illustration thread - for soon to graduate college illustration students

[jason01]

so here we are. let's post our projects and give each other feedback. sound good? yeah, I thought so too.

[Quigleyer]

Okay: completely awesome.

I figured I'd tell you guys a little about what's going on and should have some roughs out by tonight.

A while ago I created a fantasy story for a "sequential imaging" class I had at VCU. It centered around the second coming of a long dead necromancer, but the back story is a little less cliche and far more interesting, so I've decided that I'll be doing a series of card illustrations for my senior project/portfolio class based on that. My writing skills and story line are completely up for critique if you feel you could help me with this- illustration is about the story telling, is it not?

The gist:

In a fantastic world (which shall remain nameless for the moment) there is a country called Bura-Gor. A sort of superpower of the world they have advanced quite well and live fairly comfortable lives, especially in comparison to the rest of their known world which is rather mystical and based upon tribal living and magical arts etc. Much of the manual labor and less desirable occupations are done by machines, which run on a special crystal ore (which is also nameless for the moment... I didn't like the original name) found and mined mainly on the eastern side of the country. The bread and butter of this land and its way of living, the crystal ore is incredibly important to the people.

In their year 254 (based on the creation of the country, by the way) the eastern super cities began stock piling the ore, offering a shortage for the trading market. One thing lead to another and inhabitants of the west began to pirate the caravan routes between the eastern cities.

Civil war has broken out in the year 255 and. In the year 257- in the midst of defeat- Western Bura-Gor has begun employing the use of Necromancy and those who practice it from a tribe of waste land dwellers inhabiting lands far out of Bura-Gor's boundaries in to attempt to gain the upper hand against the war machines laying waste to their lands.

---------------------My first assignment I'll be working on here

Rhan'ha'eyll: Leader of Western Bura-Gor, Rhan'ha'eyll's allegiance to his country's cause has gone since the beginning of the war. One of the first bandits to patrol the caravan routes of the east, he soon became the most successful. He began to gain notoriety for his guerilla warfare and acts of utmost brutality. After capturing Eastern Bura-Gor's most western city, Umuscil, he was named chief commander of the west's military and soon went on to be given position as ruler of the country after the assassination of the former ruler, U'eldryn.

I'm going to be basing this character's outfit loosely on the design of armor for death metal bands, specifically Behemoth. With a nice evil and commanding look to them I believe this to be a good place to start, as I also want to give off hints that Rhan'ha'eyll's mistriss, Japahody of the tribes of the wasteland, is having an influence on him and could be influencing him. For this I'm probably going to be putting a portrait of him from his younger days on the wall to compare to what will be his now slightly distorted or changed face.

I'll have thumbs of the character up by tonight for some crits. My course is taught by a rather highly regarded editorial illustrator, Sterling Hundley, and it is required for us to have an approved thumbnail, research (if applicable), photo references, and a final drawing before we can go to the final. He also wants me to have more solid conceptual work rather than just displaying the character standing there like a badass, which I completely agree with. Because of this I will do a thumbnails for the composition (after I design the character) and get help with you guys on ideas before I take it to my professor. I will post and get as much approval as I can from you guys before I bring it to him.

Thanks for starting this, Jason.

[Quigleyer]

Well, this is certainly later than I was hoping to do this. My computer nearly took the plunge a few hours or so ago and right when I was about to burn this city down, it just came back on with all of the previous problems fixed. Maybe the updates just took a while?

Anyway, here are some quick character thumbs I did. I'm not really happy with any of them and a lot of the silhouettes are boring as hell, so I'll probably have to do a few more. Tell me what you think:

[Quigleyer]

A few more. Not really getting what I was going for. I'll do some more tomorrow. For now, I sleep.

[Nocebo]

Looks ok atm. Its a man of normal body type. Have you thought about his posture, maybe tweeking his body type, making it more characsmatic and more reconiseble.

Imo its ok for random goons to be like that, but for main chrs you want something special, and then find out the outfit from that. Might be easier too.

[jason01]

quigleyer - the pose you have is good for showing the costume - it's good for turnarounds but not for showing the character - which you know

if you number the thumbs we'll be able to talk about them easier.

first - your guy looks like he's falling over in a lot of these - and the feet aren't level (for the perspective they're at)

second - assymetry is always more interesting

That being said, I thing you have something interesting going on in 4 and 5


well - you know what you need to do. looking forward to seeing the next round. remember - keep it simple until you have that gesture and silhouette - then you can get more complicated with all the armour details. it doesn't do you much good to have all the detail in the world if you have a lame silhouette and gesture

[Quigleyer]

Nocebo: That makes perfect sense. Honestly I've never really had my character thumbnails critiqued, so I've been missing out on a lot of good advice that I've just been given by you and Jason. Much MUCH appreciated.

Jason: Thank you for your good critique/advice, as well as pointing out a lot of my really obvious and stupid/embarrassing mistakes (character falling over... agh). I'll do a batch right now (woke up late... I'm doing the vampire routine) and have them posted as soon as possible.

I have some quick general questions I'm interested to hear the answer to if you'd be so kind. I see you have a lot of really good looking character thumbnails and silhouettes on your website, and it's something I've never really been given advice on (VCU is more editorial illustration based, and the teachers don't stress this as much, as it's not as important to a majority of the class and is completely understandable). What process do you generally go through to get to those finished, presentable looking thumbs?

From what I can get it's about the three important things: gesture, silhouette, and vital detail (If I'm wrong, please correct me). So... start out with a gesture that better incorporates the attitude of the character, add shapes to make an interesting silhouette, and then add detail/armor to fill in those shapes?

How much of the silhouette is based on what you know you're going to fill in versus how much you figure out later on?

And the amateur question to ask: how long do you generally take for a page of say.... 10-15? This is just pure curiosity as I realize I'm going to be slower due to my lack of development on the subject.

Sorry I'm asking you to take me to school here. Hopefully I'll have more to offer as development in the images increases to areas I'm more skilled at. I appreciate your time and value your advice.

Off to do more thumbs!

[jason01]

I'll be honest - the silhouettes that look really good and clean and tight - I redid those and redid those. They are definitely not a first pass kind of thing.

if you can check out "the skillful huntsman" - it's got great pages of silhouettes. That's really where I picked it up from. also http://joshuathejames.blogspot.com/ this guy has some nice things, I think you'll like
as well as http://ryanlangdraws.blogspot.com/


um - so i go about silhouettes different ways at different times - sometimes I just draw with pencil and do a little guy, sometimes in photoshop and start with a block of black, and sometimes like marco - just skip the silhouette an go for the gold - not the best method - but it works when you're in a crunch.

another good way to get silhouettes is to do one sketch and then make a copy of it in photoshop - a bunch of copies. and then take those into liquify and push and pull to get a stronger silhouette. once the basic stance, body type, and attitude is established you can then explore the costumes and details.

for a page of 10-15 solid silhouettes - I would spend a few days - I would do probably 50 to 100 silhouettes and then pick the best ones and refine those.

a character designer I know spent 8 hrs (one work day) to get 8 to 10 thumbnails on one page (that was at Sony - and the thumbnails were much more fleshed out than I would consider a thumbnail - colored and values, textures - just quick and dirty.

[Quigleyer]

I didn't get anywhere with the last page, saw your thread, and redid only 4. I'm going to start again tomorrow with some actual cranking out of these things... waking up late has gotten the best of me and I'm not being very productive, so I'll take a night off and work tomorrow DURING the day. Can't wake up at 5 anymore.

It's not much, but I'd still like to update this thing. It keeps me working on ideas, which I like.

[Nocebo]

Agreing with Jason1 about not just going for the gold.. Just did that and atm im reworking the whole piece.

Normal i do photoshop thumbs if they are for my self. Just draw the body up first with no cloth, just basic (if you use same pose for all you can just copy that first part, just make sure the first one looks ok or rest will be a mess too ) then for cloth i do it in neutral colours. Black and white is just fine. If i need to put in details somewhere i know it should be, then i just draw that part up fast with a mat red or blue or something like that. Just to get the feeling if the details work there. like fur trim or some marks or patterns of some sort. But dont use more time on that then 10-30 sec or so, and do it on an other layer.

I think thats about it. GL

PS. Lordi might not be the best to look for style. They take it from else where them self. Just looked at some pic of them, and can see some egyptien and some middelage and some renaissance and other mix's with evil+death added to it.
Try insted to see where they got there inpiration and tap from there. Alot more to ref from that way.

[Quigleyer]

gagh. This is owning me. I need to get in the groove of these things so I can just move on. I generally do anywhere between 3-7 full on character sketches in ball point pen before I do an illustration, but these just seem like a faster way of getting ideas out of the way. How do I know what could come out unless I put as much as possible out?

They're going really slowly right now because I'm trying out different things, trying to remember to stay with the character/silhouette/costume, and being really weird about how rough the are. I kind of gave up caring about the rough thing, so ideas are flowing better and if i need to refine I will... later.

About 2 slow, grueling hours worth of work right now. Some things are working, some are definitely not. I waited way too long to try these out...

I'm gonna go spend some more time looking at other's to try and pick more up and then get back at it. I've got a couple of days to figure this out before I'm knee deep in shit.

I'm also going to do some more armor research. I've exhausted all the lame pauldron and chest combinations I could get... and it didn't even take that much time.

Anyway

[jason01]

quigleyer
check these out - they have good gestures and poses - they might help

http://www.timmcburnie.com/gallery/works
http://gotcheeks.blogspot.com/
http://waynelo7.blogspot.com/2007/12...d-version.html
http://conceptart.org/?artist=Aleksi

[jason01]

I found another place - the latest entry there has something like what I imagine you're going for

http://ravensoftart.blogspot.com/

[Rist]

Hi jason01,

I have just started my third year. Could I post my designs and illu's for feedback?

[jason01]

Rist - you're not quite there, man. Check back next year.

[Quigleyer]

Jason, I really appreciate all of the artistic reference help here. Last week was all sorts of busy, but I'm going to be putting more stuff up soon. Just didn't want you to think I was dipping out or anything like that.

Thanks a lot! That last one really hit the spot, actually. I got this idea to buy a photo-blue pencil the other day and have been doing silhouettes with that and then filling in details with a regular old mechanical pencil- I really like the look and finish of the last link you posted and will probably try something like that tonight or tomorrow, logo project pending. I'll post up an image hopefully very soon.

I also really need to start building my website and put up a supporting blog. The blog should be easy and I'll get going on that very soon as well. If you have anything about that aspect of this business, please don't hold back.

Again- thank you.

[ChaoticKnight]

Well, its my senior year and I'm kinda majoring in Animation even though my true love is illustration, so can I hang in this thread too? lol
I'm currently having problems bringing a picture to completion in good time...

[jason01]

chaoticknight - yeah join in. Some of my favorite illustrators have a background in animation ( www.markbehm.com ). I dig your stuff. and I think you have the style quigleyer wants - so you'll be great to bounce ideas off each other.

[Quigleyer]

Yeah dude- join in- it'd be awesome.

SO- about going for the gold. I spent hour after hour inbetween other assignments and failures at designing a character... at the checkpoint for class I've decided this is going to be SCRAPPED for the time being. Right now I need to aim towards something else- I stopped after about six hours worth of work, when I slept and woke up and saw the thing I was creating. Check out this composition... it's so bad.

BUT ANYWAY- I feel I must acknowledge my failure and move on... and any ideas to salvage this as is will be SERIOUSLY considered, as that's like six hours of my time right here alone.

Where I went to before stopping can be seen HERE (Because I'd prefer not to post this):

http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/g...hanFailure.jpg

EDIT: My bad jason, I posted the link. I can't seem to get this image below the required attachment size without saving to web (which hurts my colors even more). My next assignment deals with a straight up abominable snowman, so that should be fun.

[jason01]

hey quiggy - nothing's there - no image

- and as hard as that is . . . I used to routinely spend 20-30 hours on pictures I would never show . . . and sometimes hundreds of hours working out whole series of projects and illustrations that I then scrapped. I have an accumulation of thousands of hours spent on things no one will ever see.

It's all part of the learning process. If you can get something out of it. and hopefully you can . . that's a step. But show us what you got and we'll see if we can salvage it.

[jason01]

still not showing (your photobucket image - it says has errors and can't be displayed) - try saving it again - and repost it to photobucket - if that doesn't work - I do look forward to the abominable snowman

[Quigleyer]

does it show now? It took a really long time to upload, but it's not that big... dunno why that's happening.

Starting work on the snowman tomorrow or the day after, depending on work for another class and stuff, so I should be posting new stuff soon.

Thanks.

[Quigleyer]

DAMN. My airport thing was a little fucked up on my mac and bingo no internet. I guess that's alright since I haven't been proud of too much lately, but here's some work I'd really like some critique on. Sorry about the time between posts. These two are due... well today, but the professor has the flu or something, so it looks like thursday- which is why I have some time to finish things up and make them look good... been quite busy lately. QUITE busy.

I'd be particularly happy to hear thoughts on the crater. I tried doing more with less, as I have less time and really do love the raw feeling of unpolished paint, but fear this is TOO unpolished, and that there's really nothing special about it. I really hope I have time to work on these a little more/redo the crater if need be as I'm quite uncomfortable with them, but have so much more due. I don't know why I took all of the studio classes this semester- someone wasn't thinking properly. It's okay. Working on that speed thing.

Im going to edit and add more, I'm just resizing, which takes me a ridiculous amount of time to figure out without using the "save for web feature."

[jason01]

ok quigy - good job -
you have these guys just posed - not very interesting. put a dead goat in the grasp of the beast and show blood on the mouth - then it looks like he's been caught - surprised by the light - needs to go in. - putting an animal or person in it's grip would do two things - give scale to the thing and a peak into what this guy's life is. or have an action - just standing there is boring. but maybe I've been looking at too much Frazetta lately.

on your second one, it took me a while to figure out that the black thing in the foreground was one of those claws. it needs to be the same distance from the orb as the others - so move it closer. - I've probably overcompensated. (upon closer inspection - I realize the 3 claws may be ok - but the orb and the castle are definitely not in the middle) but if you really need to get the right perspective and can't figure it out - build a real quick model of basic shapes in google sketch up and see what it would look like. - then sketch over a screen capture or exported image of that also that light firld in the middle of the page was distracting - tone that down. also - tone the green down - it's a little christmas-y - nights are a lot more dark blue - I know the complimentary color thing - but red and green is especially tricky - - oh yeah - and I don't know the purpose of the red orb, but it's looking ominous. bur in the picture, you make it small, unthreatening, and give us a traquil scene in the background with a river and light and lead us to a visual escape. you might want to make everything else darker and if you do that you don't have to zoom in on the orb - just put a blanket of darkness over the peaceful background - and make it black or dark purple - or even very dark red - it will be imposing and scary

the crater is ok. you could have things coming out of it or crop in on it to show it's huge and give more sky to show that's where it came from.

that's what I have to say about it.

[Quigleyer]

Ah Jason!

Great points, all of them. I really appreciate your advice about the cropping of the crater composition- it's really lame as is and doing so little makes it so much more interesting, and the color suggestion of the un-cropped one is awesome.

For the orb... I originally had it sort of "wrapped" up in a lighting-esque special effect but took it away as I felt it was slightly too distracting. Now that you bring up the point that it is the BACKGROUND that is distracting/doesn't fit, I'm thinking about re-slapping it on there. I will re-position the orb/castle thing, make it bigger, and follow your other advice on that. Spot on, man.

Thanks a ton man.

EDIT: My bad on the profanity. It comes out worse and worse some times.

[jason01]

glad to help - one request . . . lighten up on the profanity. I don't like to hear it and I don't like to read it. - thanks

[Quigleyer]

Hey, haven't posted anything in a while. I've been terrible at getting things done efficiently as of late and hope that I can carve a few portfolio pieces somewhere. I'm going to be adjusting a lot of the ones you gave me advice on and probably ditching others. Here are the next couple or so:

Still ongoing:


Probably need to cut my ties:


Lots of fun:


Thanks.

[jason01]

it's good to see you back.

for the meteor - first off - your colors are good. And I'm digging the lighting - especially the light on the rock in the foregound. Your city looks like it's in the distance. now - things to fix - the river doesn't really get smaller and the trees in the background get darker - so it pull them forward - also - the composition is just weak.

for the one looking up at the guy -your colors are solid. And that guy we're all looking at looks like a nutcracker - I like it. And your composition here is pretty solid. now - things to fix - you're dealing with 3 point vertical - even if it's really stylized - at least do it right before you tweek it - it looks weird. - oh yeah - and get some reference for the people in the crowd - they look weird. and the guy up - oh yeah - you'll want to tweak the crowd - put them in the 3 point as well.

and the third guy - he looks way sweet - expecially the warm lighting on the far right. the only thing I see to fix is . . . . foot is small.

[Quigleyer]

HAH. thanks man. Semester is over and now I'm going to be fixing things and starting new things. Have to remain productive. I'll be getting on those soon.

thanks about the foot too. I had a reference and it looked weird to me, glad you pointed out the size.