Darktiste Sketchbook

[JosephCow]

Ok here's a PO. I feel like it would be a little more like this. There's really just the one face on the metal that's getting the specular highlight. And then the rest are reflecting the environment so they are relatively dark. If a plane doesn't face the light, it can't be lit up. At this angle it would make sense to see a reflection of the rest on the top of it as well, which definitely makes it seems shinier in my opinion.

There's not really any reason the highlights on the glass would be very soft at all unless the light source was just super soft itself. It's a hard polished surface so unless it's dusty there's not really anything to diffuse the highlight. The cast shadows you have also make it look matte because that's kind of a defining feature of matte objects.  Metal and glass can have cast shadows because they might have dust or roughness to them, no surface is perfectly smooth. but you have to understand that the reason we see cast shadows is because objects are rough. It's all the tiny faces on them scattering the light across the surface except where it doesn't reach. The more polished something is, the less faces there are to scatter light. You can't really cast a shadow on a mirror, for example.

Hopefully that makes sense, you don't need a texture brush or anything, just look at how objects look and apply and stylize what you see.

[darktiste]

Ok here's a PO. I feel like it would be a little more like this. There's really just the one face on the metal that's getting the specular highlight. And then the rest are reflecting the environment so they are relatively dark. If a plane doesn't face the light, it can't be lit up. At this angle it would make sense to see a reflection of the rest on the top of it as well, which definitely makes it seems shinier in my opinion.

There's not really any reason the highlights on the glass would be very soft at all unless the light source was just super soft itself. It's a hard polished surface so unless it's dusty there's not really anything to diffuse the highlight. The cast shadows you have also make it look matte because that's kind of a defining feature of matte objects.  Metal and glass can have cast shadows because they might have dust or roughness to them, no surface is perfectly smooth. but you have to understand that the reason we see cast shadows is because objects are rough. It's all the tiny faces on them scattering the light across the surface except where it doesn't reach. The more polished something is, the less faces there are to scatter light. You can't really cast a shadow on a mirror, for example.

Hopefully that makes sense, you don't need a texture brush or anything, just look at how objects look and apply and stylize what you see.

Thank for the Pov i think the only thing is that for me we don't seem to agree as to how near and how strong the light is.One thing is sure i used blender to cast the shadow so it not an error in the cast shadow but certainly the quality of that shadow is to be redone to account for the reflectivity something i don't think i had ever until now made aware of and i see why it would make thing look more matte then it is so thank for that for sure.


In my mind in the i had the light source much closer then it might be in my blender file so i will try to see if i got the file to perhaps test with a metallic texture and perhaps give you more context but the test if it can be done will surely probably solve the need for any further Pov.

What i want to note in the pov that seem odd is that the metallic bottom part of the frame is clearly in the light in my work file and the cast shadow on the frame casting on the bottom frame mean that the bottom frame would be in light. Where we can see we interperet the light differently is specially evident in the rotating cylinder of the middle piece but that fixable just mentioning it in case you have something to say regarding that.

In mine you can see that my metal is of a less shiny nature but you wouldn't know that so it ok if you made it the way you think it was suppose to be.It so that the gold and bottom plate can pop out even more.

If i had to guess where and how strong my light is it would be like 3 to 5 meter away but it a pretty strong light(this will be comfirm if i can get my hand on the blender file)

What i had in mind and observed is that mine as more of a spot type light it suppose to be on the left side as shown by the cast shadow and that why the highlight is so strong and can actually hit multiple side of the object on the base which would not happen if the light source was far away if i am not highly mistaken.

I will put this painting on stand by and run my blender test and try to work on something else just in case you have other thing to add.

I think the lighting problem steam also from this being one of the first piece where i am so disconnected as to where my light is and just a general ''i am over it kinda attitude toward the piece'' for a while during the making of it it did not strike me as fun and it was certainly more challenging but you know it doesn't fly with me that i have attitude like that toward my own work it just the result of ''abandoning a piece for so long'' and not getting the result i want so yeah i enjoy the frustration this one bring i think it important to bring new height to my work.

[darktiste]

Short story is that i am will no longer be working on the hour glass project because it not good for my sanity i tried thing but this is where thing fail is when you rely to much on program to get result and can't seem to make the program work i am biting more then i can chew here but i am still glad to see that i can avoid this if i am more structured in the future.

Impatience really been sabotaging my effort lately and it got only worst as time pass.

[JosephCow]

Yeah I definitely interpreted it a bit differently. You mentioned the gold was supposed to be 'new' metal I thought. So if it's supposed to be something else then that's fine. I also made the light pretty low because I wanted the rim of the base to catch the highlight. But my goal is just to make it look reflective, it's not the ONLY way it could look or anything. If the metal is supposed to be rough like in that picture then you're right it would have a cast shadow and more spread out light. However, I don't necessarily think that material info is reading. I feel like the black background actually makes a lot of reflective materials a struggle to be honest. If you wanted to share your blender render that would be interesting and might clear up those things.


I relate to being just over certain projects. So if you just want to move on to the next that's cool, I don't think anyone is like insisting that you keep working on it. Idk how much time you've put into it, but hopefully my critique isn't discouraging.

[darktiste]

Yeah I definitely interpreted it a bit differently. You mentioned the gold was supposed to be 'new' metal  I thought. So if it's supposed to be something else then that's fine. I also made the light pretty low because I wanted the rim of the base to catch the highlight. But my goal is just to make it look reflective, it's not the ONLY way it could look or anything. If the metal is supposed to be rough like in that picture then you're right it would have a cast shadow and more spread out light. However, I don't necessarily think that material info is reading. I feel like the black background actually makes a lot of reflective materials a struggle to be honest.  If you wanted to share your blender render that would be interesting and might clear up those things.


I relate to being just over certain projects. So if you just want to move on to the next that's cool, I don't think anyone is like insisting that you keep working on it. Idk how much time you've put into it, but hopefully my critique isn't discouraging.

It all good now every project as to be perfect.There thing to get out of this project for sure.I been wanting to move on from the project before the comment anyways as i found the subject matter to be to basic and uninspired...

[cgmythology]

It's fine to move on from an illustration that's not working, sometimes the frustration is simply not worth it. Looking forward to what you cook up with next!

[darktiste]

Just wanted to show the armor i was working on.I feel like the motif of the shoulder and the pectoral plate have an inconsistent style to them even if they are symbolically similar.

I also wanted opinion as far as if you feel this armor look oriental or not.

I feel like i don't want the color palette to be the only element that carry the theme of it being oriental.But i think the that the motif is helping.I am not sure the shape in the armor carry that intention.

Right now the armor need a bit of more detailing (aging) the belt as some inconsistency in how it look toward the top and there tangente i wanna fix to.The collar need more decorative motif.I am also debating if i should add some motif the element under the belt or if i should keep it as it is to rest the eye.

Anyways i hope you enjoy it and let me know what you think.

[Lunatique]

It doesn't particularly scream East Asian if it's just the shapes and forms. East Asian culture tend to have some typical symbols they like to use, such as tiger, dragon, clouds, etc. There are also some common ways to layer the clothing and then add armor on top. I would research Chinese, Korean, and Japanese historical dramas, video games with historical themes (for example, Romance of the Three Kingdoms), and also East Asian concept art from artists that work on those types of properties (there are a ton of Chinese ones on Artstation, for example, and they do a lot of Asian fantasy designs).

[darktiste]

Just realize i have half a million view on my sketchbook that a long way since my beginning thank you to all who visited and commented.

Note a side i am feel like i am pretty much done with this project here. 

So this my orcish acid flask project .They use acid because some tribe of orc are alot less keen to wearing armor they prefer the protect of there god gork and mork which mean they hate armor which make them very vulnerable to acid attack when there god favor doesn't favor them.