Monday, March 24, 2008

I'd love some feedback/criticism

Here's a painting that came from a weekend skuntch too, since I never post anything.

5 comments:

Ray Lederer said...

Hey Mike, I'll throw in. I'd say for starters that she looks off balance as if she's about to fall over. I think this has to do with the fact that her pose is a bit contrived. The image doesn't really give me a story. What's she doing? What is she reaching for? Also I'm guessing this is a paintover of a 3d model? Now I've seen your figure drawings and quite frankly, they're better than this. The hand feels like those contorted Poser hands where fingers get splayed awkwardly etc. I'd say if you're going to do a paintover, cover your tracks a bit better by re-drawing the extremities from scratch.

Oh man, I'm up way too late. I'll give some suggestions later if I can grab a minute or two during the day. Cheers, Ray

Ray Lederer said...

Whoops. I guess this isn't a 3d model. So, it's interesting that I thought it was. Anyway, overall it's a good piece. Hopefully, some feedback can fuel how you think about the next piece:)

Unknown said...

Great -- thanks Ray. Yeah, I was trying to give the pose a little movement, but I went too far. And I kind of felt that way about her right hand... I'll adjust it.

And yeah, the whole thing is just out of my head and from scratch, so that's why it feels a little awkward. I should probably at least get a pose model to draw from or something.

I like the story suggestion. I'll try to work on that in general. I think that's a problem with a lot of my stuff. Too much time just drawing models to draw them. I was really doing this to do a model from, so that was my main focus, but I should make sure the concepts have more guts.

Thanks man :)

Brett said...

so i don't really think i have the experience or skill to be taken seriously at this point, but ill post my opinion anyway.

i sort of think concept art should be taken as concept art and not an illustration. i guess what i mean by that is when you say youre going to go back and fix the hand, its sort of a red flag that youve gone over into that illustration frame of mind.

concept for concept's sake, you've achieved your goal... move on. if your not happy with the sketch for whatever reason (pose in this case), start another one from scratch. it gives you another opportunity to explore the character (two images are better than one), and you don't risk the image getting stale and over worked.

anyway, i really liked the painty quality around her feet, it had a nice looseness. the background felt a little non-commital, like you didn't feel like dealing with a light source.

also, i don't think i know you... where do you work and such? pleased to indirectly cyber-meet you.

Unknown said...

Hey Brett -- I'm over at Darkstar Industries... we're in the building across from Idol Minds (not sure where you are or if you know where that is). I worked with a bunch of these guys years ago at VR1/Jaleco, and just moved back from SF recently.

I definitely agree that the ideal situation is to redo from scratch... and the most fun. Unfortunately I am really trying to increase the number of finished pieces I feel good about in my portfolio, so time is somewhat of a concern. Personally I get my reward from the process, but the viewer doesn't have that benefit ;) - so I will probably do what I need to in order to get to the final quality fastest with all those factors involved.

I also think revising is really not much different than starting again. It's still an exploration process and you can still discover new things by doing it. The trick is not being scared of really doing full adjustments/rework in my opinion.

Thanks for the comments man... good note on the light-source aspect of the background. I wasn't terribly concerned about it because it was supposed to be out-of-focus and not distract from the character, but a little sense of lighting would help.