Mod Note Please Read:
Now, before anyone votes I would like to make this clear, yes it does say Paladin in the contest title, but this contest is about designing the best character in any of the Fantasy RPG fighter/ warrior class staples, so knights, paladins, barbarians etc. So you don't have to worry about "is this really a Paladin or not?" just vote for your favourite… if you can choose that is.
Wish I would have seen this contest earlier.
I really feel like entries only get nominated based on flashiness and I doubt I’ll ever get nominated let alome win since I tend to focus on the character design and have it being plain and easy to interpret. Doing interesting poses limits what you can use and adding loads of effects can slow my machine down and get in the way of actually enjoying it.
I used to enter music compos that had the same problem so its very depressing for me.
Don’t let it discourage you, Roseweave, I’d definitely have voted for your Mage if it had been on the shortlist. The picture had so much charater – the room as well as the figure, really a picture that tells a story.
@Roseweave- Sorry you feel that way. I choose the poll contestants just on the overall look and feel of the picture and the skill it would take to put it together. As you say, doing interesting poses does limit what you can use, so if you can find a way around that then that gets good points. That said, I don’t always prefer the ones with great poses and fantastic lighting and effects.
One thing I will say to you though is, last week your Witch For Hire was very very nearly on the poll and I did consider your Goliath Warrior for this weeks, but there were a few things that made me choose others. I did like the over all design. The skin and the markings you put on it were very nice. However, the costume was a bit lacking, it didn’t have as much coherency as other entries, it looked a bit thrown together. And the colour scheme wasn’t very consistent either. I always say that the most you need for a costume is 4 colours, you’ve got 7 (not including the shield and helmet). Plus, you might want to mask your weapons to the holding hand. That was something I noticed on your other entry as well.
In the case of your other entry, the colours and costume worked much better, but visually it wasn’t as interesting as the Goliath. The background didn’t do anything for me at all. And compared to the Goliath, the facial expression was pretty plain too (though the Golaith’s was helped by the markings).
And then, when you compare to those who are on the poll. I’ll go with Melmo’s as it’s the closest comparison and the simplest design of those who are on the poll. Her background really complements the character, the dark colours really make the costume colours stand out. All of the costume elements seem in play and she’s only used 4 colours, all of which work together. The expression on the face is also really good too, it really brings the character to life. And that’s without me mentioning the fact that the character is posed and theres some lighting effects.
So again, sorry if you feel you’re being hard done by, but there’s a lot of people who don’t make the polls. I never used to make the cut when I was entering contests, but I kept entering because it was fun and eventually I did win one. So just keep trying and keep improving, that’s the whole point of the contests.
How do you mask weapons on the holding hand? Do you mean mask the hand to the weapon? For how I use masking that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
Also in fairness I’ve done colour theory and I spend a lot of time coming up with custom palettes, something which is difficult to do in heromachine. I make sure not to use too many loud colours. Having several colours isn’t a bad thing aslong as they compliment each other and don’t compete too much for the eye’s attention. In the case of the Orc paladin his skintone was always going to clash which is semi intentional since you normally get Orcen Paladins. I feel the design worked really well for what it is, and out of the entries that were the Paladins it was the best at looking like a Paladin while having its own recognisable design -i.e. not just another suit of armour. Its very very hard to balqnce this in heromachine and I think sometimea when people stack a bunc of cool stuff and effecta on they don’t stop to think of how their character is built.
Using mostly the standard colours, yes you should limit them because they’re mostly very bright.save for the browns and skintones(I wish there were some less dull browns since I nearly always use them and the skintone contrasts made more sense).
I’m just observing a trend I’ve seen in these competitions and I don’t mean to diss on people’s hard work. Its just that people become accustomed to one way of doing things and it can be hard for people with certain stylez to get attention. I feel like with some of my designs if I added a bunch of effects and put them in somewhat awkward but “impressive” poses id have a better r chance but it feels wrong.
@Roseweave- You mask weapons to the hand quite literally by masking the weapon to the hand. You need to have the weapon in an above layer to where the hand is (so any layer from the one above the hand to the top most layer) and then you click the masking button and click the hand. The hand will then automatically grab whatever part of the sword is directly on top of it in the picture. It’s the same principle as masking anything else on HM.
@Roseweave,
It bears mentioning here that this contest basically comes down to JR19759’s own tastes and opinion. Nobody else stepped up to do the work of hosting, viewing, and judging these things. You can tell from his response above how much thought he puts into this.
Any art form is extremely subjective. He has his own list of things that appeal and standout, just as you do. He can only judge by his own standards, just as you create by yours. He is in no way saying that these works are “better” than yours, just that these are his favorites.
@roseweave…Have you tried making custom colours? Look up an RBG page and use those as a means of enriching the earth tones you seem to enjoy. When you do that you need to rely less on the HM chart and it opens up more possibilities.
@Roseweave, I’m the worst for using standard poses, because I agree they are easier to focus on design, nor did I go crazy with the shading either, but I tend to find it gives a more metallic feel, and for this particular piece I think it worked out well. To kind of even it out and diversify the same colors I added a little to the clothing also. That said without a solid design to build on the flash falls short.
Now, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with confidence in your work, I’m very proud of most of my creations aswell, and have been disappointed after pouring 6 or 8 plus hours into a character getting every little detail just right, and find it didn’t make the cut. That said, I can’t help but feel ruffled with your comments, you come off sounding as though your the only one who puts effort into your work, but I’m going to assume its’ more of annoyance and bad wording than your actual opinion, and simply remind you that most everyone though with different styles puts a little piece of themselves into their work, and that coming off as a jerk isn’t going to do you any favors as the wonderful person you probably are or make you any friends in the process.
Just remember, when it comes to these contest not everyone is going to share the same opinions, but as long as your happy with your work that’s the important part, because when someone does it just for recognition instead of love for the art they’ll never achieve what their striving for.
I apologize if you feel I’ve overstepped or attacked you in anyway as this was not my intent, I just thought maybe think before you type on pure emotion.
I make nearly all custom palettes though, like I said… I think I’m pretty good at not going overboard with colours. That said my designs tend to be a little flatter – it’s really hard to experiment with shades because the custom colour palette can fill up quickly and I can’t really check from PSP/PS what the colours look like on the model unless I do some photoshopping which is awkward.
Read my post again – “Like I said – I’m just observing a trend I’ve seen in these competitions and I don’t mean to diss on people’s hard work. Its just that people become accustomed to one way of doing things and it can be hard for people with certain stylez(sic) to get attention.”
OOI I don’t think my work is amazing or anything. I think it’s fairly good, and that I can be kind of clever at making designs and have made some really nice memorable character portraits. It’s just I get this feeling that in general, I’ll never be able to impress people with what I make. I haven’t posted on the forum in a while either.
I don’t really think it’s about hard work necessarily either(not everyone is able to work hard at the interface the same amount for the same length of time), it’s more about inspiration and character. Though hard work can help.
Also I’m sorry for taking over the comment section, I probably should have found somewhere else to raise this issue.
@Roseweave, I didn’t overlook that part, as I said I’m sure your a wonderful person, I just took offense to some other parts of your wording.
I do understand your frustration and probably chimed in on an issue that never meant to have anything to do with me and for that once again I apologize. I also appreciate you voicing your opinion and am not trying to stifle it. We had another artist awhile back quit the forums due to him felling overlooked, and personally I don’t see it happening.
I was just trying to point out that how you feel about your creations, is more than likely how others feel about theirs, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” and so would suggest typing with a clear head
I understand your feeling overlooked out of habit, but at the end of the day you’ve got to do it for yourself. If your heart is in it, the recognition will come, it just may take time.
Ok everyone, time to bring this particular discussion to a close. I am having some major Deja vu here! I really don’t want a repeat of the whole Harlequin thing going on! Roseweave brought up an issue about contest judging, it was addressed by JR and everyone else had their 2 cents worth so lets all drop it before we beat this horse to death!
Okay so I just figured out how to do the masking thing. Somehow I never realised that hands had multiple layers so you could mask things in them like that. I had to figure out ways around the lack of hand holding in all my previous portraits and I feel really crappy about that now. I’d go back and redo them but I have a photobucket gallery with a load of pictures I did of NPCs for the game and it’s really annoying to replace images on that.