Team ChoW III - Pirate Ship Lollipop

[Janos]

Raoul Duke and Janos
We are Team
Pirate Ship Lollipop

We are going to rock your socks of and do the best we can to win this team C.H.O.W. And if we do not win at least we will gather a lot of experience and learn stuff from you guys, our visitors, but most of all form us.

So, who does this team consist of?


Raoul Duke

Janos

So, First things first... Our name?
Some Suggestions that were made.
1)The Pirate Ship Lolly Pop
2)Who Wants Pain?
3)You Die Today!
4)Reagan's Henchmen
5)The Donkey Puncher's Guild
6)Hurt Sandwich
7)The Fight'n Winners
8)The Demon Hunters
9)God's WIP
10)The Puppeteers

I like Gods WIP, Pirate Ship Lollypop and the Puppeteers.
Give me your favourite picks, and we'll then choose from those.

Furthermore, maybe present yourself. I know your alterego, but who are you in real life, what do you do, any ideas for the upcoming team chow? Any other stuff? Lets make this thread as comfortable as possible.

Cheers

[Raoul Duke]

I don't mean to come off as presumptuous, but I was doing a skull study for my homework and when I heard Pirate ship Lolly Pop was a name you guys liked, I threw that pinkish crimson on. I think if we threw in some lollypops for crossbones and some ship sales, this would be one hell of a flag. There is pleanty of room for collaboration on this one.

[Janos]

Great first post. Lets get this rolling. Atm I am sitting in a beautiful house at the sea, and I love the idea of pirates. I also like the knocked out teeth on our skull, but I would definitely only add teh lollipops. The sails would be too much for me. And I would paint the skull from the front, just keep it basic, though make keep the missing teeth, and maybe try a version without the pupils. And of course the two lollipops, they are a must. Would you like to tr and make a version? Atm i am not able to upload anything, but as soon as I can, I'll be on. If you want ou can send me the image of the skull with the lollipops and I'll finsih it up nice to represent our logo.
Also, DHTenshi. What up? Give us some input! =)

And, here just some infos on me:
I am 20, male, and I live in Germany atm, though as mentioned above, we are stying in Ital over Christmas. I am also half italian and half polish, but I grew up in Germany so I have got all of my friends there. I have been drwing since about 4 or five, and I have always been interested in Illustration. ATM I am prparing to get accepted at anacademy here in germany, so I am doing 3 or 4 Portfolios. It is a very hard job to do, but CA keeps me sane at times and gives me input onb stuff that might not be the most academical subjects. I really admire a lot of artists on here, and I am working on developing my Photoshop and generally digital skills. I would one day love to work as a freelance illustrator, for children books, general bookcovers and Fantas/siFi stuff like for WOtC or other companies. I do think that a traditional learning of my subject, in the academy might help me develop a special style. And I really want to kick ass in this team chow, so bring on the 26! I do have to say though, that I am going to get home the earliest on the 4 of January, so till then its just sketching and no showing for me.

Now to you guys!

[Raoul Duke]

This is just a test run for the logo, just one direction I'm exploring. Janos send me your email in a pm so I can send you the full resolution psd.

I agree with the dis-inclusion of the sails. I played around with working them into the comp last night and I realized it was going to be a pain in the asshole.

Let's keep the color Pallet limited to cream, hot pink, brown and warm black. I'm going to work on more design options.

[Raoul Duke]

My name is actually Kirk McCosker and I am 27 years young. I live in the San Diego area. My hobbies include coffee, cigarettes, fine Kentucky Bourbon and fighting the forces of evil. I am currently a student at Studio 2nd Street. My biggest influences are Bill Seinkiewicz, Ashley Wood, Dean Cornwell and I could list dozens of others.

[Raoul Duke]

here's another design option. Once again just a starting point.

[DHTenshi]

Hey guys! I'm back!, just saying that for now lol, I'm gonna post some sketchbook pages in a little while, just to let you know I'm alive and I am gonna work hard with you guys =)

Gonna upload in a while then, ok?

Raoul Duke, man, that looks really good, you seem to be working hard already that's amazing! Love the warm feel, so, we are lollipop pirates now? lol

[DHTenshi]

So, I am DHTenshi, male, 19 years old, mexican.
Err, I really like watching anime, manga, and like to surf on the web, looking to other people's art.
I just left graphic design and animation career to join the fine arts school here in my town...
What else? dunno, just gonna post some sketchbook pages I made on a vacations trip

[Janos]

EYO
Amazing stuff you guys are posting. I am gonna try and add some stuff too soon.
I love your sketches DH and how confident you seem to be with faces and anatomy generally. Keep on with that and these will look amazing in our team chow designs.... 4 days to go guys.
Raoul, I send you my email adress. As I mentioned before, I'd dig a front view skull even more, but the lollipops are spot one. I'll try and get to my brotehrs laptop later which has got photoshop so that I can play around with your design.

Pirate Ship Lollipop, over

EDIT: So here is something I came up with. The problem is that I do not have a tablet here in ital, so it basically looks like crap. But you guys, especially you raoul with our own style, couls really make a great logo. I actually also kind of like the mirrored image (i did it because I didn't have a choice) but if you could try to sketch one up in your style, in this design, it would look awesome. Also my brither gave me another idea, that we could loose the two lollipops behind the skull, and instead just put two lollipops in its eyes (there kinda are two in its eyes now, but we could add sticks to the eye lollipops. I'll post some vector stuff later on.

[Janos]

@ DHTenshi: Do you draw from ref? I realy like your sketches, but one thing I think might really benefit them, is if you try to change up your faces. That is a probelm I have as well. We should reall tr to learn from Raoul who has some nice expressive faces and try to make our character designs very individual, but of course fitting all together.

Also, how aboput thinking about a general style. What direction shall we go in. How shall we divide work? All that kind of stuff!

[Raoul Duke]

Also, how aboput thinking about a general style. What direction shall we go in. How shall we divide work? All that kind of stuff!

How's about I work on the gestural abstraction. Teneshi tightens up the shapes and brings in the more subtle values and Jonos you bring in the the final touches.

DH-How are you with vectors? You said you were a graphic designer, can we see some logo work or vector drawings you are particularly proud of? Maybe we could create a waving Pirate flag as an animated giff. If your up to it.

[Janos]

Yeah that sounds really good.
One thing that would be awesome if we make it a full on collaboration. So all three of us work on every single character. Sketching is of course a must for all of us. So if there are six characters we could just start sketching our initial ideas for all of them and then when we realise whose strenghts lie where we divide the character concept design, so the clothes weapons and so forth, to one artist. DH gets two, Raoul you get two, and I get two.
We sketch our ideas for pose and face as well, but we leave it to you Raoul to bring your awesome style to every figure. As you said your gestural abstraction is really a thing we should use to our advantage. We should try to keep a congruent cloth/weapon/ornament style, too. And keep in mind that the character should in the end fit into a nice pretty Diorama, so pose/lighting of the individual should be realistic to their later position.
Then me and DH could apply the digital colouring (I think its best if I help DH in this part, or I could just start the basic colouring and DH, you could then tighten it up.)
Finally we decide how to arrange them in the panorama picture and then bring them into the final image, and I could merge them together with their surrounding, which won't be the hardest job, if the second phase of our plan goes well.


Raoul as you would be needed most in the early stages you might want to start "networking" later on if you know what I mean? Check out our competitiors, try to get people to visit our thread and of course give us advice on how we are proceeding. This division should only be very basic though. We post all our efforts here andlisten to one another and discuss if there is a problem.

Basically we all work through the whole of January, but each of us harder or less hard at a certain time. And if one of us has probelms of finding the needed time he should definitel tell usbeforehand, so that we can plan around tight schedules.
Actually I might wip up a schedule and ask what you guys think about it, cause my warble further up might have been complete bollocks to you.

So anyways, what do you think of the idea of work division yet all of us working together on all of the characters?

Cheers,
Janos

PS: Some more aspects of Janos. My real name is Jonnie, I've got a Dog, I listen to lots of Music, mostly and maybe quite shockingly to some of you to british Pop and Electropop music (Little Boots, La Roux, Florence and the Machine and many more). I do like my Strokes-CDs though... I also am studying Korean at the moment, but I hope to get into a academy next year.

PPS: I have looked at your blog and sketchbook again Raoul and while I think that you capture movement very well I think proportion wise DH and me should give a little input so that the characters keep the movement of your more cartoony characters yet general they have a more realistic appearance.

PPS: The Vector skull was omsthing my brother came up with to make it readable and simple. DH, would you feel like picking it up form there and maybe polish it a little?
Okay, thats enough for now.

[DHTenshi]

First of all! please have patience with me! I don't know a lot of terms you used to describe some things of art (gestural abstraction, Diorama) and also, I'm good at english, but it isn't my mother tongue, so, please be patient =)

Thanks Janos, I love to draw from imagination, but yes, the references are always needed, even if sometimes it's boring
Good to see you working Janos! I think that design with Raoul's style would really look great! hope to see it soon

Raoul, actually, I got no experience on vectors, I just started at that career this semester and left because I made a wrong decision, and never got to use vectors, it was pure boring theory, and very simple.

So, let me see if i get the idea, everyone sketches the character ideas yes... then, raoul is gonna do the gestural work, as he applies good movement to them, then, we'll check out the anatomy and proportions, then he's gonna do the lines or janos or me? and after that we'll do the painting? I think i got good rendering, but not so good structure, and I believe that's what I do best right now

I'll be checking out the user cp so I can know if there are any news, thanks for adding me to you gmail janos, I'm gonna send a pm to raoul so i can give my email and he can give me his.

I can't wait to know the theme of this!
Also, Janos, if you can, put some awesome photos from there, it would be awesome

c ya guys!

[Janos]

Hey DH.
WIth gestural abstraction I think Raoul ment that he can depict movement in a pose quite well, which is something that I struggle with for instance. And the Diorama I meant was the image in which we could put all the characters we create, to present them as a group.

Your rendering is probably the best, so you should do the most important job of colouring, but I'll help you with that of course by adding basoc layers you can then develop the colours from and by maybe retouching stuff you forgot. We are stating the obvious that we want to use digital colouring, but if both of you think traditional is the way to go I am up for that, too. DIgital is easier to develop though.

And here are some fotos for you guys where I'm at atm. I would love to see some of yours as well!

[Janos]

Oh and, actually I kind of like the simplicity of the vector logo my brother did. How about we use it? We could also change our change our avatars to different views of the skull logo, for the reminder of the Chow, so that we are recognised and built some kind of attention. We've got some pretty competitive and to say the truth amazing artist groupings to fight against, so we might as well give it all we got.

[Raoul Duke]

My theory is from chaos comes an appreciation of order. We all need to start with a great sketch, based on great composition. The form and rhythm needs to be well accounted for first and foremost. Then we need to focus on creating the simple shapes that will demonstrate the complexities of the form. The values and edges are what's going to make this feel real, the dedication to rhythm is what's going to make it feel alive. Detail and color is only there to support the facts and gives the viewer further insight.

Here are a few examples on what I'm talking about.

[DHTenshi]

check out my avatar
Sounds good to me raoul!

[Janos]

Hey guys.
So I'll be on for a while because our house is flooding a little and we have to dry the cracks regularly every ten minutes or so, and I volunteered to stay up, as you guys are anyway in the right time zone now. So yeah, I see the positive side!
Oh and DH, could you please send me an av with the text you added /change DHTenshi for Janos though , with the first skull crop I posted (the one where you can't see the teeth) I haven't got photoshop, so it would take a while to make for me. Just send it to my mail adress. Thanks.

And Raoul. Amazing inspirational pieces you posted. And you are right, the first sketch is very challenging, but the first and most important pillar on which we built the character. These are amazing sketches, and I find your style to be similar, so with you sketching the basic design onto the character, it could well be very amazing.
I'm off to mop up water now, see you in a while.

[Raoul Duke]

Don't get too excited. These chow entries got the same score as me. Ouch!

Janos I'm glad to see we will be awake at the same time, but those circumstances must suck. Your suffering cheers me up if that makes you feel better. I'll keep my gmail open if you want to chat.

[Janos]

You posted a CHow piece. God I must have been blind. Sorry I didn't vote for you. I somehow didn't realise/remember you had entered. I am off to look at your entry now.

Edit:
I dodn't realise your name was in the image itself thats why i didn't see it in the frame or something. I actually like the style and the idea of her being huge. And the war-scene depicts her aspect of being everywhere. I think the filters and composition might have been the problem. DId you spend the time you had wanted on it? Well, sorry again, as a team we should have sticked together. Next time, I promise.

[Raoul Duke]

No pitty votes! If you didn't notice it, it's because I did something wrong. I'm not sure, but let's figure it out.

[Janos]

Okay my honest opinions on the piece:
-The name and chow text in the image really detract. I'd put a nice simple and clean frame and keep the image itself clean.
-The heigth, though a good idea, doesn't work completely here. A standing soldier could have worked wonders in making it clearer. Also teh whole scene of the battlefield isn't as readable as it could be.
-The design of the surveyor is perhaps too basic.
-I wouldn't have muddled around with it in photoshop, though I know that your original intention was to use watercolours. I say keep it simple!

Any crits on mine?

PS: I am too stupid for gmail chat.

[Raoul Duke]

I think the filters and composition might have been the problem. DId you spend the time you had wanted on it? Well, sorry again, as a team we should have sticked together. Next time, I promise.

the filter- I used the filter, because the paper had a horizontal tooth to begin with. So I played along with it and tried to make it look like surveillance footage. I normally I disapprove of filters, but in this case I made an exception. Maybe everybody was turned off by that. They probably dismissed my piece because anybody can use a filter.

Time-I had plenty of time to spare. I was second to submit my entry, following you. I spent about 6 hours on the watercolor piece and a couple more in photoshop.

Edit: Thanks for the crit.

[Janos]

No probs, thats what we should be here for. I see what you mean now, but yeah I didn't realise directly that it was supposed to mimic surveillance camera footage.

A question to the team now. Do you think it makes sense to think about a general theme we want to go with, like the mutation sceme another group has come up with? Or should we wait until the 26?

[Raoul Duke]

I checked for flaws in the rule of thirds and you did a great job. Most of the elements serve a purpose to the composition.

The stuff I drew in blue was stuff that wasn't necessarily contributing to the composition or could have served it's purpose better.

I think your character design itself wasn't telling me anything. She just looked like a weirdo from Greenwich Village.

The thing I was most disappointed about most of the entries was they missed the opportunity to dick with the planes of reality.

[Raoul Duke]

DH I know ref is important for ya so I found a skull with decent lighting.

[DHTenshi]

Whoa... that's something, feels as if i missed 2 days of replies lol
First, sorry to hear that Janos, hope you are working hard on it, and it stops soon =/
2nd, just sent them to you Janos
So, most of this was about the last chow... sorry but i didn't get in =/, i should have thou... Nice to see your entries, and about the crits you both made, I agree with both of you... and my best crit is that, maybe it's just me, but, your character design were too simple, very simple, i guess that didn't help at all.
Nice to see raoul's got an understanding in composition, I saw very little of the law of thirds in my class last semester, but it seemed too simple, or at least, that's what it looked like because of the way the taught it to us.

And, umm, i'm gonna upload more sketches, so you can tell me crits, or something to get it better, just the bigger girl and the girl with some strange hat are from imagination, the others are reffed... I'm getting the idea of working with pen, this is like the first time I'm really doing it, they say it's good for getting better lines, right? it seems really hard when I'm drawing from imagination, but when it comes to ref's it's easy =o... any advices?

Going to keep the practice more and more, to be at least a little more prepared to draw faster for the chow.

Also, why the skull? what am I supposed to do with it o_o?? like, draw it for practice =O?

How are you doing raoul?? is everything ok over there?
c ya!
-DHTenshi

[Raoul Duke]

Yo diego I really can't give a good crit for these pen sketches, but I can tell you the difference between working from imagination and working from ref. When you have a photo all the decisions are made for you at that point it's like following orders. All of the angles have been set and the edges are already defined, the facts are all there. You seem to understand what these edges and angles are doing. You seem to understand the underlying structure, which means I have faith that you can improvise. That's what working from the imagination really is, it's improvising the facts.

My mind works the other way around. When I see a photo, it's like I'm reading it, looking for the cliff notes, and I find a way to relate it to my imagination and envision it's potential and envision the line and brush strokes it takes to get there, I look for shortcuts along the way.

And no you don't have to draw the ref I posted, but you will need it later.

[Raoul Duke]

I'm having a rough time with the lollipops, but this is the latest sketch

[Janos]

Uhhh... me likey like.
DH (can I call you DH?) I agree with all of your comments about foto vs. imagination. The best way to train your imagination sketches is by studying form real life though. Draw your mom, or your girlfriend, or your friends. If you observe them exactly, how their noses look, how the ear is attached to the face, you brain will automatically remember certain stuff and then later on, you might have a good idea of how to draw a certain nose which fits your character.
Raoul first of all nice ref picture. And nice sketch. I was kinda thinking though that the vector skull has a certain childish flair we could embrace? If you hate it, by all means, please continue with your sketch. Its looking awesome and the lollipops in the eyesocket idea is dope.

Nice to have a dialogue going guys. I also had an idea to see what we can come up with: I say we all try to paint 6 very characteristic faces in our own style, and than we compare a little just to see how we could mesh? I'll post mine later on in the afternoon, when I've finished repairing the leak. Btw the leaking stopped at about 3 am (center-european timezone) so had a few hours of sleep.
I also had an idea that we could base the characters that we make, regardless
if they are steampunk, heroic fantasy, sifi or whatever, on a childrens storybook eg. Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, Hensel and Gretel, an arabian fable or a childrens story from another part of the world. Just an idea!