Reaper of Fate - crits wanted

[Danny91]

Hi everyone
I am working on this piece and would like some advice on pushing it further. It is a mechanical reaper playing off the myth of the sisters of fate (scissors to cut the string of someone's life therefore ending it).

I am not sure if it is the line art or the texture (or both) that is keeping it flat. Also not sure about the background. Originally, it would was dark with light radiating from the string, but I lost the smoke so I pulled back a bit.
Any feedback would really help.

[J.R.Hollis]

I would ask myself this, does this robot look believable? Does this look like it would work? Can this really float the way its looking now? What kind of things would generate this light beam? Look at some of the famous robots in popular culture and reality (1,2,3,4), what makes them look like they work? And make sure that all the parts of the robot that are visible aren't left to interpretation, the back arms are just sort of there, and don't look like their even part of the robot.

I like the mythological reference though, so why not draw on that imagery? Because at first glance I didn't make this connection, I thought it was just some laser robot with some spikes. Perhaps make the robot take on a feminine appearance, make it a trio of robots with different jobs in a three pronged assembly line.

[Ambiguity]

I am not sure if it is the line art or the texture (or both) that is keeping it flat.

Neither in my opinion, although yes your line art could be improved to reflect the lighting, it's not bad. What's really making this flat for me is your have some very basic shapes going on here, but you aren't rendering them like they are.

Take a look at this, I only re-lit the torso, but you can already see what a difference it made:


I think you should watch this video on how lighting works(the basics of it anyway):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3WmrWUEIJo

Here's a good one to help you draw your lines with lighting in mind:
http://ctrlpaint.com/videos/the-power-of-line-weight

And if you really want to buckle down and learn, the PSG Art Tutorial is a fantastic resource on all things light:
http://androidarts.com/art_tut.htm

[Danny91]

Thanks J.R. Hollis, I see what you mean about it needing to look like it functions. My original approach was to start with basic shapes, but I didn't actually connect them properly. Although I do like the idea of the assembly line, I did not want to make robotic versions of the sisters of fate, but rather a mechanical reaper that reaps souls using the thread of life mythology.

Thank you also Ambiguity, the videos did help. Line weight is definitely something I find difficult to control.

I started again from my original design. I added detail attach the arms and the lower section and tried to keep the lighting in mind when doing the line drawing. Still working on cleaning it up and fixing the color since it feels too desaturated. Trying to keep the focal point on the head, but not sure if the glowing core is too distracting. My main issue is the thread and how it's not exactly turning out like thread. I might just go with the idea of a laser beam representing thread.