Lousy_Day

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9 times out of 10 they catch things I miss because ive stared at the sketch too long.

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I think every artist has this problem because we get accustomed to looking at our own images. The most effective way of dealing with this is flipping your image horizontally to check for errors. I am guilty of not doing this as often as I should, but when I do, sometimes it is surprising how things I didn't see before become immediately noticeable. I don't know who started it, but it goes way back to the old masters. Even Leonardo Da Vinci used this technique by holding his drawings against the mirror to get a fresh look.

I am glad it helped a little. As for showing less of the table surface, I can think of two ways. First way is to raise the height of the table, but the higher it gets, the more it will obscure the view of the guy, so it doesn't really help. Second way is to lower the eye level(the yellow line in the paintover) but it will change everything in the picture, not just the table. I actually just thought of a third and the easiest way, and it is to make the table physically narrower. You will have less room to place stuff on, but that may not be bad if you want the focus to be on the characters. Well, good luck with your project!

Very nice indeed. I like the different texture bits. Is that a ladybug in her hand in the first one?

Cool, I wanted to be safe than sorry.

Unwilling Accomplice paintover

I did a quick paintover to set up some perspective guidelines. Lines in same color show parallel lines converging to a common vanishing point. I was a little puzzled myself because with the exception of the far edge, your table edges were actually pretty accurate. I decided to try straightening the sale sign because the other vertical lines are not converging to a third vanishing point, and I think that's what made the real difference here.

You can make edges of the little stuff on the table to converge to the same points if you want, but it may seem too technical at that point.

Hope this helps.

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I'm still having a hard time with surface level look.

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Hey Londerwost, If you would like some help with this, let me know. I don't want to offend people, so I can't give any advice unless you ask.

I apologize if I offended anyone. I frequent other forums where critique, whether positive or negative, is encouraged over just saying something is nice, and I did not realize it was not appreciated here unless the artist asks for it. I will be careful to keep my observations to myself from now on.

I meant what I said as a compliment. As Hericane said, very cool coloring technique.

I love those new sketches, especially Axe Jack. I am looking forward to seeing how these turn out.

Great job on that Rikti! He doesn't seem to know what hit him, kinda like he is placated after an AS.

Lol, Van Gogh, Monet, Dali on an acid trip...and all I wanted to imitate was the style of a five year old child.

As for the "hooves", I sacrificed detail for movement. Or it could be that I play too many animal alts...

Happy birthday!

As James (Comrade_Hero) has mentioned in the Satisfaction thread, he has decided to give MMOART another chance. But he so generously offered to compensate me for the piece I was working on for him as well, which effectively makes it my first commission ever!

Now the progress on that piece has been slow, because I got my copy of Corel Painter X in the mail right after I did those roughs. Although there is a lot I still haven't quite figured out yet, I am starting to get the hang of working in Painter. So I did this little piece this afternoon to show James my appreciation.

Graviton Girl strolling down a country road

Awesome piece. Love the subtle scaly skin. I also see some random digital "drips". Thought I had something on my screen, lol.

Very neat. I love the electricity pattern on her legs. I am not sure if you meant it, but one thing that's bothering me is that when you draw a straight line down the center of her face, the mouth is off to one side. But instead of moving the mouth, I think it will look more proportioned if you push her right eye outwards a little and adjust the mask to align it with a new center line based off of the mouth. Right now the eyes seem a little close together because she has a wide cylindrical face. Maybe that's the way lego eyes are spaced and I am just being picky. It's been too long since I've played with legos.

Lol, I like the one under "Faster". Looks like he is running on a treadmill.

Oh well, Comrade Hero is probably more interested in Russian girls, so I will proceed with Rough 2.

Darkjedi, feel free to use the poses for inspiration. Since you do a lot of work in 3D, I am sure you can play with the angle and move the limbs around a little to come up with something more to your liking.

I got my Corel Painter X in the mail today and I wanted to play around with it, so I didn't get to work more on this. If there are any others that wanted Painter X but couldn't because of the price, there are some sellers on ebay that are selling it for really cheap. I was suspicious it might be a pirated version, but the sellers are saying it is the full retail version. I was able to install, register and get the update without any problems. Just wanted to throw that out there.

Thanks again everyone for helping me out. I am logging on right now, but I will use Rough 2 as basis to come up with the initial skech soon.

I think when Darkjedi says, "This one. Definitely," I should probably listen to him. I think I can see why. It has a single sweeping gesture line that connects the two heroes.

Wow, thanks for your in-depth analysis, SlickRiptide. Now I don't want to ditch the original so easily. Would it solve the mystery of this juxtaposition if Comrade Hero was hitting on Graviton Girl, holding something in his hand to get her attention? A flower perhaps...Infront Steakhouse dinner reservation for two? While it sounds fun, I think it may be trying to tell too much.

I will have to think some more before I decide on the final layout, but in the meantime, I am going to do some bronze studies so Atlas gets some credit for doing that tough pose in the background.

LadyJudgement, I have a DA account, but all I have uploaded there is a scrap piece from way back. I am hoping to get it up and running once I do a few more of these.

Thank you all for the feedback. Battlewraith, I am glad you brought it up. I did the pose for Graviton Girl first, and then had a lot of trouble trying to place Comrade Hero around her. I had noticed the knee issue too, but thought that if I introduced depth by overlapping them, it wouldn't look like she was going to knee him.

Rough 2
Rough 2b

After much trial and error, I came up with a new pose for Comrade Hero as seen in Rough 2. Slightly different view for the background too. But then I looked closely and just knew someone was going to say that this time Comrade Hero was going to punch Graviton Girl's butt. Her pose seemed weaker now too, so I revised it a little to come up with Rough 2b.
I think the new one seems to flow better, but the very first one still feels more dramatic.

Rough Draft
Rough Draft in Grayscale

Here is a very rough draft of my piece for Comrade_Hero painted on top of a screenshot I took today. Don't pay too much attention to color at this point because this is purely a lighting and composition study. I was emphasizing the scene being at dusk.

I chose Atlas Park for the background because Comerade Hero and Graviton Girl are two of Comrade_Hero's first heroes, and I am sure Atlas Park is where most of us cherish some noobish memories. Also Atlas holding the globe symbolizes another day that the heroes carried the world through.

I am very much open for critique and suggestions as I am set out to do the best painting I have ever done. Seeing what an awesome collection Comrade_Hero has, nothing short of the very best I can do is going to cut it. One thing I can see already from the graysclae image is that I made some dark areas too dark, although it was because I only used the darkest and the lightest values on the main figures so they get the most attention.

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I love the brush stroke style you're using. Very cool!

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Azrial, thanks! I try to leave behind some marks because I don't like it when everything is perfectly blended and smooth.

Comrade_Hero, I would love to take a stab at Graviton Girl and/or Comrade Hero if you allow me. Did you have a particular scene in mind? Impressive art collection, btw.

Hi all,

Although I rarely post, I am a frequent lurker, and I think what you guys are doing is awesome. So I have decided help out too.

I am just starting to get really serious about drawing/painting so I don't have something to call my own style yet, but here are some practice pieces from this week for visual reference.
practice 1
practice 2

And an older study from Ultraviolet:
metal study

I prefer a character that shows a lot of skin(tights/leather is fine) to heavy armor/mech types as I am currently studying anatomy.

Let me know what I can do and I will get to work right away.

Ooh, I love animal alts. I've been playing them almost exclusively for a long time. So I have quite a few:

My animal alts 1
Baa is a lazy sheep that has a knack for kicking baddies in the nuts. Bouncy Hunter is a Russian made bunny robot that got sold on Ebay. Free Bird broke out of jail together with the penguins. Garoo is a kangaroo that doesn't get along very well with others. Can't wait to get boxing gloves for him.

My animal alts 2
Goatee is a robotic goat. Hyper Sloth is a poor victim of a research on the effects of caffeine. Lion Kin accompanies a goddess. Monk Eep carries bananas in his magic sack.

My animal alts 3
Penguin Little's family runs a casino in the Rogue Isles. Penguin Kix is into mixed martial arts. Penguin Chop Chop is going to be my dual blades tanker. He used to be a chef at the casino, but he moved to Paragon when the Barnyard Heroes offered to double his salary. Po the Platypus is another victim of a Crey experiment.

My animal alts 4
Werewoof was a stray puppy, and he started having strange reaction to moonlight after a heroine took him home and put a glow-in-the-dark vest on him. Space Baa is how Baa sees himself in his dreams. Turtle Syrup has a problem with chain-smoking.

Penguins fishing in the base

Penguins with a Family boss

Barnyarders with Statesman

When Pigs Fly is a very tall pig with cherubic wings in my animal SG. She wanted her painting of Pig on a velvet couch, so here it is.

Hi all,

Thought I'd share a painting I did of Advent, a friend's storm/elec defender. Enjoy!

Well, since Kheprera brought it up, I took the liberty of coming up with a rough pattern for TA. It is missing his shoulder and the side of his body, but I will leave it where it is at for now because I was having trouble making the spiked shoulder look right. If I were to actually do this piece, the background probably would not be red, I was simply playing around with different colors to see how they go along with my other colors. It would either be totally opaque to bring out the figure and lightning when the sun hits it, or clear glass with a slight tint and little texture to make it seem as if the view outside is a part of the piece. I would be so excited if I get to make this one, but if not, coming up with the pattern was fun in itself.