the game, but yeah, maybe changing those earrings to hyena jaw bones and some hyena relateds tatoos or something?
@Victor: I love your prep work. It may be a bit hard to match the three characters in their transformed states to the other cards, so yeah definitely use colour cues I'd say to tie them together and the cards together. Perhaps they each have slightly different schemes that distinguish them clearly? Your design work and comps are awesome, so just keep going man!
@Nemanjas: Great work on the render. I find that the arm holding the cleaver thing needs reworking anatomically. It is suffering form "rubber bones" syndrome, the biceps and upper arm seem a bit too pronounced, the forearm musculature isn't correct (check ref). The hand holding the sword is really wide and the angle of it is so extreme it really makes it seem like he is just about to lose the sword. Suggest rotating shifting the sword up slightly
@andreitabacaru I think you've got some nice comps going there. My take on the armour showcase thing was that we were to show armour design more on the human form and then do what we could for the beast form. Lots of people are going for less armour on the beasts, so I'd say just go with what you have. I don't know much about card art, but many cards seem to be 3/4 or even less of the figure so I guess don't be swayed by having to show every single detail of the armour. Just highlight the key points that tie the cards together in your comps...That's my 2 cents anyway. Also it seems that execution is less important than the idea for these, so just nail your concepts.
@Nikt I think it is a good idea to bring in more warm accents because at the moment your piece is mostly quite blue and gray and needs some colour vibrancy to bring it some life; So your idea of warms is good but I think you may have to think about how you integrate it a little better into the piece to not look so added on. Do some studies to help you see what illuminated steam looks like and perhaps using warm accents on the blade and other parts of the armour might be a way to create some vibrancy and contrast to your colour scheme. Overall I think your piece needs work in values to create depth. It may be too late to do that in this piece, but basically you want to create some distance between the BG and the figure and to show form; you could try lightening the background and maybe bringing a bit more cool into it. Also really think about how the lighting would affect all your forms. Considering there is moonlight at the back this could be your cool secondary light source and he should have some rim lighting on his form, and maybe the primary source of light could be originating from him as warm "magical" light or from something off screen. You basically need to bring some complementary colours into the piece and really think about how light hits form to show the volumes of the objects. Lighting and still life studies are the way to go to improve in this area.
Hope that helps people, even if I can't help myself!