Open Critique Day #31

Folks, it's time for another Open Critique Day!

If you have a HeroMachine illustration or another piece of artwork you've done that you'd like some help with, post a link to it in comments along with your thoughts on it -- what you think is working, what you're struggling with, etc. I will post my critique of the piece, hopefully giving some tips on how to improve it.

Of course everyone is welcome to post their critiques as well, keeping in mind the following rules:

  • Make sure your criticism is constructive. Just saying "This sucks" is both rude and unhelpful without giving specific reasons why you think it sucks and, ideally, some advice on how to make it better.
  • Each person should only post one illustration for critique to make sure everyone who wants feedback has a chance.
  • I will not critique characters entered in any currently running contest, as that doesn't seem fair to the other entrants. You can still post it if you like for the other visitors to critique, but I will not do so.

That's it! Hopefully we can get some good interaction going here and help everyone (me included!) learn a little bit today.

89 Responses to Open Critique Day #31

  1. Tarkabarka says:

    OK i be the first.

    So i think a long ago to make a real comic book only use with heromachine element. So this is the first page. (I know i make some coloring and item problem). But i really want to know what you think my idea Jeff.

    http://forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=81466&d=1325272155

  2. Jeff Hebert says:

    Tarkabarka, that’s pretty amazing! I can’t imagine how much time that must have taken. It looks great, nice job!

  3. Tarkabarka says:

    Thanks Jeff i wrote the story, i hope i make every pose and effect what i want to do it.

  4. Tuldabar says:

    Sorry I’ve been absent for the last half-a-month or so; SWTOR has been dominating my life…

    Anyway, I was inspired to combine my college’s “Christmas Carol” setting with the super-hero team voting stuff, and have been working on a late 1800s team of meta-humans who have a circus act as a cover.

    May I introduce: http://i295.photobucket.com/albums/mm156/Tuldabar/Heros/MickyandTorenttheDangerEaters.png Micky and Torent; The Danger Eaters!

    Without going into too much backstory (heh heh), these two combined are the “strong man” of the group I’m calling “The Entertainers.” Torent (the big blue and green gargoyle) is a being who like a familiar has pledged himself to young Micky (the boy in front), and has the power to absorb (eat)any attack style and become invulnerable to it. Ergo if he gets hit with a stone mallot, his body becomes stone, etc. (Think Kirby).

    Micky, having saved Torent’s life, is his guide and bestest best friend. He helps Torent understand human culture, and keeps him out of trouble as much as vice versa.

    Any thoughts at all? That is, if you stayed long enough to read all that…

  5. Jeff Hebert says:

    Tuldabar, welcome back from the Dark Side! Or Light Side, either way.

    I like their story, it sounds great. The illustration is pretty strong as well. I like Micky the best, I think, he has lots of personality.

    My main issues are all with the way Torent is holding Mickey. The “bench” or beam doesn’t seem to really fit in his hands, and with the ends going off-screen it’s hard to read it as a slab. I end up seeing it instead as a flat design element rather than an object he’s sitting on.

    Hope that helps, it’s a neat concept!

  6. Tarkabarka says:

    Tuldabar(4) – I like the idea, very convicing. I see some visual mistake. Micky left arm (for me the left) is thinner than the right arm. (I don’t know you want this or this is a problem with the scale). The other is i can’t see the thight of Micky. If he sit this position we can see the thights or If you move a little upper the calfs don’t needed the thights.

  7. Tuldabar says:

    Argh! The export wouldn’t work for me, that’s why the pillar is cut off! If I could have, I would have used a different format…

    How would I fix the hand issue? I’ve wondered how to do just that kind of thing, but I can never make it work.

    Plus I get the feeling the “sitting” would work better if the pillar were in front of the pelvic pants item.

    Thanks for the feedback: expect to see their teammates in more open critiques.

  8. Suleman says:

    I have plenty of pictures that need work, but let’s go with this one.

    http://fav.me/d4jzh94

    I’m relatively satisfied with it, but I’m not sure about the coloring. Super-costumes should be a bit clearer, something you could draw out of memory, but this has, perhaps, a bit too much detail?

  9. Tarkabarka says:

    Aaron (8) – Nice idea. Great color usage. Very cool background scene. I think very good idea to the dino’s (monsters) come out the eggs. I see a little visual problem. He tread one of the eggs. BTW i like this picture. Nice work

  10. Tarkabarka says:

    Suleman (9) – So i think the idea is so good behind this picture. Hehehe Woman power. Now few word the picture. First I like the the backplane transparency in the dress. Very good idea (i think i use this one of my char. But if i see well she wear a suit under the dress. for my personally opinion that is don’t needed. Second the battlesuit. So i really like the battle skirt of the armor, thats so cool. I think only problem is the suit bigger than the woman. BTW nice concept.

  11. Jeff Hebert says:

    Aaron, love the little zergling critters hiding about the ship, that’s a great touch! I also like the uniform design on the human character, the logo and styling all work well. The “living ship” walls are awesome, too.

    I’d like to see something done with his right hand (to our left as we look at it), though, the demarcation between the hand and the wrist is so sharp, but without a border line, that it gets a bit visually confusing, especially since the other arm has a metal sleeve on it. Another minor detail that niggles at me a bit is the orb or egg or whatever that is beneath his right foot. Since it looks globular but the foot is both on top of it and the flat deck, it creates some tension.

  12. Jeff Hebert says:

    Suleman, I agree that it looks good over all. I love the patterning on the left-hand figure’s dress, that’s a great effect. She looks distinctive, as well, like she’s a real person and not a carbon-copy generic stand-in.

    In terms of the coloring, I do think the green and the gray are so close in value that the great details are hard to make out. I think you need to vary one of those to make the design “pop” more. What I mean by that is, if you brought the image into PhotoShop and set it to black and white (grayscale basically), the green and the gray are almost indistinguishable. I’d recommend you change to a much lighter gray for those parts, leaving the greens as-is and see if that helps.

  13. Kaldath says:

    ok, here is one I made using the one of the new wings set let me know what you guys thinks of it. It is Power Armor based on a set of Armor found in the Rifts RPG, Tengu Power Armor : http://forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=81387&d=1324535439

  14. Tarkabarka says:

    Kaldath (14) – Nice armor set. It’s look completly full set not only differencial pieces. Yes the wings give her an unique feelings. I really like the helmet, very cool looking. My only personally problem is the color. I really like the red and black colors, But i think it’s a little bit too many in this picture. Very good work.

  15. Jeff Hebert says:

    Kaldath, glad the UGO Forums got back up and running! I never did hear from them but apparently they got it done behind the scenes.

    As for the illustration, love it! The black and red are a nice combination, the items work great as a set, and I like the setting a lot. About the only thing I would maybe change would be the cityscape in the background — it’s a more cartoonish style and contrasted against the more realistic costume and clouds is a bit off in my opinion.

  16. Captain Kicktar says:

    http://i42.tinypic.com/5aqhb9.png
    Drishti, blind, but able to fight with uncanny ability.

  17. Kaldath says:

    Jeff (16) Yeah I am glad the forums are working again too. not sure when they came back up however it had to have been within the last 3 hours as about 3 hours ago I was still having problems with the site. As to the background, yeah I made this image before you put in the new cityscapes. I figure I will be going back and redoing it with one of the newer backgrounds. Unfortunately that means starting from scratch as I tend not to save text files for my images or save them to a .sol . I Save a copy of the image to my hard drive and thats its.

  18. Tarkabarka says:

    Captain Kicktar (17) – Sorry for the late reply. I like the char. Very good coloring and clothing. I really like the belt or sorry i don’t know how it names in eglish. I have one visually problem i don’t see the sword or knife how to join the belt. BTW i like the char.

  19. Volt says:

    Trying to do the poster of BTF… who wants to help me? I have the Text..
    http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/6746/hm3betac.png

    I dont like the face, and the leg on car..

  20. Vampyrist says:

    Here is a character who I’d like to get critiqued. A soldier named Benjamin King.

    http://forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=81427&d=1324738029

  21. Jeff Hebert says:

    Volt, that’s a neat idea! I love where you’re going with it. Love the rays coming out, the watch checking, the holding of the glasses, and the outfit. All really nice.

    I’m not sure what the transparent oval is for, though, either from a design perspective or in terms of the movie. The only way they’d be breaking the time barrier is while in the vehicle travelling. And having the oval behind the jacket flap but in front of the leg is confusing … if he’s supposed to be stepping out of it, it seems like it would work better to have his thigh over the disk as well, with maybe the lower leg behind it, as if he stepped through it. But frankly, I’d probably just do without it altogether.

    I get where you were going with the face, trying for sort of a three quarter view, but I don’t think it’s quite working here. I’d be inclined to go with a straight-on view, or at least move the face over to the right a few pixels.

    Neat idea, you’re doing great with it so far!

  22. Doornik1142 says:

    Blitzkrieg:
    http://fav.me/d3ldvet

    He’s a computer virus who became sentient and built himself a robot body so he could Destroy All Humans.

    I’m having two issues. The first is the color scheme. I was going for a slightly “dirty” look. Since Blitzkrieg hates everything about humans, I figured he would refuse to paint his chassis and wouldn’t care if it starts developing rust spots or what have you. Wanting to look “nice” is a disgusting human trait, he would say. But in hindsight, it feels a little bland.

    Second, I’d like to know whether you think his appearance fits his backstory well enough.

  23. FRM says:

    here’s an azrael-type character i made with ams’ pose#17. also critique any other HMs on the wiki.
    http://frmartworks.wikispaces.com/Heromachine

  24. FRM says:

    i hope i’m not to late for OCD.

  25. Jeff Hebert says:

    Vampyrist, love it! Great, subtle pose with the one leg striding slightly forward. I like that. The outfit is well done and well colored also. The guns all fit nicely on the belt, the knives look natural, and I like the coloring on the flesh parts. Great job, nothing much to critique!

  26. Jeff Hebert says:

    MisterDinoMan, hey look, it’s the new cityscapes! They look great, glad I got to see one with that in there.

    So, let me say right off I like the illustration a lot. The red pops against the “noir” environment perfectly, and the character design is really nice. So I don’t have much to suggest in terms of changing what’s already there, it’s really good.

    I did wonder, though, if it might be cool to have one of the low cloud effects at his feet, something to maybe soften the rooftop he’s on. It might actually work just to put the “splatter” pattern onto the ledge, but as is I think maybe it’s too clean looking compared to the misty, murky city in the background.

    Anyway, maybe not — it might get too busy with that, but I thought I’d throw it out there.

    Great job on this one, it looks really nice!

  27. FRM says:

    i love Benjamin King’s yellow eyes!
    MisterDinoMan–i love it! it reminds me of something i cant quite place. that’s a good thing, by the way. it flows nicely.

  28. FRM says:

    FYI– further on the wiki page i used a cityscape background for an earthquake scenario.
    πŸ™‚

  29. Jeff Hebert says:

    Doornik1142, that’s a nice looking character design. The items all fit well.

    I definitely don’t get dirty or knocked-around from the outfit, though. You might try playing around with the “dirt spatter” pattern I think that might help sell that concept a bit more. Maybe even see if there’s an Energy item you could tone way down in alpha value and size/place to look like cracks or something.

    In terms of the backstory, when I looked at the illustration I immediately assumed it was a person in a suit. I don’t know that there’s a decent way around that unless you go with a totally non-humanoid body design, like a spider or brain in a jar or whatnot. I mean, if he hates everything about humans, why would he make himself look like one, you know?

    Just my take on it. Just looking at it as a standalone illustration, I think it’s really well done.

  30. Jeff Hebert says:

    FRM, I’m sorry, but I’m confused as to which one you want critiqued. Is it the guy at the top, the first one?

  31. ams says:

    Here is my latest, A ESTRELA. Not to sure on the sparklely, glow effect. What do you guys/gals think?

    http://forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=81470&d=1325286631

    Cheers!

  32. FRM says:

    yeah, with the blue fiery sword.

  33. FRM says:

    MisterDinoMan–perhaps if the clouds in front were a wee bit more transparent.
    ams–the sparkles make him look ready to blast foes to next week. πŸ™‚ do you like my use of your pose # 17?

  34. FRM says:

    Kaldath– it reminds me of Black Lantern Hawkgirl. sweet!

  35. ams says:

    @ FRM – Great job and Thanks!

  36. Jeff Hebert says:

    MisterDinoMan: Hm, I’m not sure … my first impulse was that I liked it better, but then I thought maybe it made the rooftop too hard to see. What do you think?

  37. Jeff Hebert says:

    ams: I like it! Good pose, great items, cool sparkly effect. I really like the way the jacket came out, those streaking stars look like they were absolutely sewn in there.

    My only question would be whether or not the blue disc design element is really needed here, I think it might make a stronger composition without it. I’m not 100% on that, though — it’s just that the figure and the aura are so strong, the disc almost detracts from them more than it adds to the structure of the scene.

    Great job, he looks fantastic!

  38. Jeff Hebert says:

    FRM: Gotcha, thanks.

    OK, top guy — I like the general concept, and the pose is nicely done. However, I’d have to say it’s probably my least favorite illustration on the page. The red sky with the red outfit and the negative-treatment Stonehenge all kind of overpower you visually, making you unsure where you should focus or what you should look at. Having the cape interior the same color as the clothing on his body further flattens the image, making it hard to make out the proper figure-ground relationships. I also lose his feet completely, as they’re so close in tone to the brown stones on which he’s standing. Finally, a minor detail, but I can’t tell what the gold shield device is behind his hip. Is it a transparent shield? Stitched embroidery on the cape interior?

    My recommendation on this, given the strong initial character, is to strip out all of the environment and focus just on the character, getting him exactly how you want him in terms of pose, items, and colors. Then, once he’s solid, work the environment around him. If he’s mostly warm colors like red and yellow, the background should be in cool colors like blues and greens, so that the environment supports the figure and lets it be the main focus. I know you know all that stuff as you’ve done it in the other images on the page, but this particular one I think still needs some work.

  39. ams says:

    Thanks Jeff! I apologize for using the “big colored circle shape” all the time. I really need to step it up with the backgrounds. But it takes so long to build the central figure with color and shading, that when it comes time to add a backdrop, I take the easy way out. So in 2012, better backgrounds! Happy New Year and Cheers!

  40. Myro says:

    Was working on a Steampunk-era team. This is the mechanic

    http://forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=81249&d=1323258358

  41. Jeff Hebert says:

    ams, no worries — I actually think a full on background is not necessary a lot of the time, especially when you have such a strong character design as well executed as this one. I don’t ever really get tired of the “Imp Circle”, it’s just that sometimes it isn’t needed.

  42. Jeff Hebert says:

    Myro, love it! Great character design. I can tell you put a lot of time and thought into each item selection. The colors are really nice too, supporting the design without overpowering it.

    My quibbles on this one are all minor composition things, and almost all related to tangenting. For instance, the tip of the dirigible just touches the edge of his coat, making their relationship visually confusing. When I first glanced over it, I thought “Why is that tiny blimp on top of this guy?” There’s a similar line-touching (tangenting) going on with the tip of the axe and the bottom of the belt mask; the outer blade edge of the axe and the pant crease above the boot; the elevated trigger on top of the rifle and the outer edge of the pants; the top of the wrench and the top of the environment rectangle; etc.

    Tangenting like that creates visual confusion, making it unclear initially what is supposed to be on top of what. Whenever possible, objects on different planes should clearly either overlap or not touch at all, so their relationship is never in question. If they are going to touch, it’s critical to make sure they’re not touching on their outer edges or where lines parallel.

    It’s not a HUGE OMG thing, but one of those more subtle design considerations you start to have to worry about once you get to a certain level. Like here — the figure design is so strong that you can’t help but notice the places where there’s confusion.

    Hope that makes sense. And in case it wasn’t clear, LOVE the character and the illustration overall!

  43. ams says:

    “The Imp Circle”! Love it and didn’t know it was named after the great Imp. I will refer to it as nothing else for now on. We need a Heromachine vocabulary list in the margins somewhere…hmmmm…

  44. headlessgeneral says:

    My most recent creation. The parts I’m wondering about are the cape with its wing design on it and the background wings. The wings in the background aren’t a part of the character I put them there just as a design element. I was just wondering if that was at all confusing or not. Any other critiques also welcome, of course.

    http://forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=81460&d=1325125287

  45. Jeff Hebert says:

    headlessgeneral, neat! I think it looks pretty darn awesome.

    I would say that the dual wings (background design element and the cape wing design) definitely is confusing. I would not have guessed the big wings weren’t part of his body had you not said so. I also would not have been able to tell the green wings were a design on the cape, either, they look like actual wings.

  46. Darth_neko says:

    Heya Jeff, I’m back with another design for you to give your advice upon… This is Nightshade, the ‘Batman’ of my universe…. Unlike Batman, Nightshade is cursed by the mystical suit of armor he must don every night… However the suit gives him superpowers, he can control shadows through connection to the realm called ‘The Void’.

    And by using his powers, he can teleport, become intangible, open up black holes, silence his footsteps, see in the dark, create shadow ‘tendrils’, make weapons made out of pure darkness and increase his own strength and endurance. He can also heal himself, but only when he’s in a place that’s completely pitch black.

    So what do ya think?

    http://forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=81477&d=1325290026

  47. Jeff Hebert says:

    kyle, I like the humanoid part of the centaur and her pose. The action with the arrows flying in and getting blocked is cool, too. The whole composition has a lot of energy and movement to it that’s very nice.

    I applaud your efforts to build a beefy horse body as well, but it still misses a bit for me. Horse anatomy is different in the legs than ours, with the elbow essentially being tucked in tight to the body so it almost looks like the shoulder, what looks like the upper leg actually being the forearm, and lower leg being the bones of the hand, and the hooves the tips of the fingers. It’s weird. But here, since you’re using human arms as horse legs, the joints aren’t quite right. It’s a pretty good effect, even so.

    The only other minor quibble would be her shield arm, which is quite a bit beefier than the other one.

    But like I said, great action and a neat human figure in a nice environment, good job!

    On a side note, love the helmets.

  48. Darth_neko says:

    Kyle, dude those helmets rule! Great work!! πŸ˜€

  49. Jeff Hebert says:

    Darth Neko, it sounds like an interesting concept for a character. I like the item choices, especially in the chest and neck area.

    The feet seem awfully small to me for some reason, almost like he’s a human tottering around on dwarf legs or something. That might just be an optical illusion, I don’t know, but it seems a bit off. I’m also not a big fan of the huge brick background. It’s so … big, and looming, it almost overpowers the figure, especially since he’s so dark. This might be a case of “less is more” where maybe you just go with an Imp Circle type of design element, or a simple gradient background, or something like that. Or maybe if you want a definite “setting”, try the “dark alley” item from the new Cityscapes set?

    Good job overall, though!

  50. Doornik1142 says:

    “In terms of the backstory, when I looked at the illustration I immediately assumed it was a person in a suit. I don’t know that there’s a decent way around that unless you go with a totally non-humanoid body design, like a spider or brain in a jar or whatnot. I mean, if he hates everything about humans, why would he make himself look like one, you know?”

    Yeah, that’s kinda what I meant about his design not really reflecting his character. I’ll work on it.

  51. BloodlessRose says:

    hi Jeff & everyone

    heres a little something i whipped up based on one of my many Dungeons and Dragons characters Althaea Zandriel an Eladrin Dhampyr serving as a Blackguard Paladin πŸ™‚

    http://i1117.photobucket.com/albums/k584/BloodlessRose/Althaea.png

  52. FRM says:

    thanks, jeff.let me see…

  53. Darth_neko says:

    Yeah, but I couldn’t see my character using the new ‘dark alley’! It was too dark lol! XD

    I think I’ll try the Imp Circle, seeing as that’s where I get my a majority of my inspiration to do my characters… If it wasn’t for him and BlueBlazer, there would be no Darth_Neko. So I got to give those two props. πŸ™‚

    Thanks Jeff! πŸ˜€

  54. Darth_neko says:

    Cool design, BloodlessRose. I like how the armor is almost gold tinted, due to the line color. πŸ˜€

  55. Volt says:

    Thank you Jeff!!
    ams: your estrela is awesome!! I like it!

    I Was trying to do a girl relaxing in the park, here is:
    http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/2489/heromachine.png
    what do you think?

  56. headlessgeneral says:

    Thanks Jeff. I was afraid the dual wings would be a bit confusing, especially with neither meant to be actually wings. I’ll probably try something different for the background(Imp Circle?) I might keep the wings on the cape depending on how it looks with the new background. Well, back to the drawing board it is!

  57. FRM says:

    jeff, i deleted the insignia on the cape, as it was confusing. i also made the background normal colors, with a grey sky, as well as making his leggings silver to set the cape apart.
    http://frmartworks.wikispaces.com/file/view/verndari4.png/288869455/749×563/verndari4.png

  58. Jeff Hebert says:

    BloodlessRose, I like it! Very nice costume and coloring. The colored lipstick is a really nice touch.

    The only bit that I have reservations over is the position of the sword. I just have a hard time imagining someone holding a weapon that way. It seems awkward and very difficult to sustain in a static pose. I wonder if it might be more convincing to have it held point-down at her side or something?

  59. Jeff Hebert says:

    FRM, I like that MUCH better, nice job!

  60. FRM says:

    thanks, jeff. and thanks, ams, for the pose.

  61. FRM says:

    what i’d really like to see is someone’s version of jonah hex, as i’m in that mood, but dont want to do one myself.

  62. TOOL says:

    Whatcha think peeps?

    http://i1224.photobucket.com/albums/ee363/cameron_stanley_84/My%20Characters/TOOL-Widower.png

    I made a version of this character on a differnt creator site, sorry Jeff it was a one time thing and were not seeing each other anymore lol, and thern the bone wings things came out and looked a lot like what I had made so I decided to redo him in proper HM fasion.

  63. FRM says:

    tool–what creator site was that?

  64. Vampyrist says:

    Tool, the character is really cool. My only beef with him is that his feet seem way too small.

  65. TOOL says:

    @FRM, it was some Marvel creator but not that good, you think Stan would of come up with something cooler, nothing out there compares to HM.

    @Vampyrist, thanks and I tried not to make it look too bad but I did make the feet a bit smaller to fit under the shin armor, it would be nice if there were more choices for kneepads/feet/lower body items ( cough cough ) but there are a lot of good items on here already and more coming πŸ˜€

  66. McKnight57 says:

    Here is the NEW version of McKnight.
    http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/364/e/b/mcknight_newestalternative_by_heinz57xc-d4krrui.png

    And for reference, here is the older version
    http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/822/finalmcknight.png/

    The reason for the change is simple. I wanted it to be sort of Iconic, without borrowing too much from any one specific source. I felt that the first mask looked a bit too much like Robin and Nightwing. Also, it made no sense to have his hair sticking out of the top. The rest just came about because i thought it should be both functional and more realistic.

  67. McKnight57 says:

    And for reference, here is the older version
    http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/822/finalmcknight.png/

    Here is the NEW version of McKnight.
    http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2011/364/e/b/mcknight_newestalternative_by_heinz57xc-d4krrui.png

    The reason for the change is simple. I wanted it to be sort of Iconic, without borrowing too much from any one specific source. I felt that the first mask looked a bit too much like Robin and Nightwing. Also, it made no sense to have his hair sticking out of the top. The rest just came about because i thought it should be both functional and more realistic.

  68. Jeff Hebert says:

    Looks good, Tool! The only part I might tweak would be with the weapon. Having it the same colors as the legs, and then crossing them over each other, makes them sort of look the same.

  69. Jeff Hebert says:

    McKnight57: I think they both look pretty darn good. I can’t say I prefer one to the other, I think they’re both excellent renditions of what you were going for.

  70. Jeff Hebert says:

    skullcraze: I like the negative-space figure in space, particularly with the side-turned head and the overall concept is good. My main reaction to it is that I’m unsure what I am supposed to be feeling here, or what the figure is feeling. He seems disinterested in the multiple planets before him with his head turned away and the arm by his side … kind of casual. I would like to see some sort of emotion or story-telling elements to the composition, something to convey to the viewer what his relationship is to what’s going on before him, you know?

  71. Jeff Hebert says:

    Phatchick, that’s really nice! Everything’s arranged and colored well, great job.

    If you want more realism, I think you’re going to have to get into some gradients, really selling the idea of spheres in space. You’re going to run into some problems, though, in that the light source (the two suns) are behind the planets, so technically all you’d see would be black orbs with maybe a halo rim of light around them. Obviously that won’t work for an illustration so you’ll probably just have to ignore that in the interest of good visual storytelling.

    I think the background’s a bit of a problem, too. Those stars just don’t read as actual space, being too obviously a carefully drawn pattern. I think to get the proper effect you’d have to do multiple layers of varying opacity, with some cloud/nebulae very dimly thrown in , some darker darks with some slightly lighter areas around them, varying levels of stars, that kind of thing. In other words, a crapload of experimenting. Good luck!

    If anyone comes up with a really convincing deep space text string, that would be awesome to share.

  72. Jeff Hebert says:

    OK folks, at 10pm Mountain Time I’m drawing this session to a close. Thanks for playing!

  73. skullcraze says:

    thanks allot for the critique

  74. TOOL says:

    @Jeff, yeah I kinda thought about the weapon color mixing in with the other colors around but I had already put it out there you know. I may go back and tweak it at a differnt time. Sometimes I leave my old artwork with faults, unless I really like it and want to update it, so I can see where I went wrong and try and fix whatever better next time.

  75. Kaldath says:

    Here is a revised version of my Tengu Armor, just a couple small changed to the armor, and a background change

    http://forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=81480&d=1325310515

    amd here it is again with a different paint job πŸ˜‰

    http://forums.ugo.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=81481&d=1325310531

  76. BloodlessRose says:

    @ Darth_neko thanks i always forget about the line colour but for this design it was kinda vital for the overall effect it gives.

    @Jeff thanks for the comments, the sword is supposed to look like she’s just withdrawn it from the scabbard on her belt, it was a rather fiddly thing for me and i wasnt totally happy with the end result but it was the best i could come up with after playing around with it for a good 30mins. I just wanted something different than the down by the side or over the head pose.

  77. FRM says:

    tool–yeah i’ve used that. lucky for me i found HM!

  78. zarae says:

    http://fav.me/d3e3dom

    i think the body’s too small. and the shading…i cant shade

  79. zarae says:

    never mind i missed realizing this is saturday, and not friday. oh this week has messed me up

  80. @zarae(84&85): OCD lasts all weekend, unless you want a direct critique from Jeff. I like your drawing. Don’t notice the body as much as the shapes of her eyes not matching. Her left is a little cock-eyed.

    One trick that works for shading is smearing the pencil or chalk with your finger (oil). Certain types and grades of paper work best. Especially cheap brown artist pads. To preserve the shading, spritz it with artist glue, enamel, or cheap hairspray.

  81. Dionne Jinn says:

    Damn… I missed this OCD.

  82. zarae says:

    @Punk (86): yeah i have paper towels, a a pencil smearer *rolled up paper with a point.

    but i never heard the perservation thing. always got tied of the charcoal getting to the other papers.

    anyway, thanks for the comment.

  83. zarae says:

    and i cant type apparently