Half-Life 2 mod concepts and nude figure studies - critique/tips appreciated.

[dfyb]

I'll start off with a little introduction. Long time lurker - first time i'm showing my work. I'm currently 20 years old and going to a university. I'm a level designer and I'm leading a half-life 2 mod with a small team (I'd prefer if all members went to my university). It's hard to find local skilled artists interested in helping out and have the time to do so. I also have very specific ideas when it comes to the character designs for my mod, so I'm doing a lot of the concepts myself.

So while this isn't necessarily something I want to do professionally, it's a skill I'd like to improve and it'd definitely be helpful.

one thing that bothers me is that i can never seem to finish a design. i'll leave spaces "blank" and never know how to fill them in -- i'll try things and erase them and repeat until i give up, and usually still have a blank spot.



this is the most recent design i've done. the legs and chest area are largely still blank. same goes for the lower left arm.



this is another recent one. the proportions are intended to be exaggerated (i was aiming for proportions similar to characters in Alexander Senki or Aeon Flux for this character). it's obviously very unfinished. here's a quickly colored version.



this is an old design that i'm not going to be using for the mod, but it's another example of me not finishing the design (missing parts). this also demonstrates my first attempt at digital painting (and i'm probably not much better now ). i don't have a wacom tablet yet, so that's with a mouse.

you can probably notice a lot of anatomy problems. you can feel free to draw over them to show corrections etc. i recently purchased Bridgeman's Constructive Anatomy and The Human Machine, but havn't done much but look through the pages yet. I also recently started a figure drawing class at my university (university of north texas) as it is required for my major (electronic media art). today was the first day we did any drawing. after gesture drawings we were given an hour to draw and show the professor what we're capable of.



this is what i did. i used charcoal on 24x36 newsprint. i don't really like any of the physical mediums but i already had my charcoal out. up close the foot looked more normal... from farther back, it looks gigantic -- i'll try to not let that happen again.

so yeah. i'll be posting any other concepts i do. i'll probably post lots of WIP stuff. i'll be posting other stuff from figure drawing (pictures will typically be taken with my phone because i keep that stuff up at school). comments, advice, and critique is always welcome.

edit: further posts i make will be attachments. the images in this post are hosted on my own webspace so i have complete control over them.

[dfyb]

posting more stuff from figure drawing class. some of this is from the 6th and some from today.

the first 4 had to use straight lines only and she wanted us to find the planes. i didn't really like this study. they were done pretty quickly so some of the proportions are off -- few minutes except for the last one.

the last 3 were from today. we started off doing contour line and then went away from that and more tried to find the key body masses and to give a good idea of anatomy. again most of these were quick except for the last one, but i rushed through a large portion of the last one.

[dfyb]

today we couldn't use line to construct our drawing -- only values. head/neck area is pretty messed up. ran out of time.

[dfyb]

...still no replies. dunno how many more times i'll post here.

first one is a graphite value study... went a bit too harsh in the torso area with some of those values. second is a conte head study. after that are just a few very quick studies...

[dfyb]

first one is an outside project for figure drawing class (full size here: http://upload.dfyb.net/uploaded/bone_final.jpg ). only criteria were that it should be about bone breaks/fractures etc, and be black and white. it was done in photoshop with a mouse (still don't have a tablet). going to print it out in the morning in poster size. did it pretty quickly - have a lot of other classes to worry about.

second two are quick head studies

[Joatley]

Welcome to sb! For your anatomy renderings, it looks like you're using a very soft charcoal. I would try a dark charcoal pencil instead or at least incorporated in. Anatomy itself is looking pretty good but I'd rather see some more concepts.

[dfyb]

first was an anatomy study where a model would sit, we sketch her out, then super-impose a skeleton inside (we had a skeleton reference). the model was a little heavy and i think i made a lot of the bones bigger than they should have been, so it looks almost like a child.

second was just a face study. i would have liked to spend more time on it.

third is just a value study but time was very limited. didn't really get to finish any of it and had to really rush through a few parts like the head and legs.

Welcome to sb! For your anatomy renderings, it looks like you're using a very soft charcoal. I would try a dark charcoal pencil instead or at least incorporated in. Anatomy itself is looking pretty good but I'd rather see some more concepts.

yeah i should really draw more in my free time. wish i had more designs to show but right now all i have is more figure drawing work. hopefully in the next few weeks i'll spend some time on the character designs.