School Girl Zombie Slayer

[sweetchilliphil]

Whoah. Been a while.

Working on a new piece, wrap around cover special! I don't know why, but I just really wanted to do a piece involving school girls and zombies. I went all anime on this one, heh.

Lines done in Photoshop. Still practicing wacom inking and all the likes.

Colors to come!

Critique welcome (I really don't need to say that do I?)

[Capt Surge]

Her expression is very strange, for line try playing with thin vs thick, meaning know which lines should be thick and which should be thin because everything has the same line weight

[sweetchilliphil]

I'm afraid I need a little more clarity to "he expression is weird." I'm sure if you stepped on green dog poop, you'd have a weird expression too.

As for lines, I think thats a more stylistic solution, as I do use varying line weight a lot (checkout my pencil work) in this instance, I'm aiming for a more CG look here. Cleaner lines and bold colors. The lines will eventually be colored in to match the fills, my experience is when it's too thin, it get's a little lost.

Still, I think I may vary some line thickness on the details, but leave the lines for her main parts at their current thickness.

[Capt Surge]

It kind looks like shes snarling at me ^_^ try to shifting the angle of the eyebrows because I assume that you want her to look worried or even terrified.

Sorry, I didn't know about the style thing just trying to be more helpful around here

[sweetchilliphil]

Aha, eye brows I can do. Now that I look at it, I whole heartedly agree.

No probs dude.

[sweetchilliphil]

Once again, thanks Capt Surge for the spot!

[TinyBird]

I would still have to agree about the expression, it's not really clear where she's looking at. If she's going "oh ewww" to her own appearance, she's not really looking at her clothes and if she's supposed to break the fourth wall and look at the viewer, then she's not really looking at us either (and for that I think it'd work better if she was walking away from the zombie stuff in the sense of "oh, Viewer! um... didn't see you standing there. What? No, no I totally didn't just slaughter a huge horde of zombies, tee hee! Ahem.") like she was caught and being awkward. But there's no real commitment to either, in the same manner how static her head looks bothers me, like if she really is supposed to be looking down at her clothes, then I'd turn her head down, not just her eyes.
It just feels that the girl overall doesn't fit the rest of the image like she was drawn separately and then the background added more as an afterthought and now there's this pretty large "gap" between the two elements and ends up looking very... staged and unnatural, I might say. If the girl as just alone the pose and look might work okay, but like this, not so much to me at least.

[sweetchilliphil]

RIGHT.

After some thought, I agreed about the head and eyes a bit, so, I've modified the head and brought her shoulders up, a bit like a shudder.



I also tiled her head in a more defensive manner. I kind wanted to keep it facing to the front though for a few reasons.

As for composition, this is for a wrap around cover, so it's like this for a reason. But, I think it will be the final colours that will bring the image together. And in my mind... it just works. Maybe I'm going insane.

Anyhow, new head position and I've changed her eyes a little so she's looking RIGHT at YOU.



BUT... I hated it. Didn't like it. Re-changed the angle of the head and gave her back her neck. I wanted her to be pulling away with her head somewhat. The feel of this one just felt... Better.

[Blackthorne]

Much better. Interested to see where you go with this...

[sweetchilliphil]

Minni update, adding in the zombies.

Also, to give a bit of a teaser and to tie her into the image, I've put a small decapitated hand clutching her leg warmers.

[Grunler]

Oh, well, the composition makes a bit more sense as a wrap-around. Will the girl be on the front cover? It might help to include the text that will be on book. Its placement is important, so it's a good thing to bring to critique early.

[Elwell]

Have I mentioned lately how much I HATE HATE HATE the transparent bangs convention?

[danlambert]

If this is a wrap around cover, and the girl is the focus, you may want to flip the image. Also there's a large empty space to her left.

[sweetchilliphil]

Have I mentioned lately how much I HATE HATE HATE the transparent bangs convention?

No... But I love them! Haha, sorry bud, but I've been cranking the transparent bangs for ages... I can't escape them!

But honestly, I just like being able to show some expression with the bangs still hanging over.

[sweetchilliphil]

If this is a wrap around cover, and the girl is the focus, you may want to flip the image. Also there's a large empty space to her left.

Cheers, yep, I haven't done that yet. It was mainly cause my reference was facing the other way and I never got round to flipping it. But then I got used to drawing it that way and completely forgot about it.

At the moment I really just wanted comments on anatomy and various other quirks, not so much composition as the author's pretty happy with the comp I sketched for him. But, it is a pretty open "in my free time" kinda project so it is changeable...

The space is the title I'll put up a garbage comp for people to ogle at.

[sweetchilliphil]

Garbage comp, this is the basic idea for the cover.

[sweetchilliphil]

Oh, well, the composition makes a bit more sense as a wrap-around. Will the girl be on the front cover? It might help to include the text that will be on book. Its placement is important, so it's a good thing to bring to critique early.

Hahahaha, what is this!? No need to copy and repeat comments, I heard ya!

[Elwell]

Hahahaha, what is this!? No need to copy and repeat comments, I heard ya!

Spam. Nuked. Pay no mind.

[sweetchilliphil]

Another miniature update.

Slowly throwing moar o' dem zombries. Rrrggahha...

[Ysvyri]

Nice, quirky style you got going here. Is it me, or are her forearms a little too short?

[tcj1966]

Love it, very cool!

[Elwell]

Nice, quirky style you got going here. Is it me, or are her forearms a little too short?

Definitely not just you. I really like how the zombies are coming along, but the main one's arms are a little stumpy, too.

[sweetchilliphil]

Definitely not just you. I really like how the zombies are coming along, but the main one's arms are a little stumpy, too.

Agreed. Thats what happens when you spread this little gig over a few days.

[sweetchilliphil]

Nice, quirky style you got going here. Is it me, or are her forearms a little too short?

I'd say you're correct too. A mistake on my part, misinterpreted the ref pic, the model leans a little and it foreshortens her arms.

[sweetchilliphil]

Had time to fix those arms, and add a few small details. Getting there!