i know this is late, but its for next time... I pushed the gesture a little bit, and showed some of the fat deposits and maybe this will register as time goes on. Come back and look at it from time to time, the changes are subtle but that can be immense in practice
Fedodika: That's a great sketch, especially love the emphasis on the gesture! I'll try to push this more in my next pin up as well as the fat deposits mentioned in the future!
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Hope everyone is safe out there with the recent events! I took a break from some recent traditional leg studies I did, which I'll be posting in the near future, to start on a painting for a friend. I attached the finished sketch, please let me know any input you may have in mind before I begin the painting process!
Some issue on the symmetry of the bike but a good attempt at something so complex to mirror.Your bike isn't really believable also since it missing the arch holding the wheel in place.You should try to dig into some Scott Robertson to help yourself with construction of vehicule.
the perspective of the plane has a lot of issues, It feels like its half in fish eye perspective and half in 3 point. I get youre trying to draw the landing wheels as if they are coming close to the viewer but they are waaaaay too big. Youd have to be extremely close to a plane for them to appear that large. look at photos of planes and observe how tiny they are compared to the rest of the body. Also, it seems like the plane is going up, and usually the wheels immediately go into the plane after launch. Its only when the plane descends that the wheels deploy. (ive flown alot in my life)
Also most planes ive seen dont have this kind of shark shape bottom to them ,they are more rounded like a cucumber or a tube. Granted, there are plenty of designs that have a flattened bottom, but your design doesnt feel natural, like if it were a shuttle itd have some wider parts to accomodate the flattened bottom, so just look into that some more. Also the tail end wings, pay attention to those wings, you are hiding one behind the body correctly but then the other goes wwaaaay out, Same with the air sucker things under the wings. The symmetry is wrong on those, and its a machine so they have to be just right symmetry wise.
The figure's hands arent convincing. If i were riding a motorcycle, specially in the air, id have a much stronger grip. I cant really see his thumb and the bike is at what i'd call an "easy" angle, its quite flat. I get its an unfamilliar territory drawing motorcycles and airplanes; and id say motorcylces and bicycles are some of the hardest things you could draw, so just think about, maybe just maybe finding a more dynamic angle for the bike if youre up for the challenge.
the perspective of the plane has a lot of issues, It feels like its half in fish eye perspective and half in 3 point. I get youre trying to draw the landing wheels as if they are coming close to the viewer but they are waaaaay too big. Youd have to be extremely close to a plane for them to appear that large. look at photos of planes and observe how tiny they are compared to the rest of the body. Also, it seems like the plane is going up, and usually the wheels immediately go into the plane after launch. Its only when the plane descends that the wheels deploy. (ive flown alot in my life)
Also most planes ive seen dont have this kind of shark shape bottom to them ,they are more rounded like a cucumber or a tube. Granted, there are plenty of designs that have a flattened bottom, but your design doesnt feel natural, like if it were a shuttle itd have some wider parts to accomodate the flattened bottom, so just look into that some more. Also the tail end wings, pay attention to those wings, you are hiding one behind the body correctly but then the other goes wwaaaay out, Same with the air sucker things under the wings. The symmetry is wrong on those, and its a machine so they have to be just right symmetry wise.
The figure's hands arent convincing. If i were riding a motorcycle, specially in the air, id have a much stronger grip. I cant really see his thumb and the bike is at what i'd call an "easy" angle, its quite flat. I get its an unfamilliar territory drawing motorcycles and airplanes; and id say motorcylces and bicycles are some of the hardest things you could draw, so just think about, maybe just maybe finding a more dynamic angle for the bike if youre up for the challenge.
Edit i noticed it seems like it is a landing, so sure the landing wheels are fine. I had initially thought the bike was in the air and all the small squares are buldings way under the skyline. Its an odd looking landing way... Im looking more, shit i cant tell whats going on. The horizon feels like its landing, but its just oh man its confusing!
For the figure, I would suggested watching some motorbike racing videos (or looking at stills) and note the position of these guys arms when they are riding on such an angle. At the moment your character feels very relaxed for the situation and to be brutally honest, I'm having a hard time understanding what is going on with his right arm (our left). I hope that feedback helps. Keep up the hard work! It's a challenging image but keep on going :)
darktiste: Thank you, great point regarding the arch missing, just refined it a bit and added the arch, so hopefully it looks more natural now!
Fedodika: Great points regarding the plane, the image you posted was ridiculously useful in that regards, so I did my best to apply its points to the current update. Hope the plane looks a bit more natural now! I refined the hands as suggested, they weren't really well thought out I admit!
chubby cat: Great suggestion! I studied some stills as suggested and updated the arm and hands, I think it looks much more natural now!
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I worked on the sketch based on all the input I received, I'm very pleased with this update, I feel everything works much better now. The motorcycle and plane appear much more natural now hopefully! Here's the latest update on the sketch, feedback is welcome as always!
His hands feel better pose wise definitely but theyre still kinda small, i think a big selling point of his pose is his hands on the handle so id make em a tad bigger. (also consider making his face more expressive, he looks remarkably quaint for flying a motorcycle through the sky)
really go for the anatomy on it, strong knuckles sell a strong grip on something
You fixed a lot on the plane, i still think the back landing tires are too big, the forward one feels about right. The sucker things on the side are also closer but keep messing with them because the symmetry is still bugging me. Maybe download sketchup and do a simple blockout of the plane so you can see how the perspective would work, its a free 3d software and easy to use, you could figure it out in about 15 minutes. :)
I think a sunrise lightning scenario coming from the right could give alot of impact to this piece to create a strong cast shadow that would guide the eye toward the figure.I also would encourage you think more about your secondary shape and how they can help move the eye across the piece all those box like shape on the ground i would accentuate there shape to be more rectangle i think it would contribute to giving your piece a feeling of speed i would also put some debris and smoke flying off in the distance and other the wheel.Possibly use a blur to accentuate and give a feeling of speed to the piece.Your plane is missing the rotor of the turbine (rotor part that make the blade of the turbine spine).The front windshield should be transparent or tainted but right now we can't see behind it so maybe fix that to and give this part a more glassy texture.
Fedodika: Thank you! Great points you made, did my best to improve the image based on your input!
darktiste: I agree! I applied that during the painting process, although I'm careful not to overdo the lightning as I still want the figure to be fairly visible, his face especially. Great points as well, I'll keep them in mind as well for the next update as I didn't have the chance to implement all your input just yet!
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Been working on this image for the last few weeks, it has come quite a long way! Made a ton of changes based on the input I received. I think it's close to being finalized, don't want to overwork this one too much! Here is the current update:
An other little thing is if you could try to age the paint on the floor and maybe add a few tire mark on the ground for extra point to help create some movement.When i was envisioning i was talking about the back right side on the character but now that i think about it i would have made is face in the dark so you made the right choose in my opinion.For me what being to much is the tron look i know it probably not the direction your going for but maybe if you want to keep that look change the back ground to be more in harmony with the character itself i feel like there from a different time stamp.Unless he a time traveler it would make sense.
What important is your learn what work and why it doesn't sometime.
Its a nice pallette... i still dont think his hands are convincing, the forearm area just feels puny for the activity hes doing; I think you could also add some depth of field in the image in many areas since most of the figure is in focus and this is an action packed kind of scene thered be a loss of focus; say like on his foot.
the blue ring definitely pulls the eye in... I dont know if its a critique at this point, its just kind of irritating to look at how strong it is. Though some people might enjoy that effect
darktiste: Great advice, I think adding the tiretracks would make the image more interesting! I want the suit to have sci fi elemnts along with the bike, to make it believable that he could somehow race against the plane. Not sure if it comes across that way, however.
Fedodika: Great input, I'll see if I could mess with the depth of field more. I'll work on his hands more as well when I get the chance to make them more convincing!
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Decided to take a short break from the image to begin on a new one, this time depicting a friend and fellow artist 'Steve Cas' as a cyborg. Very excited for this image and just finished up a sketch, please let me know any input as I'd like to get as much right as possible before beginning the painting stage, just makes this easier! Any comments are welcome!
Your stuff is generally good and consistent, however in my opinion it never steps into being great/amazing because you're mostly following a formulaic approach in your art and not challenging yourself enough.
One example of this is the poses, maybe you've addressed this before, but just looking at your art everything seems too frontal and too posed, not dynamic or natural.
In my opinion for now here's where you have to improve - drawing - challenge yourself with the poses, don't avoid working on hands, legs, anatomy in general, draw trough forms, as right now there's a lot of things that don't work in space; lineart - tighten it up a bit, it's going to help you understand structure; rendering - it seems you rarely add cast shadows which adds to the images not looking natural, in some places there's too much soft edges, sometimes the wrong planes are reflecting the light where they should actually be in shadow.
None of this is meant to sound rude, I've just been following your stuff for a while and I think you're capable of making much more impressive work, but some decisions during the drawing and painting process are stopping you from achieving such results.
I think i will have to agree with Danny on this one the character pose specially in comic book style(Animation mostly tend to limit the detail in the background and favor dynamism in character).Of course if your going for a comic style poster you can crack up the detail a notch since you don't have to redo the scene multiple time.I think here you gotta go with the following mindset ''What should be in illustration so that someone want to put it on is wall''.If i was you i would browser for comic poster to see what can inspire you.
Danny: How's it going? :D Interesting input about the poses, I agree with your feedback and definitely think I can make them more dynamic. I admit I do play it a bit safe in that regard so I'll try to push poses and gestures further with my artwork. I'm doing studies on the side of anatomy, focusing on the legs at the moment to help me better understand the muscle structure. Tried to show that a bit off with this image, and I will put more effort into doing these studies regularly. I do have a full time job which takes up a lot of my time, so finding time to do more studies is very difficult I admit.
Those poses you drew are great! Very dynamic, and I tried to incorporate some of these elements to the current image, thank you for that!
Also I don't find your critiques rude or offensive at all, quite the opposite actually- very honest and constructive, so I really appreciate it!
darktiste: Great input; I'm a huge fan of comic book style art, so I'm definitely going to study some of my favorite work more thoroughly. Thank you kindly for your suggestion!
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So I reworked the sketch a bit, just tried to make it a bit more dynamic while reworking the hand cannon entirely for something more appealing. Pretty pleased with it so far. Also began the painting process, it's very early but it should give you an idea of where it's heading:
I think is shirt should flow gravity right now it like the remaining of is t-shirt is a magnet or something it should hang since he is leaning foward.One thing i have notice is that you didn't approch your piece with value before you jump right into color.Have you ever tried taking the grey scale approch where you do value first and you then apply a multiply pass of color after?I think one issue would be to help you character skin contrast against the background sky.
I like how your shape flow more now specially the arm.
darktiste: Great point regarding the T-Shirt, didn't put much thought into it I admit! I refined it a bit, hope it looks more natural now! Regarding values, I usually have a grayscale layer on top so I can easily view it in black and white. I do not like the technique of working in grayscale first and applying color later as I find that technique takes far too long, and my colors tend to not work so well, often appearing muddy! With that said, I worked on improving the values and the image as a whole with today's update, hope it's better in that regard!
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I resumed work on the image, made some changes on the left leg to make it look more natural. Image has come quite a long way I'd say, but it still needs some work. Any input is appreciated as always!
Painting looks good to me. It reads really well. Kinda looks like a cyborg Roland Martin.
If I had to make a crit, it looks like the light is hitting his legs at a more extreme angle than his face and torso (I.E it's coming more from his left), and I'd expect to see more of the shape of the feet in the cast shadow of the legs. The whole inner side of his cyborg arm looks too well-lit considering the light direction and the placement of its cast shadow. I'm not certain if that's correct or if it actually hurts the image though.
