I shall try to return the critiquing favor here. I really do like the overall design, he feels like a real brute and I immediately get a sense of his function in an alien military or just a baddie in a game. Where I get stuck is just in what the drawing clarity, there are some weird areas of the muscle that I start to lose track of what it is. The main offender for me is the pectoral area, I get the sense those muscles are being drawn upwards for me, but knowing how my pectorals work, I don't know where they're going and why thy look wobbly rather than taught. I like the idea of him almost having a paunchy gut but as of right now it looks like he's being restrained by an invisible belt in the middle.
The design is really striking though and with what we were talking about before about the shortcomings of photorealism-- with this painting I get a great sense of the texture and feel of this guy just as he is now. I'd love to see other aspects of his biology explored-- like if he has a mouth I bet it'd look awesome to see him roar.
I guess on his pecs I was imagining him having a really "axe" like rib cage that comes to a arest down his chest, with muscles anchoring onto that, then going up into his fat neck area. Im sure I could half ass some biological reason for that, mabye his haunched neck/back is the powerhouse of all his upper body's muscles, but id be lying if said that. I really just wanted to stray away rom the huuuuuge pectoral muscles that i see on everything thats supposed to be be big and brutish, adn find something a little more inhuman for his chest area....
and as for his paunch, I thought that might describe where he bends when he sits down, and its left a permanent crease from folding over and over. But i guess you wouldnt know anything about that, you skinny fucker...;)
hehe, jk, but I get what you're saying. I guess i've just been looking a lot of "plus-size" lady models on the tumblr circle for reference, and now that i think on it, its a much more female oriented trait. Males tend to bend at their hips when overweight, getting that big gorilla belly, and females tend to bend at the natural waist, around the navel....so the blending of male and female traits might be causing some incongruous feelings.....
(bad image but all i could find without them covered in space armor)
I agree the belly area felt kinda odd to me but now that you mention you where ref plus-size lady models it makes more sense - i love the idea of changing up the normal "brute" character and giving more feminine qualities.
I also really dig the color study a suggestion though, maybe lighten up the outline and let the change in colors/textures define the shapes a bit more. I know these are just sketch studies but I had to really look to see the texture change as it seems to be fighting with the linework.
I shall try to return the critiquing favor here.
ReplyDeleteI really do like the overall design, he feels like a real brute and I immediately get a sense of his function in an alien military or just a baddie in a game. Where I get stuck is just in what the drawing clarity, there are some weird areas of the muscle that I start to lose track of what it is.
The main offender for me is the pectoral area, I get the sense those muscles are being drawn upwards for me, but knowing how my pectorals work, I don't know where they're going and why thy look wobbly rather than taught.
I like the idea of him almost having a paunchy gut but as of right now it looks like he's being restrained by an invisible belt in the middle.
The design is really striking though and with what we were talking about before about the shortcomings of photorealism-- with this painting I get a great sense of the texture and feel of this guy just as he is now. I'd love to see other aspects of his biology explored-- like if he has a mouth I bet it'd look awesome to see him roar.
thanks! that was all reallly spot on..
ReplyDeleteI guess on his pecs I was imagining him having a really "axe" like rib cage that comes to a arest down his chest, with muscles anchoring onto that, then going up into his fat neck area. Im sure I could half ass some biological reason for that, mabye his haunched neck/back is the powerhouse of all his upper body's muscles, but id be lying if said that. I really just wanted to stray away rom the huuuuuge pectoral muscles that i see on everything thats supposed to be be big and brutish, adn find something a little more inhuman for his chest area....
and as for his paunch, I thought that might describe where he bends when he sits down, and its left a permanent crease from folding over and over. But i guess you wouldnt know anything about that, you skinny fucker...;)
hehe, jk, but I get what you're saying. I guess i've just been looking a lot of "plus-size" lady models on the tumblr circle for reference, and now that i think on it, its a much more female oriented trait. Males tend to bend at their hips when overweight, getting that big gorilla belly, and females tend to bend at the natural waist, around the navel....so the blending of male and female traits might be causing some incongruous feelings.....
....but maybe its a girl!?
Love the design/study, it reminds me of the "krogan" from mass effect - which where my fav characters.
ReplyDeletehttp://media.photobucket.com/image/krogan%20from%20mass%20effect/Dracian/Krogan.jpg
(bad image but all i could find without them covered in space armor)
I agree the belly area felt kinda odd to me but now that you mention you where ref plus-size lady models it makes more sense - i love the idea of changing up the normal "brute" character and giving more feminine qualities.
I also really dig the color study a suggestion though, maybe lighten up the outline and let the change in colors/textures define the shapes a bit more. I know these are just sketch studies but I had to really look to see the texture change as it seems to be fighting with the linework.
all in all its awesome stuff man keep it up!