11-20-2015, 06:55 AM
@Cyprinus. Don't get too down, we all have off days/weeks where it is hard to see how to go forward. If you absolutely need to get work done to deadline (or I'd maybe be suggesting a short break to recuperate), this is the way to handle it:
Identify, and attack your largest problem first, and keep hacking away at it until you have solved it. Then pick the next largest, and repeat.
So in your case, the composition isn't too bad, I really like the scale in this over your previous, so this is a great improvement. I can see some tweaks we can make which I will suggest in stream.
In terms of largest problem, I agree with you that you need to sort out the design of the robot. It is such a huge focus and the main subject, you can't avoid it now. Sketches....sketches...sketches. Ref gathering....more sketches.....ref gathering......silhouettes.......sketches. The more you do design iterations before, the easier it will be to take this forward. You can design on the fly, but that takes a lot of skill and knowledge and fundamentals experience for it to come out well, especially when you have to draw it in difficult perspective, so I want to see the robot's main design before we even attempt to begin the final. This is fairly heavily evangelion inspired I guess, and you had an eva in your ref, so really study their design...not to replicate necessarily, but to see how they may have solved certain things. The eva's shape language and proportion is very strong and unique, probably their best features, so you need to develop the same for your mech.
You can break the task up into parts as well, such as main silhouette, proportion and shape language, then later focus in on particular parts to figure out how they might look if they are important in the comp. Maybe even do mechanical studies that might be pertinent, how the joints work, what the internal structures (only if these will be visible in the illustration) are like.
Also, you are right that this is more illustration than environment design, but if that's what you want for your folio, I'm happy to provide you with feedback on it and push it as much as possible.
Identify, and attack your largest problem first, and keep hacking away at it until you have solved it. Then pick the next largest, and repeat.
So in your case, the composition isn't too bad, I really like the scale in this over your previous, so this is a great improvement. I can see some tweaks we can make which I will suggest in stream.
In terms of largest problem, I agree with you that you need to sort out the design of the robot. It is such a huge focus and the main subject, you can't avoid it now. Sketches....sketches...sketches. Ref gathering....more sketches.....ref gathering......silhouettes.......sketches. The more you do design iterations before, the easier it will be to take this forward. You can design on the fly, but that takes a lot of skill and knowledge and fundamentals experience for it to come out well, especially when you have to draw it in difficult perspective, so I want to see the robot's main design before we even attempt to begin the final. This is fairly heavily evangelion inspired I guess, and you had an eva in your ref, so really study their design...not to replicate necessarily, but to see how they may have solved certain things. The eva's shape language and proportion is very strong and unique, probably their best features, so you need to develop the same for your mech.
You can break the task up into parts as well, such as main silhouette, proportion and shape language, then later focus in on particular parts to figure out how they might look if they are important in the comp. Maybe even do mechanical studies that might be pertinent, how the joints work, what the internal structures (only if these will be visible in the illustration) are like.
Also, you are right that this is more illustration than environment design, but if that's what you want for your folio, I'm happy to provide you with feedback on it and push it as much as possible.