CGMythology's Sketchbook

[Jephyr]

Hey George! The 'Sword-Girl' turned out GREAT. Love the colors, the pose, her expression, and the cool background. The skull study is excellent — that lighting really makes it jump off the screen!

[cgmythology]

darktiste:  Great suggestions!  I'm currently studying anatomy using traditional media, I'm almost done filling the sketchbook so I'll post those studies soon.  Thanks!

JosephCow:  Thanks, glad to hear you enjoy the studies, they were a lot of fun to tackle!

Crowbit:  Thanks!  Having a lot of fun with these studies and more importantly and getting more comfortable with dynamic lighting so they're helpful!

Domincque:  Thank you and great suggestions!  I'm a bit too eager to put my final lines when working traditionally (digitally sometimes I have the same problem but it's much easier to clean up mistakes).  I'll try to be more conscious of this ;  glad you enjoy the new illustration!

Jephyr:  Thank you kindly!  Had a blast with all the material so I'm glad you enjoy them as well :)


..............

I'm doing a crapload of anatomy studies traditionally which I'll be posting soon and I'm learning quite a bit.  For now I thought I would take a small break from them and try out a new illustration.  Here's a sketch of Spider-Woman.  The pose was referenced from this photo here.  I just wanted to hear any input before I begin to paint it in, so if something feels off please let me know!




Edit:  Fixed some issues with the figure, hopefully it's an improvement.  Please let me know if the figure looks ok now!

[Crowbit]

The hands are looking very well done, and the overall pose looks good to me ^-^

[ruthwood]

I did notice in the reference, the upper right arm bends further back into space than in ur sketch. I wanna say the forearm appears a little short in the sketch because of that.

Everything else looks pretty awesome to me. Feel free to change that if you'd like, final result should look great anyway :)

[cgmythology]

Crowbit:  Thank you, glad to hear it!

ruthwood: Thanks and great points!  Did some minor changes to the sketch for a more natural look and went ahead and finished up the painting process.

.................

I finished up the painting process.  At the last stage I decided to make the eyes more symmetrical as it felt too stylized against a realistic look I was going for.  Hopefully that was the correct choice.  Any final input on the image would be appreciated before I add it to my portfolio, so if something looks off kindly let me know!  Below is the current progress followed by the steps for those interested:

[darktiste]

Would give more love to the finger and check back at the reference i felt something was off you made some finger bend to much outward.Finger bend inward not so much outwardly.

One other odd thing is the hair they make zero sense they are zero gravity hair? She is climbing a wall? Where is the ground? If she climbing than the hair should move toward the ground naturally not what i feel is a brick wall.

Actually now that i think of it maybe i am just wrong about the scene but the ''ground'' look like a wall so excuse me for my confusion it just that i am expecting a ''spider'' on a wall.

The only thing that lead me to believe she on the ground is you made the fire go up and there some kind of web... if there fire on the ground why is she crawling in it... sorry there so many question on this one.

This one didn't seem problematic at first but the more it move toward it seem hard to determine if some choose are intentional or bad planning due to sticking to much to the reference to the point physic no longer make sense.

[Jephyr]

Spiderwoman looks great, George! Kool color choices, background and pose. Small nit — I agree with Dark about her fingers especially that forward hand. But, otherwise, as usual, you knocked another one outa the park!

[Dominicque]

I like her devious smirk. From glaring at the reference, Jessica's bum appears really curved, like she has a very long torso. Unless that's a deliberate stylistic choice, in which you can ignore this comment. :D

[cgmythology]

darktiste:  Great point, I think I stylized them too much regarding the fingers.  I updated them to keep them simpler and more natural now.  I also agree with the rest of your input as well, the image wasn't too well thought out in terms of the  environment I admit.  Took another shot at it and updated it heavily, please let me know if it's an improvement!

Jephyr:  Thank you kindly!  Agree about the fingers, just updated them!

Dominicque:  Thanks!  The torso is a bit stylized to give her a more appealing look, hopefully it's not too unnatural looking!

............

I took a very long break to avoid burnout, and also wanted to take another look at the image with a fresh eye, so I reworked it significantly based on the input.  I'm quite happy with it, but I'm still open to feedback if something major is off, so please let me know!  

[darktiste]

The addition of the window is a good call but ultimately i think a better composition would have done a lot more. The addition of the hair even if i feel as a purpose now conflict with a clear gesture she almost become like a ball of hair and arm if you had only shown me this stage i would have a problem knowing what i am looking at which is often what happen with extreme foreshorten where many body part hide what behind itself .

See how in this reference picture they split the frame to include a clear ground plane as well as make the ''surface'' spider men sit on mostly glass to help establish direction. The gesture is clear every leg and arm add dynamism and clarity they don't overlap to a degree with the action loose it punch or become unclear .The fact your character had hair required a bit of addition planning but also made this piece so much harder because where do you find hair reference for such a pose...

I think some of the take away is using reference can be limiting to what you can put inside the composition to establish a clear context. At this point what hurting you is relying so heavily on those reference. I feel it only normal that you feel burn by what i am saying your face with a choose do you keep relying heavily on reference or do you move away from that and go down the hard road. There a use to reference let make no mistake it to establish context not to constrain your option.

Try to avoid tunnel vision when you have a reference and i personally would say stay away from gesture reference they are the one who will hurt the most when you need to move thing around . Reference are great for inspiration but it my personal opinion that they are for inspiration they also are not bad to study from just not be carbon copy.

The problem of illustration is prep work not being willing to do thumbnailing is for me a problem it show you are lagging behind in gesture and working from imagination. Maybe what you forgot to do was to also find example such as the one i show here to fill the gap.So really my advise is if you want to use reference try not to limit yourself to one only. Your anatomy should be strong enough that your not getting the anatomy correct from the reference alone .The reference are more for an idea of the general proportion and gesture you want to materialize.

Moving on from this project is what i advise to do the problem i am bring up should have been address at much earlier stage but it often to late for me to do any meaningful feedback due to the feedback format.

I wish you the best growth possible i think keeping thing honesty on my part and repeating what i think is best practice is the least i can do to try to break a habit that in my personal belief is hindering growth.

Let be positive for a second look at the bright side you have room for growth.