Star Eagle's Dark Future Concept Art, My take on DF characters and things.

[Star eagle]

These drawings are just my opuinion on the look of Dark Future and are in no way official, just my view, so I drew them up and posted them here for critique.

Laertes


Isao: It's not as good as my picture of Laertes.


More to come!

[Lord Blackstaff]

There is only one piece of advice I can give you, actually two.

1. GET REFERENCES!!!!!

2. STUDY THE HUMAN FORM!!!

There isn't a single respectable artist alive, or even hobbyist who draws people, who hasn't done both of those, usually extensively. There is plenty of online documentation if you know your way around google. However, most of it is NSFW, so I won't post any links.

Even a simple study would vastly improve your technique.

Note, while the images are crude, you do have a beginners grasp of proportion and form outline. Which is a lot better then I can say for a looooot of people. People are difficult subjects to deal with, and I know that I am quite crap at them, but then, I've only really been drawing proper character portraits for two years. And that's not very much at all, since I draw less then a write.

That is all, for a full annotatated paint over critique, you'll have to wait for later, when I take a break or something.

Laertes looks like a recalcitrant teenager, by the way.

Oh, and please don't try Syrion, I created him with a specific look, and I doubt I've described it well.

But then again, just to see what your picture of him is, draw him anyway .

[Star eagle]

I'm more skilled in drawing what i can see than stuff i can imagine, and I do agree that these are a little crude, however they were meant to be styalized rather than true representations of the individuals.

Anyway thanks for the comment, there will be more of my other stuff coming to a seperate thread near you!

[Star eagle]

Here is a new attempt at Laertes. I'm happier with the upper body and the face in particular

[Lord Blackstaff]

Alright, so my unreal level is taking ages to compile, so I figured I'd take some time to make a few notes on your picture. The shoulders are too wide in my annotations, and the whole body needs to be pulled down, but your picture sort of limited things quite a bit.

A few notes, your waist anatomy is well off, I've taken the liberty to point out those corrections, as is the shoulder width. In general, you want about a head either side for shoulder width. So total width is three heads.

You chose a bad head angle, it makes laertes look like a delinquent teenager. I've made a generalised correction which you can use as a reference of a sort. It isn't 100% accurate, but again, your picture is very limiting.

The layered gimp image can be downloaded here. It's 8 meg, but you can switch off the laertes layer and scrutinise my corrections, take into account what I've said above. If you want a proper anatomically correct image, I'd have to start from a blank sheet.

The head proportions also need a lot of work.

[Flailing Axes]

Crickey LB, could you sound any more critical?

they're both better than anything I've ever drawn But that isn;t much of an achievement. I love sketchy drawings like this, I don't think it really needs as much critisism as LB's giving, they're just ideas of the characters, right? Only thing taht i noticed really was the left arm seems a lot smaller than the right in teh final drawing.

EDIT: haha! wow, congrats to me for making the most idiotic mistake ever. It's a robotic arm

[Lord Blackstaff]

I'm an artist, I know the difference between sketchy 'good', and sketchy 'needs work'.

And yes, I could sound one heck of a lot more critical, by actually going into depth on what I'm discussing, into the actual techniques and concepts behind a piece, rather than simply overviewing. It's aimed at improving the artist, and I find that clearly indicating problem areas is better then saying something is good, or bad, or needs work. Even if my attempts to be clear are fuzzy, most can work out what I'm trying to say.

[Flailing Axes]

you're an eccentric. A passionate eccentric. Which is a good thing

[Lord Blackstaff]

At the risk of going off topic - I was gonna go over Isao but gimp screwed and that pose is really really awkward - I'd like to know exactly how you manage to come up with the definition of eccentric. I don't mind it, I define myself as having eccentric tendencies, but I would like to know why you say that.

[Lord Blackstaff]

Alrighty, so I had a go at Isao while I waited for my level to compile. This is attempt three, the first two screwing up badly. You have a knack for choosing epically awkward poses.

I must point out that this isn't entirely altruistic, as it gives me an opportunity to exercise very rusty skills.

I pretty much stuck to your character, since he's ok. For a warrior, his proportions would be well out, more in line with a computer hacker, or a spider.

You really need to work on cloth simulation, it's not hard, and it improves things to no end.

That head pose looks painful! And it's really really hard to do anything with it. Next time you do side on, stick with a more traditional angle, since it's easier. Or use the typical slightly angled perspective (I forget the term, not much sleep you see).

I've done some corrections in several layers on a gimp file, as you can see, I gave up on the body, the proportions were just too whacked.

Enjoy, I hope it helps. In future though, when doing warriors, bulk them up quite a bit, even toned martial artists have very solid builds. None of them are rail thin. Stick with a more traditional pose too, left handed, kinky neck stuff just looks weird.

The file is here.

Enjoy!

[Star eagle]

Unfortunately I couldn't access the file...
Anyway I did do a second version of Isao (shortly after I drew the second Laertes) which I shall scan up asap (Friday possibly).

I have also done (with their permission and guidance) M1chael's character Alejandro and Lair Noir's character Rafael.
These are only sketches... and Rafael's looks wierd, but only because he is very wierd himself.

I've also done a few sketches of a knight/paladin type character for my zombie RP I'm doing with Lair Noir, and a rather good (if I say so myself) drawing of Batman done for a friend's birthday.
These will all be scanned up as soon as possible

[Lord Blackstaff]

Do you have gimp on your computer?

If not. The latest version is here.

It's free and open source. I checked the download link, and it works fine, you just have to exit the popup thingo.

[Star eagle]

I'm not using my PC... I'm using my GF's laptop till I can afford to aqquire my own one, and therefore I'm keeping downloads and clutter to a minimumn...

If you upload it to Photoshack I'd be able to view it then... and you don;t have to sign up to do it either... most of my uploads onto teh interwebs are done via that.

[Lord Blackstaff]

The reason its 6 mb is because it's the original file with all the layers I used to make it. I could upload it as a jpeg, but there would be too much clutter if I did that, I made it with the intention that you switch between layers, not for viewing as a single image. I have an account on imageshack, which does my hosting fine for me.

Gimp is also only about 20 mb. I really don't think it would clutter anything up. Plus, it is an excellent photo manipulation program. I'm actually very surprised you don't know about it.

Oh yeah, and when you do finally see the files, keep in mind that I did them in ten minute snatches of time while waiting for my level to compile, with shaking hands after an all nighter (and later on, two in a row) and by no means represent what I can do when I actually spend time on a piece. They are simply to represent visually what I think could be improved. I certainly don't consider them to be any more then guidelines.

[Star eagle]

Oh no I do know about GIMP... and had it on my old PC... this laptop however I'm not so sure.

I'll try again anyhoo.