11-19-2012, 08:29 AM
all really good. heres some tips for this week before i get to streaming.
Thomas- looking good. youre getting a bit of a 'grayscaled colors' effect in the values where they all sit in a similar range. This is a dangeroud pitfall of the wes burt coloring method so many people try to use, and you have to nip it early on. Try using some adjustment or special layers on top to get a little more punch with lighter values in areas of focus. I might even recommend a normal layer with some direct paintover. Id also maybe shift the colors to cooler ones. If hes of the woods and theres a mist theme, lighter blues or aqua kind of greens might work better with the white robe. they would also compliment the gold discs and set them off. the last thing is the eyes- with that hat, making the eyes glow pushes him a little too close to raiden. as cool as glowing eyes are, id get rid of that. he could have really bright irises, or his eyes could be in shadow with little bright dots for pupils inside the shadow (to keep the glowing idea but kill the raiden). And, as always, the design elements in his robe could be played up a little bit more. Its still very much a normal man in a normal robe, just with glowing eyes. good stuff tho, push it!
Tadas- this is looking good! you really ran with the crits and I think they helped. the big thing to fix in this the anatomy. please get a camera and have someone pose, or pose yourself, and look at the relationship between the arms, legs, and torso. the anatomy is going to make or break this- at the moment its breaking it, but you can turn it around! downplay the deep black shadow lines in that segmented belt hanging between his legs. its way too dark and becomes an eyesore. Really good colors for the culture, but it needs a little more punch in the value range like Thomas. add some little hits of bright bright color in areas of focus. if that masks made of gold, it neds some really bright specular highlights. in this rare instance, Id actually recommend using the cliche king tut mask to look at how the values should work on a shiny gold mask like this. the last thing, Like thomas, kill the glowing eye. Its clearly a human wearing a mask, so giving him a glowing eye is a cop out at trying to make it cooler for cools sake. awesome progress tho! i see some major improvement from the arthur. ANATOMY, ANATOMY, ANATOMY!
Malan- gratz on really pulling back with the rendering to focus on big areas of simpler, more vibrant color. I hope you see how much more effective this is in comparison to the highly rendered, blown out grayish arthur from a couple weeks ago. you can still push the colors a bit more in terms of vibrance and saturation, but this is leaps and bounds from the last character and rome wasnt built in a day. A challenge for you this week is to try and integrate your patterns instead of isolating them. By this im talking specifically about the smoke vs the character. Rather than just ending the character where the smoke begins, Id like to see you try and warp his design into the smokes and have it fade gradually into it. Smoke and mist are transparent, and whats more, if hes forming FROM it, I think it would be really cool to see that happening as the smoke rises and begins to solidify into patterns and eventually shapes. the simple, clean rendering blending your drawing to the colors in the chest and arm is working well. Dont push it much farther than that until youve done it everywhere else first (the face, his hair, the smoke). Bring everything to the rendered level of where the chest is now, and then we can selectively push certain areas even further- but not yet. youre doing very well reignin g in the bad habits from the last character, so dont get too ahead of yourself. really good work! push what i mentioned and then show me for the next steps!
Remember- I gave you guys an EXTENSION- not a break. These are extremely rare in the professional world, and any AD who gives one out expects HUGE progress when the new deadline lands. Use this week to really play with that you have and get it up to where it neds to be. Theres no reason this shouldnt be the best character in your portfolio if you take it seriously.
Try and have some progress with the things ive mentioned to show by tuesday or wednesday and Ill get on the stream with advice for the finish. good luck.
Best,
Dan
Thomas- looking good. youre getting a bit of a 'grayscaled colors' effect in the values where they all sit in a similar range. This is a dangeroud pitfall of the wes burt coloring method so many people try to use, and you have to nip it early on. Try using some adjustment or special layers on top to get a little more punch with lighter values in areas of focus. I might even recommend a normal layer with some direct paintover. Id also maybe shift the colors to cooler ones. If hes of the woods and theres a mist theme, lighter blues or aqua kind of greens might work better with the white robe. they would also compliment the gold discs and set them off. the last thing is the eyes- with that hat, making the eyes glow pushes him a little too close to raiden. as cool as glowing eyes are, id get rid of that. he could have really bright irises, or his eyes could be in shadow with little bright dots for pupils inside the shadow (to keep the glowing idea but kill the raiden). And, as always, the design elements in his robe could be played up a little bit more. Its still very much a normal man in a normal robe, just with glowing eyes. good stuff tho, push it!
Tadas- this is looking good! you really ran with the crits and I think they helped. the big thing to fix in this the anatomy. please get a camera and have someone pose, or pose yourself, and look at the relationship between the arms, legs, and torso. the anatomy is going to make or break this- at the moment its breaking it, but you can turn it around! downplay the deep black shadow lines in that segmented belt hanging between his legs. its way too dark and becomes an eyesore. Really good colors for the culture, but it needs a little more punch in the value range like Thomas. add some little hits of bright bright color in areas of focus. if that masks made of gold, it neds some really bright specular highlights. in this rare instance, Id actually recommend using the cliche king tut mask to look at how the values should work on a shiny gold mask like this. the last thing, Like thomas, kill the glowing eye. Its clearly a human wearing a mask, so giving him a glowing eye is a cop out at trying to make it cooler for cools sake. awesome progress tho! i see some major improvement from the arthur. ANATOMY, ANATOMY, ANATOMY!
Malan- gratz on really pulling back with the rendering to focus on big areas of simpler, more vibrant color. I hope you see how much more effective this is in comparison to the highly rendered, blown out grayish arthur from a couple weeks ago. you can still push the colors a bit more in terms of vibrance and saturation, but this is leaps and bounds from the last character and rome wasnt built in a day. A challenge for you this week is to try and integrate your patterns instead of isolating them. By this im talking specifically about the smoke vs the character. Rather than just ending the character where the smoke begins, Id like to see you try and warp his design into the smokes and have it fade gradually into it. Smoke and mist are transparent, and whats more, if hes forming FROM it, I think it would be really cool to see that happening as the smoke rises and begins to solidify into patterns and eventually shapes. the simple, clean rendering blending your drawing to the colors in the chest and arm is working well. Dont push it much farther than that until youve done it everywhere else first (the face, his hair, the smoke). Bring everything to the rendered level of where the chest is now, and then we can selectively push certain areas even further- but not yet. youre doing very well reignin g in the bad habits from the last character, so dont get too ahead of yourself. really good work! push what i mentioned and then show me for the next steps!
Remember- I gave you guys an EXTENSION- not a break. These are extremely rare in the professional world, and any AD who gives one out expects HUGE progress when the new deadline lands. Use this week to really play with that you have and get it up to where it neds to be. Theres no reason this shouldnt be the best character in your portfolio if you take it seriously.
Try and have some progress with the things ive mentioned to show by tuesday or wednesday and Ill get on the stream with advice for the finish. good luck.
Best,
Dan