shroom dude

[Flo]

http://i.imgur.com/Ccqvp.jpg

shoot! ^^

cheers,
flo

[benjaminbach]

Hi there Flo.

You say this is a "shroom dude" - I think you could emphasize this even more. To me, the things in his head/hair is not telling me enough that this is a shroom guy enough, so maybe you could find a way to show it more clearly?

Anyway, I did a little paintover - there were some tangents, especially the one with the crotch and the axe. So on left, some tangents marked with red - and on right my paintover. I also thought his pose was a bit out of balance so I changed that a little:



Hope it helped:)
/Benjamin

[Flo]

hey benjamin,
thanks a lot for the paintover, it really helped me, especially pointing out the tangents. my poses tend to be a little off sometimes, do you go by feeling or do you have a way to construct it so it is correct?

Cheers,
Flo

[benjaminbach]

hey benjamin,
thanks a lot for the paintover, it really helped me, especially pointing out the tangents. my poses tend to be a little off sometimes, do you go by feeling or do you have a way to construct it so it is correct?

Cheers,
Flo

Uhm, I usually just go about feeling. It can also help if you flip your whole picture horizontally (I've assigned a key, Ctrl + < for this) - and then you can see if something looks off. It's very much a balance issue. If you look at the pose and think "Meh, it doesn't seem all natural yet", then keep trying, pushing and sketching it out in different ways until you're satisfied.

:)

/Benjamin

[Flo]

Hey benjamin,
that is pretty much the way I go about it too^^ I just have to fill my visual library more :)
here is the next iteration of the zombie.

I changed the pose, the arms, worked on the (still dreaded) hands, scrapped the second mushroom for better readability, destroyed the pants a bit and changed the mushrooms design.

Still WIP, still seeking critic, still...



Cheers,
Flo

[SamC]

Hi Flo,

I did a super quick paintover of this. Your main issue, as I showed in the PO, is that the design isn't cohesive. On the top 3rd I see a guy with a mushroom on his head, the middle 3rd is basically just a normal topless guy, and the lower half is wearing these manufactured clothes with an axe that feel very modern due to the square shapes. Its not impossible for a guy wearing all these things to exist, but this doesn't sell the concept to your viewer, it just confuses them. So you just gotta simplify down to what this guy is: A zombie, and a mushroom dude. These themes work great together, you can have a ton of gross organic merging where his decomposition mixes with things growing out of him. Also got a whole life/death thing, and could have the mushrooms really feeding off his remaining lifeforce. All decent ideas to work with. You should also think up a backstory, was this just a dead guy who got resurrected by the mushroom, which is using him as a host, or is it just some poor zombie whose made some mushroom friends he just can't get rid of. I went over really quick and just made some quick marks to show how you could unify the image. We need to see more mushrooms coming out of him, you can use the way that they cluster together to lead the eye around and make paths. There are also a ton of different shapes that mushrooms come in, which can be really helpful for building a strong design. I also thought it'd be cool to have his abdomen open with all his entrails hanging out, while the mushrooms and fungus work their way in. One thing you need to figure out is his lower half. I went over it all in my paintover and just made it leaves and twigs etc, but you could probably make them feel less like trousers. That ones up to you I guess, think about what you would wear if you were a mushroom zombie strolling around the woods all day.

I hope this helped, and be sure to take everything I say with a grain of salt. Just trying to get the ball rolling on some cool ideas for this character!

Cheers

Sam

[Flo]

hey sam,

thanks for stopping by and sharing your thoughts on the piece. there is so much to learn :O the overpaint is really great, I think I will do another sketch-phase for the dude. you are right atm it looks a little all over the place. I guess it is a beginner's-thing, because I want people to see that I know anatomy (which I don't) therefore the naked body.

then the problem with the narrative, he is supposed to be a woodsman who got lost in the forrest and got infected by a mindcontrolling fungus, that from that moment on made him stroll around the woods to find another host to bite and infect with the spores. the inspiration for that where those guys: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8
and this illustration also was a inspiration:
http://www.keiththompsonart.com/images/full/zombie.jpg

so actually I wanted to have him look famished, driven by the mushroom and injured and ragged by the time spend in the woods, getting cut by thorny things and falling over roots etc.

so back to the drawing board ^^ I have to incorporate some of your ideas into this, I really want to push the idea of this piece more

Cheers,
Flo

[Flo]

hey guys,
after getting so much awesome feedback I decided to do a series of sketches and come up with something more thought out. Here is the lineart of the sketch I liked the most and some rough coloring.

Any critic is much appreciated, be it on technique, basics, concept, etc.

Cheers,
Flo



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