Superhero Images: Honest Critique

[Gwena Kitten]

I'm new to this forum, and though there is a great variety of message threads, there has only been one for super hero images. Unfortunately for those of us who like to improve our skills, that list has barred any critiques or suggestions for improvement. Here's the opening post from Superhero Images:

"This is not a critique thread. I'm not an artist and the images I post are simply templates with a bunch of cut and paste with some shoestring and leather attached. (8^D)
Simply put, if you like the pictures, say so, if not, mum's the word."

That being said, I'd like to start a thread where you can actually get honest feedback about your images, not just smile and nod praise. I'm looking forward to the help we can offer each other. Without input, *good and bad*, there is no way to improve on your work.

I'm not trying to encourage "flame wars," but I want realistic feedback. Make sure to include both what you specifically liked about the art, and what you didn't. And hey, if someone's foot looks like a banana, and you really don't think that was his or her intention, by all means, say so! Artists can get wrapped up and miss details like that, and most should appreciate the chance to remedy those mistakes, if not in the current piece, then in the next one.

All methods of art are welcome. I'd love to see some old favorites like line art, ink, colored pencil, and marker. I'd also love to see less conventional styles, like 3d generates, poser, watercolor, crayon : ), charcoal, paint shop, oils, airbrush, and doodles while at work or on the bus! : )

So post away! And please feel free to re-post images from the Superhero Images thread here for some honest feedback.

One last warning! This list will include criticism as well as praise. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. And don't say I didn't warn you. : )

Gwena Kitten

[Gwena Kitten]

This character is one I invented years ago as a break from a longer running character. She's cheesy and corny as h---, but that was my intention. : ) Overall, it was a nice break from my less aggressive standard character Castallia, but not a character that I would play long-term.

The art for this character is modified and stolen directly from Starsong 2002's art from soooooo long ago. Effectively, only the colors are mine. It was a quickie modification for a quickie character, so it's ripe for criticism and modification.

Oh! I should probably include some character info so that you know what I was *trying* to go for. This character has a battle suit comprised of "nano-scales" and "bio-plastics." Techno-babble aside, she's an ex-dancer that was run over by a Viper get-away truck after robbing a bank. Her admirer in school, an engineering/medical geek, made her a suit so that she could walk again, directly patching into her thought processes. How convenient, huh? : )

This suit was made very well, so that now with a few battle modifications, it can actually be used to fight crime! Or, as Glitter likes to use it, to reap vengeance on Viper. Added to the suit were monofilament streamers that extend from her wrists, ankles, and hair, when she chooses. Her favorite moves include superleap used sideways with acrobatics - see Olympic gymnasts - while doing a passing strike - martial arts - with killing attack whips extended. : ) Like I said, total cheese, and the reason why my GM banned the use of Martials with killing attacks. That and 12 DC's ::grin:: She slices, she dices, she makes Julian Viper agents! ::splat::

Here are my opinions of it:

I really like the color it came out. This really helped me to envision what periwinkle hair really looks like! : ) The highlights really show off the slightly metallic qualities of her suit. I purposely gave her a "comic book figure," and explained it two ways. One, her geeky friend is comic fan. She's sooooo glad he's not an Evangeleon fan! Two, all of the power outputs are in the only place that isn't skintight..... Two power packs, actually. Roslyn is not that well endowed. ::grin:: But they just don't jiggle the same.....

Anyway, please give me some input. I *will not* be offended by criticism, in fact, I would really like some helpful suggestions. This is not my most recent work, but most of my stuff isn't scanned in. I'll get to that soon.

Thanks again,

Gwena Kitten

[Starsong 2002]

heres a pix to attack : )

as far as the last post by Gwena kitten, i like the recolor job she did but it still is missing a few bits to make it more metallic and also there is the missing whips ?, or perhaps they were left out on purpose? in any case i cant really comment on the art itself due to the point that I did it ( grin ) but i think the recolor job gets the point across very well .!

heres a pix of Arclight Attacking , the work was done in Poser 4

[RPMiller]

Does this have to be artwork, or can we include doctored photos and whatnot?

[schir1964]

Gwena,

Thank you for noticing my intial restriction. However, after seeing that thread grow and the interaction there, I see that might have erred in that restriction I gave. So to make it so that there is just the one thread, if that's what people want. I've edited my restriction to the following:

This thread is for those who wish to share thier artwork. However, please do not critique any artwork unless the artist asks for it. Thanks.

Sorry if I strangle free discourse.

I hope this helps. (8^D)

- Christopher Mullins

[Korvar]

Originally posted by Starsong 2002
heres a pix to attack : )


Ha! Take that, picture!


heres a pix of Arclight Attacking , the work was done in Poser 4

I don't think I've seen a Poser pic yet that really satisfied me. Somehow getting that "spark of life" seems really difficult. Everything just ends up looking like a posed mannequin. Which is what it is, I suppose...

Of course, I've tried Poser myself, and I can't do it either, so who am I to judge? :)

Anyway, if I dish it out, fair do's to take it... here's one of mine, of nobody in particular...

http://www.korvar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/Pictures/albums/Artwork/Super.gif

[Redmenace]

Roselynne- Nice, very voloptuos. I think that her lower extremities,forearm and lower leg could be extended by another 10 percent. That may in fact be how she's built in which case forget what I said.

Arclight- I like the costume, very simple and elegantly to the point but I also agree that poser always looks a little too static for my tastes.

Korvar- solid super heroic pose and costume design, gotta say that I think it would look better in color, even flat color.


Let's see if I can get an attachment working here-

This is a generic superhero templat I made since 5th ed doesn't have one on it's character sheet. Too bad, I like to think that making a template into your own chr. was a big part of the fun.

[Fireg0lem]

Arclight: looks completely soulless. Don't know if that was the intent or not.

[Warp9]

So far everything I’ve seen looks good. I’ll have to think about it a while and see if I can come up with some useful comments.

I do have some comments on the Arclight picture. Of course, this is not the first time I’ve seen that image, so I’ve had longer to think about it than the other pictures.

First off, I really like the concept for Arclight. But there are a couple of suggestions for a little bit of improvement. It would be cool to see a bit more of the target he is firing at. The zig-zag pattern of the energy blast looks a little to predictable for an electric bolt (but I don’t know if that is what you were going for). And finally, it would be cool to see more detail work done on the background.

StarSong, if memory serves, you mentioned having some experience as a line artist. It would be cool if you could compare and contrast your experiences with Poser against a more traditional medium.

[Warp9]

I have been hoping for some feedback on my stuff, so I think that I’ll re-post some of it here.

I have various types of work I’ve done, but the following are some of my 3D works.

Note: everything you’ll see here is totally designed by me (people, hair, robots, landscape, etc. . .). I don’t use Poser models.

Unfortunately, I don’t think that my models are as good as Poser stuff yet, but I am learning.

Do my models have the same general feel as Poser models? (I’m too close to the matter to be objective)


<a href="attachment.php?s=&postid=81614" target="_blank">Kronos VS Combat Droid 3D</a>

<a href="attachment.php?s=&postid=82455" target="_blank">Magnum 1</a>

<a href="attachment.php?s=&postid=82817" target="_blank">Emperor Talgorth</a>

[Gwena Kitten]

To Starsong 2002:

Thanks for the input on Glitter Dancer. You're right about the whips. On my next version of her I'll be sure to include them so that I can show what they look like extended. That may make an interesting pic, especially if I do it in movement, female flash style.

About Arclight... The first striking thing that I see about him Fireg0lem put very elegantly, "Arclight: looks completely soulless." Having gamed in the same group with that character, I'm guessing that this was in fact Starsong's intention. But this is really not made clear in the picture. Perhaps you could draw a little more attention to his blank face? It looks more like omission than intention.

His costume is done very well. I really like the contrast between the black and white, and the design is clear and concise, like a billboard. : ) But the belt seems to detract from the shape. The lighting bolt is beautiful; I really like the blue white glow. But as Warp9 said, "zigzag pattern of the energy blast looks a little to predictable for an electric bolt."

My biggest suggestion for improvement would be to work on the background. I know that I am terrible about putting backgrounds into my pictures. I usually leave them out. But it's hard to tell where he is and what he is interacting with. Overall, great work! And I'm looking forward to seeing more. :)

To Durnin:

Doctored photos and other forms of art that show game characters would be great! I always like to see new ways to convey images. I'm looking forward to your posts. : )

To Korvar:

I've worked with poser a little and I've noticed the same problem you have. It *is* hard to get the characters to not look like dolls. Even with expressions - facial and body - it is hard to make them "glow" like people, drawn or photographed. I have no clue on how to fix this, but even when you look at top of the line computer animation, like in Final Fantasy, you notice that they don't have the "spark of life" either. ::shrug:: I guess you can't have everything, huh? But I think poser is a fantastic medium for "trace and reverse" basics. You can choose a pose you like, have all of the anatomy at the chosen proportions, then print it out and go from there. Very convenient.

Let me say that that is a really great piece you've posted here. I love the clean lines. It makes it easy to pick out all the details, even without the use of color. I know that those who use color regularly sometimes don't appreciate how hard it can be to make different sections and shade apparent without color. Black and white art and shaded grayscale art are very different from color in their applications and style. But I really do like it.

I especially like the way his face came out. You can still see his expression through his mask, which can be *very* hard to do. The hair also looks very natural, which is hard in any medium. The cloak is flowing in a way that I would expect it to, considering the pose he is in and the direction of his movement. I am a costumer, so I know about how fabric drapes, and you did exceptionally well on this cape. Many people forget that cloth is dynamic.

I have two possible places for improvement. One, I think his feet look a little too pointy. ::shrug:: Maybe he has pointy toed boots? Or pointy toes? ::grin:: Two, I'm not sure how, but his torso and groin are a little off. Nice abs, but the groin just doesn't quite fit. ::evil grin:: I must put a hot man in spandex and inspect to find out why...... Overall, very good comics style render. Thanks for showing it!

To Redmenace:

Thanks for the comments. I think that you're right about the lower extremities. They should be a bit longer. I was not completely happy with the cleavage on that pic. I wanted her to be larger than usual, to account of the space for the power generators, but they do not seem to match with the rest of the figure. I will try to improve on that next time.

Your male template is fabulous! I love how defined each muscle group is, so that for those stronger characters you don't have to guess where that bicep ends. : ) The head is also very well done. The facial proportions are just right. It is easy to mistake on a figure with no hair, but you did very well. I also like the very dynamic pose. Not a standard standing pose.

My only critique is not really anything that needs to be improved, just a personal preference. I think that the head is a little undersized compared to the hands and feet, but this is a standard comic trick to make a person look larger and stronger. It's all a matter of what you like. I would definitely use this for a strong male character. In fact, may I use this as a template? I don't want to take without asking. Thank you.

To Warp9:

You made all of these figures yourself?!? Fantastic work! They are very original and complete. I guess the best way to learn is to jump right in. I have yet to make a poser model, only to make and modify textures, and combine figures together for different looks. Congratulations on those figures. That takes some true talent!

I think that your figures are along the same theme as poser models, but they do look very different. I think they look original and unique in a good way. I think that your style is in some ways superior to poser models. Your bots and aliens are exceptional. Kronos I think could use some work, though. Perhaps it is a bad shot of their face, but they look a little blocky. Also, from this angle, and with the restricted size of the picture, it is hard to tell if Kronos is male or female.

I highlights you have achieved are fantastic. I really like the blue black on Kronos' costume, and the bright silver on the combat droid and Magnum 1. The alien textures might benefit from a little work. Perhaps increase the resolution of the picture you are stretching over the figure? The large alien looks too pixilated, except for the tongue, which looks exceptionally glossy and wet. Great job on that. Reflections and wet-looks are very hard to get right, at least for me. The street background looks great as far as the wall and sign are concerned, but the sidewalk could use some smoothing. It looks a little too bumpy. Overall Fantastic work, and a great representation of what you can create with these programs.

Thanks to all for posting art, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of your great work. Also, when you get the chance, please rate the thread. And be honest. Thanks,

Gwena Kitten

[Korvar]

Originally posted by Redmenace
Korvar- solid super heroic pose and costume design, gotta say that I think it would look better in color, even flat color.

Yeah, I keep meaning to get around to that :)


This is a generic superhero templat I made since 5th ed doesn't have one on it's character sheet. Too bad, I like to think that making a template into your own chr. was a big part of the fun.

I like it! Although he does look like he's missing his nose :) Is that deliberate?

[Gwena Kitten]

Here is the character that I am currently playing. I have a version colored with pencils that I will put up soon, probably on Friday.

She's a mentalist, but a very secretive one. She has told very few people about her innate powers, since in the campaign world she is in mentalism is looked at as the second worst and most feared set of powers, right after shape shifters. Nobody, agencies, heroes, villains, government, no one likes mentalists. So, she masquerades as a gadgeteer.

Pictured is her utility belt with stun gun - NND electrical energy blast, defense is force field or armor that is not a part of the character (body armor, not hardened skin)- and bolos - entangles. Not pictured is her backpack with everything in it from smoke bombs to superglue, med kit to fishing twine, and of course, duct tape! You can never have too much of that. : )

My only "true hero," she is very hard to play with her no tolerance for any killing policy. All of my other heroes have been "dark heroes." Anyway, here she is, let me know what you think. Oh, and thanks to Pat for scanning her in for me. I really appreciate that. : )

Gwena Kitten

[Warp9]

Originally posted by Gwena Kitten
Here is the character that I am currently playing. I have a version colored with pencils that I will put up soon, probably on Friday.

She's a mentalist, but a very secretive one. She has told very few people about her innate powers, since in the campaign world she is in mentalism is looked at as the second worst and most feared set of powers, right after shape shifters. Nobody, agencies, heroes, villains, government, no one likes mentalists. So, she masquerades as a gadgeteer.



Great job on the mentallist character. I like the pose, I like the detail on the belt and the bracelets. If there is anything at all which I could recommend to improve it, it might be nice to see just a little more detail in the neck area. Overall an awesome picture.

And thank you for the very articulate feedback. And I am especially pleased with the feedback on the Kronos scene because I am thinking about redoing it.

[Nucleon]

Equity has a great pose; maybe her legs are a little bit short for the genre, but that both refreshing and more real, so this is more an observation than actual fault.

You do have talent for picturing what seems happy women; they look easy to approach. It this intentional in both cases I saw?

They have quite simple costumes too. Overall they're great, and you must be an appreciated member of your playing group. I will wait for more.

[Nucleon]

Kronos; I love the costume, with baggy pants and sleeves, its got a 70's spirit Nucleon is known to like. The colours for it are great too, with the starclad elements and all. On the other hand, the face lacks in clarity and expression, and the hair colour strikes me a dull or dirty; maybe white would have been better for the hair.

Magnum; I didn't like this one; Too toy-like and sterile, it seems to lack personnality. The proportions also striked me as odd. Maybe it's Poser program style, and Magnum would look better in a hand drawing.

The Emperor; A cool character, really. The tongue is a good point, but the head's feature lacks in definition (Poser trait, again maybe). The eye could also stand out more, maybe with a smaller pupil so we could see the small, reddish nerves around it.

Great work, Warp9.

[Nucleon]

Well, it is exellent, very professional work. Althought irrealist, the proportions have that superheroic feel. Simple yet impressive.

Making template is kinda hard; I have made some 12-15 such templates for such an usage, and have discovered that the simplest ones -both in details and pose- are the most appreciated. Yours looks great for a brick, but a bit less for, say, a martial artist.

[lemming]

I'd like to get some comments on this picture. I revisited it recently. It was an old pen & ink drawing that I did 10+ years ago, scanned in and cleaned up.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=80707">

[Redmenace]

Originally posted by Gwena Kitten
To Starsong 2002:

To Redmenace:

Thanks for the comments. I think that you're right about the lower extremities. They should be a bit longer. I was not completely happy with the cleavage on that pic. I wanted her to be larger than usual, to account of the space for the power generators, but they do not seem to match with the rest of the figure. I will try to improve on that next time.
Gwena Kitten

Good luck I think you're work is pretty strong.




Your male template is fabulous! I love how defined each muscle group is, so that for those stronger characters you don't have to guess where that bicep ends. : ) The head is also very well done. The facial proportions are just right. It is easy to mistake on a figure with no hair, but you did very well. I also like the very dynamic pose. Not a standard standing pose.
Gwena Kitten

Thank you, I wanted make a build that was somewhere in between the Martial Artist and the Brick in Heromachine online generator. As to the pose it may have been a mistake. The original templates on hero chr sheets had anyone who wasn't flying just standing there. At the time I thought that was all wrong for a superhero game, but then I forget how hard it can be to judge and draw the lines of a costume in perspective.

Several of my players have commented that the angle makes it hard to draw a costume onto it so maybe I'll make some versions with dotted lines for boots, masks, gloves etc.



My only critique is not really anything that needs to be improved, just a personal preference. I think that the head is a little undersized compared to the hands and feet, but this is a standard comic trick to make a person look larger and stronger. It's all a matter of what you like. I would definitely use this for a strong male character. In fact, may I use this as a template? I don't want to take without asking. Thank you.

Gwena Kitten

The proportions are as you say altered, on purpose, to give it a bit more "larger than Life" super humanity to it and a template for any other genre would be more accurate and probably have some clothes. When I get done with a full set of templates there will be mostly exagerated super types, a very mundane human build and something a bit inbetween.

As to using it, thanks for asking and yes please use it, alter it etc. The way I figure it is that once it's on the web it stopped being mine. Thans also for starting the thread.

RE your mentalist looks great may I use her?



Originally posted by Korvar


quote:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a generic superhero templat I made since 5th ed doesn't have one on it's character sheet. Too bad, I like to think that making a template into your own chr. was a big part of the fun.
------------------------------------------------------------------------


I like it! Although he does look like he's missing his nose Is that deliberate?


As with the stance it was meant to be a "blank slate" template where one of my players could draw in pencil his costume then I'd ink it and apply color and background. Currently we are in a WW2 campain whose background would be to dated for the far more common modern background we'd normally want. Also the original templates on the chr sheets were simple figures sans background but I see that with that pose I should put in a rock or debris or something. Thanks, good advice and not the sort of generic bland kind one gets on the other art topic category.

The nose is left subtle so that it could be drawn out, or for that matter drawn in, easily. Several of the PCs have that kind of half face mask and I was hoping to save time by just customising three templates rather than making three different drawings.


TO WARP 9-

Kronos VS Combat Droid 3D
Now this I loved, the heri looked like an interesting one, certainly the costume was and the combot droid was just great. As happens with cgi the background is a little too clean to look quite urban enough, unless it takes place in Canada, though with a strong fore ground image that isn't too imprtant.

If you have access to Photoshop or some similar program try selectin the background then applying a bit of noise from the filters menu. Experiment with different intensities and I think your stuff will gain an added reality.


Magnum 1
Nice enough design, contrast with background done well, pose is static but owing to the mechanical nature of the subject has an enhancing quality. My only real thought is that when you can't make out a clear face it can add life to pose the figure in mid activity otherwise it can look like an empty suit of armor standing there.

Emperor Talgorth
Love the subject matter, love the design but I think you need to change some of the color or lighting of either back or fore ground to get the figures to pop out a bit more. Keep posting if you have more. That goes to everyone whos interested as well.

[Nucleon]

A good pose, and a costume that projects a feel of might with his straight lines and, err, conservatism.

The legs however lacks a knee, as well as some lenght that would enhance the dynamics of the pose. There is much action around the right hand, and that tends to add confusion to the drawing. Maybe that's the way the character is, but I would personally give him more chin, too.

[Nucleon]

Well, I kinda like this one more than the precedant critics have. He does looks cold and sterile, but it fits nicely with the characters' overall feel. The bolt is splendid, as is the costume's simplicity (yep, maybe the belt would gain by being re-designed). By now I have a good feel about what Poser can and cannot do.

Great, just great.

[Nucleon]

Flashy stuff, this is more about colour than details, but its got a style that's reminescent of some 80's modern artwork. Great colour patterns. The face is kinda cute, with pronounced eyebrows. The lady's overall shape maybe could benefit from some trimming, but chubbier girls can be quite seductive too.

Ah yes; the background is interesting...

[Blue]

Pretty darn good virtual foxbat! I swear I will *never* properly master Poser, so for now I stick to the paper & pen or photoshop-style artwork. I'm always impressed with what people can do in Poser.

I also liked Arclight. There's something I've appreciated (ever since the Miller/Sienkaweicz days of Marvel) about figures that have pitch-black, unshaded, unhighlighted sections of their uniform and then the traditional shaded parts. It's a great duality of style.

I'm checking my comptuer now to see if I have anything I want to offer up for critique...

Looks like I have one. The only copy I have on hand is shrunk for the web. It's a combination of something I drew by hand (left), some poser (right), and some corel photopaint compositing (the math & the glow).

This is Audra Blue, "cybernaut" and her virtual form.
<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113159">

[Nucleon]

First thought; Wow.

I know the following suggestion makes out for a more in-genre character than the most realife you made, but here they are:

The trunk could be shorter, and the right leg meatier. It lacks overall musculation details, but the expression is well made for the medium's limited capacities in this departement.

And again; Wow.

[lemming]

Originally posted by Blue
It's a combination of something I drew by hand (left), some poser (right), and some corel photopaint compositing (the math & the glow).

This is Audra Blue, "cybernaut" and her virtual form.
I like the mixed medium. It gives a good feel for the character and you blended them very well.
I'm not quite thrilled with how the shadow is crossing the right side of her face. I feel it breaks up the nose and mouth too much. That's the only critical aspect and that would be minor.

[Nucleon]

My, superb image composition, which incorporate many medias.

Maybe it would be a good idea to further put both personnae further in their respective part of the image so the unity/duality of the character would strike more to the looker's eye. This is a picture that can only get better with time.

(Eerr, you don't happen to have the looker's e-mail adress, do you?)

[Blue]

Originally posted by lemming
I like the mixed medium. It gives a good feel for the character and you blended them very well.
I'm not quite thrilled with how the shadow is crossing the right side of her face. I feel it breaks up the nose and mouth too much. That's the only critical aspect and that would be minor. Thanks!
Ya know, I understand what you mean. I think when I drew that picture (before I put all these parts together) I was trying to do some Kirby-esque shading. It's a style I dropped because I never got it to look right (as you can see) and I went back to the way *I* do things, which is just more improvised and hap-hazard.

Here's a touch-up that removes some of the facial details. The nose still isn't right, but this copy of the pic is too small bother working on extensively.
<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113170">

[Vanguard]

Originally posted by Nucleon
Equity has a great pose; maybe her legs are a little bit short for the genre, but that both refreshing and more real, so this is more an observation than actual fault.

You do have talent for picturing what seems happy women; they look easy to approach. It this intentional in both cases I saw?

They have quite simple costumes too. Overall they're great, and you must be an appreciated member of your playing group. I will wait for more.

Nucleon,

You have no idea how wrong and far off your above comment about "picturing happy women" is from the truth. I, for one, have gamed with this child and while her character's may "seem" to be easy to approach, they are anything but.

Her character's are contrary and only seem to exist within the game group to cause dissention among the players. I think I have a pretty good basis for forming this opinion since I have played with her in several games previously.

About the only reason she would be considered an "appreciated" member of her group is because she's the GM's SO.

[Vanguard]

Originally posted by Starsong 2002
i used to hang out on superhero images thread, but realized that there was a restiction on saying what you thought about the art work, im not going to name name names but i think the person out there will know who he is. i posted a comment about his art and the guy got angry , ( i know him in RL ) i did not make that bad of comments ( hell i even stated that it wasnt a Flame ) but he still got mad .... ( sigh ) as i was sitting there getting angry my SO decided to do something about it , she logged on and started a thread, so that without anger or danger of getting banned ( or having your posts deleated, you could say what you wanted about the Art..


Starsong,
You did make a bad comment. That whole forum went some 20 odd posts with no real bad comments about anyone's art. Mainly due to the posting rules posted by the creator of the forum. It wasn't the fact that the person in question got upset about Critique, it's the fact that there was a critque done when there had been NO other's done in the entire thread AND you didn't stop and do it to anyone else's art -- just his.

The other forum was one that was designed for people to post art and I assume (yes, I know what that does) to snag art work to use for their own character's. It wasn't designed as a "Art Critique" because it was not and still is not, needed. This a super hero board not a place were people sit sipping wine and making snooty comments about other peoples work.



a lot of people out there make art for champions we are not pros but some of us are not half bad eather, being a graphic arts sorta guy i drew a LOT for my game that i ran i did pix of peoples charcters and drew my own as well... i got feedback good , and bad ( i did some really crappy art in my days ) but found on this ONE thread ... you could not give bad comments about other peoples art , and i did it anyway ( i didnt read the first post ) and then after i found out about offending the person, i decided i wouldnt post anymore... period.

So, basically, what you're saying here is that because you're not allowed to criqiue and make comments (unless there good) about something, you're not going to post at all?



but Gwena Kitten decided that that wasnt going to happen so she created this thread, let the guys who dont want to improve stay on a stagnate "smile and nod" thread where they can recive praise and not helpful advice and let the real artists ( or just the guys who try really hard.

That sounds just like something "Gwena Kitten" would do and say to make herself feel important. That thread, that you both seem to think is evil incarnate, was doing, and is doing, fine without any of your input. And if you would pay attention you would notice that when/if at post was made that asked for a "critique" it got one. And that wasn't your intention on posting what you did. If so, you would have posted a lot more then you did and not just stopped at that one critique.

I think you have a personal vendetta against this guy and you should probably just let it go and move on with your life.

[Warp9]

Thanks for all the great feedback!

I’m not satisfied with my “Kronos VS Combat Droid scene,” for a number of reasons.

One of the biggest reasons is that I don’t think that I did as good a job as I could have in translating my original concept of Kronos.

Before making a model, I always sketch out the subject in pencil first. I used the pencil sketch to guide the modeling process. But, after the model was made, I scanned in my original sketch and then colorized it. After looking at the colorized version of my sketch, I was even less happy with my 3D version.

This image will hopefully give everyone a good idea about what I was trying to do with Kronos. And it will also serve as an example of my work in a different medium. There might also be some useful observations relating to the differences in the way I do work in different mediums.

Note: in the colorization process of my sketch, I made a few different choices about hair and skin color than I did in the 3D model.

<img src="attachment.php?s=&postid=87807" target="_blank">Kronos Sketch (colorized)</img>

I have already been given a number of useful suggestions. And any more good advice on making the next Kronos model look more like my sketch will be helpful.

[Denid]

Originally posted by Starsong 2002
[B]i used to hang out on superhero images thread, but realized that there was a restiction on saying what you thought about the art work, im not going to name name names but i think the person out there will know who he is. i posted a comment about his art and the guy got angry , ( i know him in RL ) i did not make that bad of comments ( hell i even stated that it wasnt a Flame ) but he still got mad .... ( sigh ) as i was sitting there getting angry my SO decided to do something about it , she logged on and started a thread, so that without anger or danger of getting banned ( or having your posts deleated, you could say what you wanted about the Art..


Wow Starsong, nice Passive/Agressive Personal Attack! Even better a nice, long, post for me to disect. First off, other than the attack, what was the point of that first paragraph? Oh, wait, other than the attack there wasn't one. Now we know that you have some kind of grudge against the guy you're attacking, otherwise why say you know him IRL when you're also posting that you said not-so-nice things about his images. We're also pretty sure you have a temper as, well, you posted you were getting angry over something that was your own fault (the other guy reacting to your unwanted criticisms). Hmm not a good thing, not at all. Let's look at the rest of your little rant shall we?



a lot of people out there make art for champions we are not pros but some of us are not half bad eather, being a graphic arts sorta guy i drew a LOT for my game that i ran i did pix of peoples charcters and drew my own as well... i got feedback good , and bad ( i did some really crappy art in my days ) but found on this ONE thread ... you could not give bad comments about other peoples art , and i did it anyway ( i didnt read the first post ) and then after i found out about offending the person, i decided i wouldnt post anymore... period.


First off, and lets be frank here, unless you're a professional Art Critic you really have no right to say unflattering things about someone else's work. Why not? Because for you (you in a generic sense, not *YOU* specifically) it's an opinion only, and we all know what they say about opinions. Also since your opinion is based purely on your personal experiences it may well be worthless to someone else. An example here would be you as a graphic artist critiquing someone who has spent their life painting landscapes. Next you say that after you found out about offending the person you decided never to post again. Hmm... I'd say since you knew this person you more than likely knew what offending them would do, so rather than call you a liar I'll give you the bennefit of the doubt and say that in a fit of pique you decided to take the more childish route and 'never ever post ever again!' Mind you, I don't know you actually said that, but that is how your post sounds...



but Gwena Kitten decided that that wasnt going to happen so she created this thread, let the guys who dont want to improve stay on a stagnate "smile and nod" thread where they can recive praise and not helpful advice and let the real artists ( or just the guys who try really hard.


Ah, so *SHE'S* the Professional Art Critic! Or maybe not. So let's see... Out of the goodness of GK's heart (I'm guessing from previous post material GK is your S/O) a "real" critique thread is created. So by this you mean you can say nasty things about someone else's work if you like without getting banned? Is that about right? Sure, you can *SAY* you're giving advice, but advice is similar to opinion. Just because something looks good or bad to you does not make you the benchmark. The same goes for anybody else really.

In conclusion I'd like to point out that this whole thing is about an RPG. This particular section is about the Images people create for the RPG. It is not about Art, there is no Superhero Art section. It's also not about speaking ill of someone else's work. This should be a positive place, not a place where you can air your personal vendettas against someone else. That's what IRC is for.

[lemming]

Hmm, while I like the feedback portion on this thread, there seems to be a bit of personality clashing.
And being that schir1964 did modify his restrictions, I may wind up giving this thread the hook.

Ok: Why I think this thread is a worthwhile addition:
Works in progress can get feedback and then tweaked. Maybe once in final form, over to the original SuperHero Images thread.

nucleon: Thanks for the comments. As soon as I clear out some RL projects, back to doing some art.

[Warp9]

I really like this thread.

I did get some really good feed back on the other character art thread. But I didn't get as much feedback as I would've liked (giving/getting feedback was not really the focus of the other thread).

Here I've gotten more feedback, which is what I was looking for.

[Blue]

I hope everyone has settled down now and we can get back to the business of ripping each other's art to shreds, not ripping each other to shreds ;)

[Jeff T.]

Originally posted by Starsong 2002
ibut Gwena Kitten decided that that wasnt going to happen so she created this thread, let the guys who dont want to improve stay on a stagnate "smile and nod" thread where they can recive praise and not helpful advice and let the real artists ( or just the guys who try really hard.


Soapbox or not, that was unnecessary and spiteful. Perhaps the harshness in this statement of yours was unintended, but you essentially placed judgement on a large group of people.

[hex706f726368]

This whole intent of this thread is an attack from self-percieved moral high ground. A moderator needs to close it and send a stern message that personal issues should be kept off the boards.

edit: if this were radio, "long time troll, first time poster"

[Tim]

Originally posted by Starsong 2002

" you called me a WHAT !!!!! " as i cringe!! :: GRIN !

anyway heres good old Freddy Foswell hamming it up !

Is he wearing pants? If so, you might want to make the color on his legs darker, as it now is almost the same as his skin tone.

(Color sight is about all I have without glasses, so I always look for cantrast in pictures.)

[lemming]

Originally posted by Blue
I hope everyone has settled down now and we can get back to the business of ripping each other's art to shreds, not ripping each other to shreds ;)
Well allrighty then.
Here's a picture of probably my most played character, Ice Pirate. She was made originally for a game I didn't think was going to last more than one or two sessions. Well, it made it 4 or 5, and I wound up playing her at cons, etc... For some odd reason, she wouldn't get rejected while characters half her points and less effective would be rejected for being too gross.
Anyway, here are some thoughts on what I'll be doing to change her picture.

Gettiung rid of the high heels. or at least that extreme. Just because she has a high dex...
Adding equipment pouches, etc...
I'll probably stick with the color scheme.

[lemming]

Technical issues, please stand by. :)
<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113372">

[Redmenace]

Originally posted by Nucleon
Well, it is exellent, very professional work. Althought irrealist, the proportions have that superheroic feel. Simple yet impressive.

Making template is kinda hard; I have made some 12-15 such templates for such an usage, and have discovered that the simplest ones -both in details and pose- are the most appreciated. Yours looks great for a brick, but a bit less for, say, a martial artist.

Thank you. I suspect you are right about about the simpler a template the better particularly when you consider the scope of characters who populate super heroic comics. Are you planning on posting any of yoyr templates?

Here are a few more I've done:

[Redmenace]

And another

[Redmenace]

yet another

[Warp9]

Here is the a new version of the Combat Droid which I’ve been working on. . . . I'm probably going to use it when I redo the Kronos scene.

Do you like it better or worse than the old version of the Droid?

Note: I haven’t yet worked all the good suggestions about the background into the new image, but I will make background changes soon.

[Enforcer84]

Wow. Virulent.


Well, inspite of the anger being bandied back and forth and the Percieved smugness of the thread's purpose...

Redmenace, those Templates are looking good. I liked the Fem3 especailly, I was looking for a good "strong" pose for a She-hulk type brick-ette and that one looks like a winner.

Good job.

[Redmenace]

Originally posted by Warp9
Here is the a new version of the Combat Droid which I’ve been working on. . . . I'm probably going to use it when I redo the Kronos scene.

Do you like it better or worse than the old version of the Droid?

Note: I haven’t yet worked all the good suggestions about the background into the new image, but I will make background changes soon.

They both very good and capture a comic feel very well. I was thinking that the firdt pic had a greater ratio of light to dark on the droid but maybe it was the angle. Too close to call.

When you do the scene over all those radial attachments and arms would look great foreshortned and in full 3d, kind of like a big spider. Looking forward to the post.


Originally posted by Enforcer84
Wow. Virulent.


Well, inspite of the anger being bandied back and forth and the Percieved smugness of the thread's purpose...

Redmenace, those Templates are looking good. I liked the Fem3 especailly, I was looking for a good "strong" pose for a She-hulk type brick-ette and that one looks like a winner.

Good job.

Glad I could be of service and thanks.

[Nucleon]

Originally posted by Redmenace
Are you planning on posting any of yoyr templates?

Mmh. Indeed Nucleon has a a musty pile of sketches that range from quickdraws to acceptable art (if somewhat style-less) somewhere in His alternate Universe. As soon as He has enough starfunds, He plans to buy a scanner and will be touching them up with Photoshop or a likewise program. He will then saturate the boards with His art for all Mortals to see.

Promise!

*sinister laughter*

[PS] Oh, and very, very nice female templates too, Redmenace. It won't surprise me if I were to see them again in my players' hands. I will inssure that your moniker stays on those.

[Starsong 2002]

ill keep this short and simple

i have deleated my rant it wa uncalled for and unhelpful
and WAY out of context of the thread, im sorry i ever posted that one,

this is a open apology to ALL of you who had to read this ( my post ) it WILL not happen again. if it does then you all have my permission to beat me !!!

im not going to respond to Vangaurd or anyone else over this. im going to let it go.. i hope that vangaurd deleats his rant as well.

once again im sorry i said anything. but hey we all make errors . and boy did i make a big one... :(

[Killer Shrike]

Ok, Ill play your little game ;)

Here is a pic I made for a player's PC, who I ended up not inviting into the group after all.

I took a "Grey Ghost" pic from the DCU and modified him slightly in the details, and then spliced in the cityscape background.

Not very original, but it fit the character in my mind, and didnt need any tweaking.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113496">

[Killer Shrike]

Here is a character I drew from the ground up in Photoshop. I called him Arkelos and only realized after the fact that it was a subconcious connection somewhere in my head (to the Arkelos the Mage of Hero System Example fame), and figured "Why not"

Being done from scratch without a graphics tablet, he took more time than I care to spend on this sort of thing, but in the end I think he came out ok.

I was going for a DCU style at the time, and he ended up being a little more anime-ish than I usually go.

My one problem with him as an artist, which really bugs me, is that his eyes are too far apart, because of the head piece. Once I realized it, I was already tired of doing the picture and didnt feel like fixing it :(

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113498">

[Killer Shrike]

I drew this one up off of a DCU Template in Photoshop. I adjusted the shoulders and drew the face. The player of the character was with me when I blocked the drawing out and he kept changing his mind as to what he wanted, so the model went through several redesigns.

Ive always had a problem doing the simplified cartoony faces, as my background was more in life modeling, and Im not 100 percent happy with the way his face turned out.

Also, the character is a FF based super, and when I added the effect for his FF, it caused his edges to get pixelated by fading out half tones. It also obscured the details of the uniform/costume, the sculpting of the muscles, and the motif (which is an ivory ROOK/Castle running down his torso and bifurcating the legs all the way to the toes).

I like the general framing of the pic, but if I were to do the character again I think Id opt for more of an action pose.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113505">

[Killer Shrike]

This character was fun to draw, and challenging.

for the kid I simply lifted Robin from the DCU in his Secret ID, played with the color slightly and threw the Bugs R Kewl logo on his chest. Its a perfect representation of the kid, so why not?

The bug was trickier. I ended up taking a pencil sketch of an Umberhulk by Lockwood, flipping it, and then using that as a baseline, working up from the frame in several passes; the legs, the torso, the head, and the detail work. Playing around with transition layers and masking, I got the mottled look I wanted for his chitinous hide, and was all around happy with it. I was still going for a psuedo-DCU at this time, so I went with simple geometrics for the detailing and avoided internal sketchlines.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113508">

[Killer Shrike]

This was my own PC for a stretch. I had originally stumbled across a kick-ass toy mod somebody did of nightwing, and I was using that for the graphic, but the uniform color was wrong, and the proportions werent heroic enough. As an experiment I took the head from model, which captured the character perfectly, and spliced it onto a DCU body, building up the shoulders to "fit" the head. Then I threw on the stripe and darkened in some sculpting for his muscles.

For the background, I wanted something subtle and not distracting, so I played around with some textures and ended up with a speckled effect.

Im fond of the outcome, but my main problem with the pic is all the other characters done in the DCU style have drawn heads, whereas his obviously is not, so the pic "doesnt fit in". I might do a secondary version of it, with a drawn face.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113509">

[Killer Shrike]

Not really an drawing, but I like the end result:

This is another toy of some DC character Im not familiar with.

The toy was incredibly detailed, but had obvious articulation, particularly at the hips, with a wide gap btwn the leg and the hip. It also had some funky mismatched sunglasses.

To fix it, I went in and masked over the joints and fixed the sunglasses to be uniformly shaped on both lenses.



<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113510">

[Killer Shrike]

This one is another light mod. I took it almost exactly from some DCU character Ive never actually seen before.

To suit it to the PC, I masked over the chest motif, replaced it with a new one, and changed the color scheme. I also removed the lower part of the face mask and drew in some facial features.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113511">

[Killer Shrike]

Another light mod from the DCU. I took a picture of a character I think is called Steel, and changed the helmet around, added a shield, covered over the brooch with a new one, and made everything green.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113512">

[Killer Shrike]

I took a picture I found of a Sentinel, cropped out the extraneous background, tweaked the colors, added some flare effects, and done.

The main problem with this pic is that the original was so small and at so low of res that I couldnt get it to upsize enough without getting grainy.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113513">

[Killer Shrike]

This is yet another Toy, this time of a Terran Marine from Starcraft. This one was actually kind of tricky bcs I took if from a scan of the actual toy packaging which I found on the internet, so it had advertising and sales crap all around it. It turned out to be fairly tricky to get rid of it all. As it was, a small part of the rifle barrel had to get clipped, but i tried to doctor it as well as possible.

With the addition of some effects, the "Major Savage" name tag, and an interesting bg, I think this one turned out pretty cool.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113514">

[Killer Shrike]

Here are the images from the running Enforcers Inc thread.

I decided that I wanted to go with a DCU style for the characters where possible, mainly because its much faster for me to draw/modify and I dont have a ton of time to spend on these characters.


First up is da Boss, The Machine. This character is trying to start a business, and started off originally as a street level character in a gritty darker campaign without all the costumes and whatnot. People just wore street clothes. The original version of the character was a street fighter and a pit fighter as well as a paid ass beater for the mob.

So I wanted to maintain the "not a cape-wearing sissy" feel when I did this drawing. I wanted him to look like some guy in a shirt, jeans, and street shoes, and no mask. None of the usual trappings of a "super villain".

So, I took a DCU of Aquaman as the base, and drew The Machine over that on a new layer to get the framing. Then I added the colors and threw in the bg as a backdrop.

Simple. The character is a fairly impressive ass beater, and should the PCs ever encounter him I would want them to immediately discount him because "he's just some guy in jeans". :) The ensuing shock and dismay if it came to fisticuffs would be quite amusing :D

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113516">

[Killer Shrike]

Next up is Bronto. This guy needed to be freakishly brickafied. He's another street fighter character upgraded to fit in a CU game, but in his case I could totally see him in a costume. He's a 'go with what everyone else is doing' kind of guy, so in a world of cape and spandex types he'd wear one too.

To do him I found a pic of some hippo-looking DCU character in a Green Lantern outfit. Im not a DC fan, so I dont know what the deal is with that, but the body type was absolutely perfect for what I was looking for.

I trimmed off the goofy hippo ears, drew in some human ears, and fixed the face to have more human features, then added in the permanent 5-o-clock shadow. The costume was a straight shot as well. I masked out the GL symbol, covered over the ring, and built up the "B" motif. Faded out green in favor of grey, touched up a few details here and there, and voila.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113520">

[Killer Shrike]

In the original campaign Jackhammer was a total ass, professional wrestler mentality character. Total thug brick. He was always a big striker; his main schtick was being a major puncher. Very overbearing, aggressive, posturing character, with a huge physical presense. He wore black suits in the original game, and a tight black spandex body suit when fighting. He also had a habit of reffering to himself in the 3rd person. "Jackhammer this" and "Jackhammer that". The funny thing is the original campaign was years ago, long before "The Rock" , who reminds me of Jackhammer in a lot of ways.

As it happened I got lucky and found a version of Superman from the DCU kitted out in a psuedo-SS outfit, complete with a high collar, jackboots, and gloves. That was perfect for JH, so I went with the simple black uniform with only a huge "J" across the torso. I modified the head a little, giving him a haircut and a beard, and widening the face a tad.

That just summed the character up perfectly for me, so I didnt feel the need to enhance it further. :)


<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113522">

[Killer Shrike]

Next up was Unger.

Unger came from a completely different campaign that the other 3 Enforcers. He was a "Mr Johnson" and all around fixer from a Cyberpunk/Paranormal campaign I ran not too long ago.

I basically just went down the character paying for all the equipment he had that I wanted him to keep in the CU (it cost money in the previous campaign), and tweaked his Perks to better fit the new BG i outfitted him with.

I didnt want to change his look however. I wanted him to be another "some guy in normal clothes" villain for the surprise factor, and bcs in context he does business with people; a spandex suit would not be conducive to that.

He wore a trenchcoat over a otr suit & tie in the old campaign, and again I lucked out and found some DCU character similarly attired, but with no face. Score.

This was the easiest fit yet; I simply added a face and some sunglasses to the pic and was done.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113523">

[Killer Shrike]

The next character I made for the Enforcers I did from scratch.

I wanted to try out the new AoE rules in Digital Hero 10 by Dave Mattingly, so I made a character to do so.

For his outfit, I wanted to capture a pulpish feel bcs the characters background and concept had some pulp science, "rocketman" like elements to it.

So I went looking through te DCU again and found a character called The Sandman who looked pulpish to me and was even the right body type for the character. However, he was wearing a gasmask and that wouldnt do. Then I noticed some character called Firefly, who was pretty retarded looking IMO, but had a cool old-school metal mask. Perfect.

The only problem was it was too small. Apparantly the Firefly has a shrunken head or something.

So, I basically built the image up by taking Sandmans body and changing the color scheme and getting rid of his gun belts, and then skewing Firefly's head to fit, and drawing over to of that the hide the stretch marks and make the head fit the body.

I actually really like this image, as it just feels Pulpy to me and really seems to fit the character. Since I didnt have a preconceived notion of the character (because I made him new for this purpose), the picture took some extra time to piece together as I looked for a good fit, but once I found the elements I wanted it went together like clockwork.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113525">

[Killer Shrike]

Next up was Wu.

Wu is a character, villain to be exact, that earned a place on the most hated list for the current group of PCs in the current campaign. He's a fairly bad ass Martial Artist who really schooled the PCs in the first couple of sessions of the campaign.

For a costume he wears racing leathers and a motorcycle helmet, and rides around on fast rice burner motorcycles.

To get the look down, I took a X-Men-The-Movie Cyclops from the DCU and modded the leathers slightly, disguising the "X" effect. Then I spliced in a Motorcycle helmet I found on the Internet.

I then managed to accidentally crop the image at some point, trimming off the top of the head and didnt notice until I had already closed Photoshop (thus canking the History).

Thatll teach me to do these things at 4 in the morning :(

Other than the "YOU EEEEEDIOT!!!!!" cropping fiasco, Im relatively happy with the pic.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113528">

[Killer Shrike]

Next up, somebody was asking for a "Feels No Pain" character on another thread, and I reffered them over to The Machine, who of course is an 800 pt gorilla and not suitable as a PC. The guy made a comment to that effect, which inspired me to make a toned down version the Machine at 350 points. Never one to waste a character writeup, I made the new character, Tenacious, The Machine's illegitimate son from before his recent 13 year stint in Stronghold.

So, I had this character that I wanted to look like his dad. He's also not an active super, he's just an over-developed 16 year old kid possibly about to embark on a career as a hero.

Thus for his image I took The Machine, flipped it horizontally, and changed him around a bit. I took the sleeves off the shirt and made the shirt much tighter, showing off his ripped physique (I imagine most 16 year olds with body-builder like muscles thanks to a powered heritage would opt to flaunt it). I added a hole to his jeans, and put boots on him. For his face I changed his hair style to a buzz-cut, and removed some of the personality lines, and thinned the jawline a little bit; finally I nudged the cheekbones just a little, and then resized the image to 95% width to make him almost imperceptibly a little narrower. Unfortunately, this made the picture a little blurry. :(

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113531">

[Killer Shrike]

As a comparison:

<table border=0><tr><td><img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113516"></td><td><img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113531"></td></tr></table>

[Killer Shrike]

Here is a character I did yesterday.

So I had this strecther character and needed a pic. The pain in the rear thing with stretchers is that they are hard to find templates for, and they are hard to draw.

So I ended up drawing one from scratch in Photoshop. This of course took 4 to 5 hours, which is way way too long for me to spend, but once I started I couldnt not finish it.

Im overall happy with the effect, but in the final glossing I think I made him a little too dark; its hard to make out the details on his back arm and his head.

I also think I should have relaxed his collarbone and allowed more deformation/bending. Thats the hard part of stretchers for me; I have a difficult time letting go of normal anatomy when I draw them.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113535">

[Killer Shrike]

Another one I did early this morning/last night.

A straightforward speedster, I wanted a small, compact, but kinetic looking model.

I decided that I wanted to go for a caution-tape look for the character early on, and even though the bg diverged from the original conception I decided to follow thru with the yellow and black design.

So digging through the DCU I found a take on Red Robin from Kingdom Come. I thought that was most cool bcs while I dont read DC comics, I do like Alex Ross and bought KC years ago when it came out. I like the look of the pic, so I decided to use that.

First off the cape had to go, and the batman-esque glove flares. Next up was the robin symbol and I needed to disguise the bat-belt, so I made it a pouch-belt for loot stashing. I knew the gold metal effects would clash with the yellow I would eventuall add in, so I changed all of that to silver, and hid the Robin motif. Then a switched out the red for yellow, added the caution strip to the leg, and did a caution-tape bg. Finally, I added the name and called it a night.

Im overall happy with this mod....

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113538">

[Killer Shrike]

Here is another one I did from scratch in Photoshop.

I like the way he turned out, but his all-black uniform is perhaps a tad too dark for this style of shading....

The one major flaw that I can see is that I subconsciously clipped his right foot against the paper edge -- forgetting that Photoshop has a canvas enlarger feature. :o

My favorite bit about this pic is his right hand; the hand in the electrical blast. I actually didnt draw that hand at all; I basically just darkened in the hand with low percentage fills and some smudging to make it part of the energyblast, but concealed by it.

Amp is a flying blaster with an Electricity SFX, btw ;).

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113542">

[Gwena Kitten]

Wow! So many new posts! ::cracks knuckles:: Ok. I hope I can respond to them all tonight. I just can't believe that it's up to 5 pages already. Page 1:

To Warp9:

"Great job on the mentallist character. I like the pose, I like the detail on the belt and the bracelets. If there is anything at all which I could recommend to improve it, it might be nice to see just a little more detail in the neck area. Overall an awesome picture."

Thank you for the suggestions on Equity. After I finished this picture I realized that I had completely left of the collar of her outfit. Sharp eye! : ) I'll see what I can do to improve on that for the colored-in version.

I'm glad that my comments were helpful to you. Good luck on that Kronos scene you mentioned you might re-do.

To Nucleon:

"Equity has a great pose; maybe her legs are a little bit short for the genre, but that both refreshing and more real, so this is more an observation than actual fault."

Thanks for the feedback. I try to portray my characters in the most realistic light possible, but really all art is stylized in some way. Actually, I used the "trace and reverse" method to get a basis for this art.

For those who may not be familiar, trace and reverse is when you take another piece of art, photograph, or anatomy diagram, put tracing paper over it and copy the general shapes for a fast pose and accurate anatomy. You then take this pencil tracing, place it face down on another blank sheet of paper, and go over it with a soft pencil eraser, grease pencil, or crayon. This leaves a soft line for general placement of body parts, and then you draw the rest of the picture based on this frame. It's kinda like making your own personal template. I find that the easiest references for trace and reverse are those with skintight or no clothing, and my favorite place to borrow from are Playboy magazines. And yes, I also read the articles. ::grin::

This picture of Equity was also based on a playboy model, and if I remember correctly, the girl in the photo was around 5'6", the same height as Equity. There's the likely reason for the shorter limbs.

"You do have talent for picturing what seems happy women; they look easy to approach. It this intentional in both cases I saw? They have quite simple costumes too. Overall they're great, and you must be an appreciated member of your playing group. I will wait for more."

Thank you for the compliment. : ) I try to picture my characters the same way that any woman would pose for a photograph. Regardless of the situation around them, almost everyone tries to smile and flatter the camera during a photo op. In a way, character illustrations are a lot like glamour shots for them. It showcases all of the best, and leaves out undesirable features.

Gwena Kitten

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Vanguard
Nucleon,

You have no idea how wrong and far off your above comment about "picturing happy women" is from the truth. I, for one, have gamed with this child and while her character's may "seem" to be easy to approach, they are anything but.

Her character's are contrary and only seem to exist within the game group to cause dissention among the players. I think I have a pretty good basis for forming this opinion since I have played with her in several games previously.

About the only reason she would be considered an "appreciated" member of her group is because she's the GM's SO.

Jeez, dude. Isnt that a little harsh? I mean, even if it were true, its a pretty rude statement to make on an open forum, dont you think?

Im all about brutal honesty in person, but this level of personal animosity/dislike should be kept private/ within your local social circle IMO.

Lets keep these boards free of personal attacks, if possible please :D

[Gwena Kitten]

To Lemming:

I really like the style of your picture with the fiery red head. Sorry that I did not catch her name. The pose you picked for her was a wise choice. I like the broiling flame effects on her costume, and it looks really good especially with the pose you chose. Had you picked a pose with her limbs closer to her torso, it would have been hard to see her silhouette. But as it is, it is nice and clean.
I also like the way that her hair is pictured. It really compliments the style of the rest of her costume.

The silhouette of her hand in white as a background for the white ball of energy looks great. Another idea might be to showcase your background in the same way through her force field / damage shield?

I like her figure just the way it is. You don't need to be supermodel thin to be supermodel beautiful. : ) I like her expressive eyes, but her face might benefit from a little more detail. Good work in a style that I think really compliments this type of character.

To Redmenace:

"Thank you, I wanted make a build that was somewhere in between the Martial Artist and the Brick in Hero machine online generator. As to the pose it may have been a mistake. The original templates on hero chr sheets had anyone who wasn't flying just standing there. At the time I thought that was all wrong for a superhero game, but then I forget how hard it can be to judge and draw the lines of a costume in perspective.

Several of my players have commented that the angle makes it hard to draw a costume onto it so maybe I'll make some versions with dotted lines for boots, masks, gloves etc."

It can be hard to strike a balance between what is convenient, and what looks good. I think that your template is worth the extra work to draw the costume on.

"The proportions are as you say altered, on purpose, to give it a bit more "larger than Life" super humanity to it and a template for any other genre would be more accurate and probably have some clothes. When I get done with a full set of templates there will be mostly exaggerated super types, a very mundane human build and something a bit in-between."

I'm looking forward to seeing some of your other templates if you're willing to share them. Especially since you are planning on making such a great variety.

"As to using it, thanks for asking and yes please use it, alter it etc. The way I figure it is that once it's on the web it stopped being mine. Thanks also for starting the thread.

RE your mentalist looks great may I use her?"

Thank you for the permission. You are welcome to use my mentalist picture and general concept, but I'm keeping my greedy little hands on her character sheet. ::grin:: It would be nice if you would mention me as far as the art goes when you use her. And that way, if any of your other players move to where I'm at, they won't think I stole her from you. : )

To Blue:

"I'm checking my computer now to see if I have anything I want to offer up for critique...

Looks like I have one. The only copy I have on hand is shrunk for the web. It's a combination of something I drew by hand (left), some poser (right), and some Corel photopaint compositing (the math & the glow).

This is Audra Blue, "cybernaut" and her virtual form."

This is a very nice multiple medium piece. I especially like the math and the glowing form to the right. That is a very striking use of Poser and Corel Photopaint. Simply beautiful. And it really conveys a virtual, or ghost form. Perhaps she is similar to a "cyberghost?"

The hand drawn art on the right is done in a technique I've never seen before. It is very striking, but a little hard to recognize features through. Your later re-post greatly improves the picture. Perhaps you could work in a larger scale next time?

To Warp9:

"This image will hopefully give everyone a good idea about what I was trying to do with Kronos. And it will also serve as an example of my work in a different medium. There might also be some useful observations relating to the differences in the way I do work in different mediums.

Note: in the colorization process of my sketch, I made a few different choices about hair and skin color than I did in the 3D model.

I have already been given a number of useful suggestions. And any more good advice on making the next Kronos model look more like my sketch will be helpful."

I really like the sketch of Kronos as a work of art in and of itself. The cosmic patterning came out just great - nice and clear, and very pleasing to the eye. Her face is very clear, but also alien, a just a little spooky. I like the style of her clothing - it's a nice change from all that spandex. : ) But spandex can be great, too. I also like the hairstyle you chose for this drawing. It compliments her face without detracting from her fabulous costume.

As far as how to make the computer version look more like the drawn version, I would focus on her face. Her nose is very different from one version to the other. Also, the pattern on the costume was not as apparent. I like the hair color from the drawing better, but that should not be too hard to modify, if you choose.

One question. There is a white dot near her left hand (on the right in the pic) that I can not place. What does it represent?

Overall, a very nice pic. Best of luck with the modifications on the 3d version, if you decide to change anything. If you do, I'm looking forward to seeing the next version. : )

Gwena Kitten

[Gwena Kitten]

To Lemming:

I like the picture of Ice Pirate, a lot. ::shrug:: I don't know what it is about women with blue hair... I just like them. : ) Very good job with the hair and skin coloration. I also really like the weapon she has. Distinct and different. Her costume is reminiscent of Heavy Metal, but it compliments her coloration very well. I especially like the knee decoration on her boots.

I think that perhaps her lower body might use a little modification. It seems a little on the small side compared to her upper half. Her feet could also use a little extra work. Perhaps you could study some pictures of high heel boots to get other ideas of their general shape. But you mentioned reducing or removing the heels anyhow. Thanks for posting her. : )


To Redmenace:

Fantastic job on the female templates! I really like the variety that you've offered us. One standing pose, one in flight/ hovering, and one nicely muscled but still beautiful. I really like and appreciate these. The proportions are all fantastic, and since all of the major muscle groups and bone structures are emphasized, it makes it very easy to add or subtract for different figures. Exceptional hob on the positioning of the hands. Also, the sketch lines for body sections would make it very easy to apply costumes to them. Thank you again for the great selection. I am really looking forward to any other templates you are willing to show us.

To Warp9:

"Here is the a new version of the Combat Droid which I’ve been working on. . . . I'm probably going to use it when I redo the Kronos scene.

Do you like it better or worse than the old version of the Droid?"

I like this version a little better. It seems a little better shaded in light and dark than the first image. Nice differences in textures from one section to the others. I do miss the skull and crossbones and wording on the arms from the last picture, though. Perhaps they are on the backside of him in this shot?

Thanks for all the great art posts,

Gwena Kitten

[Gwena Kitten]

Let me just start by saying, Wow! That is a lot of art in a little time. Judging by the time in-between your posts, you are very organized with your pictures, and a very fast typist.

I really like the clean lines of the "DCU" style that you have with most of your pictures. It's definitely different, but very concise at getting across costumes and general looks of characters.

Grey Ghost: I really like the way you can see through him to the city background. You put the transparency at just the right level to let the city shine through, and yet not so much as to distract you from the character portrait.

Arkelos: I like the white highlights/ outlines used for his upper torso. It gives him a very distinctive look. I am a little confused about his thighs, though. There is a blue flange behind his thighs that I can't place. What is that shape representing?

Rook?: Great job on the design for his costume with the rook/ castle motif. The face came out well for what you were attempting. But the back glow is really straining on the eyes. Perhaps it could be toned down a little?

Chitin: Great job on the bug. I really like the mottled design you achieved on his exo-skeleton. And the kid is really cute, especially with the T-shirt. : )

Hype: Great job integrating the head in with the rest of the figure. I like the effect it has, highlighting his face above all else. And I like the speckled background, too. I tend to not include backgrounds in my pics, as they are time consuming and generally distracting. You have some great ideas on how to keep them from being that way. Great job.

Agent X Hero: Great job fixing up the problems with the previous picture. I really like this one because it is so different from the usual character images.

Gravitic: I like the costume design on this one - nice clean lines and complimentary colors. The background does not seem to go so well, though.

Green Knight: Good job on the broach and shield. I am very fond of the metallic green you changed everything to. He blends in a little too much with his background though. Perhaps it could be a more different shade of green?

Warman: I am fond of the colors you chose for this picture. It makes him look very angry and hot, and very formidable, especially when combined with the "from the boot" view.

Major Savage: I own this toy, so I know exactly how it used to look. Great job on modifying this for your own tastes and character. It has a completely different look than the action figure above my computer. The nametag also really adds a lot to it.


The Machine: I really like the hair from this picture. Combined with blue jeans, it does make him look like more of a bystander than an opponent. But PCs beware..... If anyone bothers to do up a picture of someone, they're *always* important. : )
I think he could use more definition in the shirt, though. It hard to get shoulders that big without the muscles to show for it.

Bronto: The B motif is nicely done. The 5 o'clock shadow looks like more of a beard due to the shape of his jaw, though.

Jackhammer: Great job on the face - he looks like a very stern kind of guy. Also, lots of good attention to his gloves and boots. The rest of him looks more like a silhouette than a costume, though.

Thanks for all the pics!

Gwena Kitten

[Gwena Kitten]

So much art, so little time!

Unger: I like the tie and the frown. He kinda remindsme of Dick Tracy. : ) And very "Men in Black" sunglasses. Nice complimentary background.

Rocketman?: I like the very alien look to this one. Nice complation of works. His head came out exceptionally nice. My main issue is that his boots are washed out by the darker background.

Wu: Decent job modifying the leathers to get rid of the X design, but you can still make it out pretty easily. I really like the helmet, though, and until you mentioned it, I didn't notice that the top had been cut off. Nice Wren and Stimpy quote, though. ::grin::

Tenacious: Great job making him look similar but different from his father. I like the change in clothes, haircut and facial shape. But I really think he should be smaller. 16 year olds are usually a lot smaller than 20 year olds.

Stretcher: Great job on the hand. It looks grossly out of size, but still in shape, a very hard thing to do. But I do agree with you on the shading. It hides a lotof the detail you workedso long on.

Breakneck: Nice costume styling. I don't think that he looks "small, compact, but kinetic looking model." He's still too buff and broadshouldered for that. Also,the background really obscures the black sections of his costume, especially is right leg.

Amp: I like the pattern on his costume, and his hand/ special effects are done very nicely. I also like the way only one of his legs are green. It's unexpected, and neat. But I think his face and hair could use some work. His hair kinda looks life french fries.

Hope I didn't offend you with any of these responces. All of your work is in my opinion a fine example of this style. The shear number of the pictuers you've postedhere is also very impressive. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your work, but maybe spread out enough to breath in between? : ) Just kidding.
Thanks again,

Gwena Kitten

[Killer Shrike]

Thanx for all the kind words. I am a fast typist; Im a programmer by trade, so it helps ;)

Arkelos: Thats the edge of his cape, which I suppose is difficult to make out due to its extreme stylizing.

Gravitic: The character's SFX is a purplish energy field for his "Gravioli Manipulation", which I was trying to evoke. He basically floats around weightless w/ his purplish FF up :) Its also kind of a running joke.

GK: I was trying to spruce up an otherwise plain figure, and the character has a FF with a green SFX so I figured why not. But maybe I overdid the "GREEN" bit :D

The Machine -- Yeah, I know what you mean. Im of two minds about it. Everytime I look at it Im tempted to muscle him up, but I resist. I want to down play his super-ness, not the other way around. I think of him wearing one of those thicker-materialed longsleeved shirts that conceal body curvature. I really want him to have a casual-cool simple look, all the more tempting for the players to dismiss him. Ill give it some thought however.....


JH: Yep. I want him to look like a towering column of pain, with attention drawn to the boots & gloves (he's a big, heavy striker/hitter, and highlighting the hands & feet evokes this) and the huge "J" on his chest (he's self-centered and full of himself). If encountered with the other 3 core members of the Enforcers (The Machine, Bronto, Unger, and Jackhammer), I want him to be the most eyecatching, because he's actually the least dangerous of the 4. He'll distract attention from the others, make a big splash with his opening hand attack reenforcing this idea, and meanwhile the other 3 are left to pick thier targets while the PCs are fixated on Jackhammer ;). I think minimizing his flat black body suit and enhancing the other elements of his costume works, but I could be wrong.

Tenacious: Yeah, I realize he's only 16, but part of the characters write up is that bcs of his powers he looks bigger and older. He was beating up grown bikers when he was 12 ;). Kind of a "Rage" angle -- the character from the Avengers/New Warriors -- he was only like 12 or so, but he looked like a massive grown up black man. Effectively, at 350 points, Tenacious is the equivalent of a grown up super with some experience under thier belts and is a really nasty light brick martial artist, but he's going to attend the Ravenswood academy soon (where most of the teen supers are in the 200-250 range). Just an element of the character -- he looks much older than he really is, like a grown body builder on 'roids :).

Slinger: Yeah, Ill take a look at the PSD tomorrow and see if I cant tone the shadows down a notch. The fore-shortened arm & hand are fully drawn, but you cant tell anymore with the dropshadow kicked up. On my monitor at home it looks ok (I have a farily expensive graphics card and monitor), but on my work computer its really murky. I imagine the murky rendering is closer to what most people would see....

Breakneck: Hrmm...yeah, the DCU style tends to exaggerate the chest and shoulders quite a bit. Looking at the picture, I think I could probably clip out the shadowed part of the torso and redraw the cross-strap and belt pouch a tad to thin him down quite a bit.

Amp: Hmm....well, the hair bit is supposed to be a DF; as a side effect of his electrical powers his hair is kind of static-charged and freakishly kinetic -- standing on end and waving around constantly and what not. Wasnt sure how to illo that in the style I used, which is a bold line free-standing shape style. Amp came out too dark unfortunately -- a danger with an all black costume -- but the general design uses negative space to define shapes. :( Also, the one leg isnt green -- its black like the rest of the costume; the discoloration is a flare effect coming off the lightning bolt. Hrmmm....maybe the AMP pic isnt ready for prime time yet......:D


Criticism: Not at all. Helpful criticisms are always good. Heres the funny bit: all of my artwork that won awards and did well was artwork that I hated. All of the artwork I actually liked always did poorly :rolleyes: So obviously my own opinion of my work must be flawed or something :D

As a side note I havent done any serious/real art in the last 10 years; I pretty much just do occasional character illos when the mood strikes me. Anymore, its all about the character; I just want to express the way I see the character, trying to involve as many of the aspect of the character as I can.

[Gwena Kitten]

I'm glad I could help you out with an outside opinion. Just a reminder; it's just my opinion, one of potentially very many opinions. The bottomline is that it's your work, so listen to your gut. : ) But if I managed to give you another view to examine your art from, great! :D

It's very early Friday morning, and hopefully I will be able to post a colored-in version of Equity sometime today. Knowing my sleeping schedule of late, it will most likely be early Saturday morning.

Gwena Kitten

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Gwena Kitten
I'm glad I could help you out with an outside opinion. Just a reminder; it's just my opinion, one of potentially very many opinions. The bottomline is that it's your work, so listen to your gut. : ) But if I managed to give you another view to examine your art from, great! :D

It's very early Friday morning, and hopefully I will be able to post a colored-in version of Equity sometime today. Knowing my sleeping schedule of late, it will most likely be early Saturday morning.

Gwena Kitten I think we're on the same schedule -- sleep all day and up all night? Im still at work -- been here since 830 pm yesterday, and will prolly leave around 1130 for the day, 2 days of work out of the way :D

[Gwena Kitten]

There have been a few posts on this list lately that many will agree do not belong on this discussion board. Simply put, dirty laundry should be taken to a Laundromat, not a public forum. Personal issues that people have with each other are best brought up in person, and resolved without irritating strangers with pettiness.

Just a reminder as to the *actual* reason this post was created.

"I'd like to start a thread where you can actually get honest feedback about your images, not just smile and nod praise. I'm looking forward to the help we can offer each other. Without input, *good and bad*, there is no way to improve on your work.

I'm not trying to encourage "flame wars," but I want realistic feedback. Make sure to include both what you specifically liked about the art, and what you didn't. And hey, if someone's foot looks like a banana, and you really don't think that was his or her intention, by all means, say so! Artists can get wrapped up and miss details like that, and most should appreciate the chance to remedy those mistakes, if not in the current piece, then in the next one.

All methods of art are welcome. I'd love to see some old favorites like line art, ink, colored pencil, and marker. I'd also love to see less conventional styles, like 3d generates, poser, watercolor, crayon : ), charcoal, paint shop, oils, airbrush, and doodles while at work or on the bus! : )

So post away! And please feel free to re-post images from the Superhero Images thread here for some honest feedback.

One last warning! This list will include criticism as well as praise. If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen. And don't say I didn't warn you. : )"

It seems that the majority of the people who have posted here have had satisfactory experiences. Those who do not appreciate the feedback from this thread always have the option to only visit the other image thread, "Superhero Images," where the tone is different. Far be it for me to choose for you.

I hope to continue to see more people who enjoy this thread. Those who are not interested, I wish you the best of luck elsewhere.

Gwena Kitten

[Gwena Kitten]

"I think we're on the same schedule -- sleep all day and up all night? Im still at work -- been here since 830 pm yesterday, and will prolly leave around 1130 for the day, 2 days of work out of the way."

Yes, I think we've managed to line our schedules up with each other. : )

By the way, how do you post images directly to the thread as opposed to putting a link to another page with the image?

Thanks for the help,

Gwena Kitten

[Redmenace]

Whoa, way to go Shrike. I’m torn by the two approaches, I really like the anime style character designs but my favorite is the dude with the castle design. Well lets get to a piece by piece review.

Metropolis, just love this one, the costume design and the background with a bit of translucency, a photoshop semi transparent layer? Just nice, I hope this isn’t one of the ones you don’t like and others do.


Arkelos, again and throughout the whole set I really like your sense of design. As a suggestion, I’d vertically flip the background with the high contrast black behind and framing the head and upper body which is the central focus of a character and play with the chroma or light levels to get the legs to stand out against a blue background. The blue works against the yellow orange but I think a bit of purple in the Blue would look good and pump up the orange/ pop the blue legs out.

Rook, my favorite based on the design, just simple elegant and to the point.

Chiten, fun

Hype, another nice piece, bold. What was Hype’s story?

AgentX , nice lighting, yours?

Gravitic, particularly like the color scheme

Green Knight, very nice execution particularly like the period armor with modern graphics on the G and neon green color scheme

Warman, nice and i disagree with the lo res issue, I think it ends up giving the image a sense of grittiness, of course it isn’t my character.

Major Savage, great looking piece but I suggest the lower right corner is a bit too bright, I think it takes away from the figure, not by all that much but...

The Machine, in contrast to the statement on Maj S above I really like the bright backlighting on this one.

Bronto, Yeah

Jackhammer, Nothing to comment, this ones just working.

Unger, completely to the point but the background color and light, while providing lots of contrast, seems a bit too much for a shady shadow dealer. That is just a suggestion.

Ricochet, nice and well chosen background color

Wu, really like your sense of design

Tenacious, as asuggestion, bridge the light green of the rib cage into one shape.

Slinger, looks good to me with my only suggestion being that i’d like to see a bit more contrast between the arm and leg on the left. Maybe isolate the arm and bring in some of that red back light on the left edge of the leg.

Breakneck, working everythings working on this, really nice

Amp, grand pose but I think a little darkness in the background would show off the light and power here, something like a radial blend sarting at white or yellowish off light and centered on the fist then gradating to gray or purple blue to show a sense of extreme halation.

[Redmenace]

Originally posted by Gwena Kitten


To Redmenace:

"Thank you, I wanted make a build that was somewhere in between the Martial Artist and the Brick in Hero machine online generator. As to the pose it may have been a mistake. The original templates on hero chr sheets had anyone who wasn't flying just standing there. At the time I thought that was all wrong for a superhero game, but then I forget how hard it can be to judge and draw the lines of a costume in perspective.

Several of my players have commented that the angle makes it hard to draw a costume onto it so maybe I'll make some versions with dotted lines for boots, masks, gloves etc."

It can be hard to strike a balance between what is convenient, and what looks good. I think that your template is worth the extra work to draw the costume on.

"The proportions are as you say altered, on purpose, to give it a bit more "larger than Life" super humanity to it and a template for any other genre would be more accurate and probably have some clothes. When I get done with a full set of templates there will be mostly exaggerated super types, a very mundane human build and something a bit in-between."

I'm looking forward to seeing some of your other templates if you're willing to share them. Especially since you are planning on making such a great variety.

"As to using it, thanks for asking and yes please use it, alter it etc. The way I figure it is that once it's on the web it stopped being mine. Thanks also for starting the thread.

RE your mentalist looks great may I use her?"

Thank you for the permission. You are welcome to use my mentalist picture and general concept, but I'm keeping my greedy little hands on her character sheet. ::grin:: It would be nice if you would mention me as far as the art goes when you use her. And that way, if any of your other players move to where I'm at, they won't think I stole her from you. : )
na Kitten

Oh yeah you get all credit but that is limited to your screen name and avatar. I wouldn't steal.

[Gwena Kitten]

"RE your mentalist looks great may I use her?"

Thank you for the permission. You are welcome to use my mentalist picture and general concept, but I'm keeping my greedy little hands on her character sheet. ::grin:: It would be nice if you would mention me as far as the art goes when you use her. And that way, if any of your other players move to where I'm at, they won't think I stole her from you. : )
Gwena Kitten
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh yeah you get all credit but that is limited to your screen name and avatar. I wouldn't steal."

Ok :D I'm happy to share. Just mention Gwena Kitten and all is golden.

Gwena Kitten

[lemming]

Originally posted by Gwena Kitten
To Lemming:

I like the picture of Ice Pirate, a lot. ::shrug:: I don't know what it is about women with blue hair... I just like them. : ) Very good job with the hair and skin coloration. I also really like the weapon she has. Distinct and different. Her costume is reminiscent of Heavy Metal, but it compliments her coloration very well. I especially like the knee decoration on her boots.

I think that perhaps her lower body might use a little modification. It seems a little on the small side compared to her upper half. Her feet could also use a little extra work. Perhaps you could study some pictures of high heel boots to get other ideas of their general shape. But you mentioned reducing or removing the heels anyhow. Thanks for posting her. : )
Actually the Costume was inspired from Heavy Metal. Was wondering if people would notice.
I forgot to mention that while the penciling of the character was mine, I do use templates made from various comic book outlines. I don't remember whose outline IP was from though.
Ice Pirate was inked by Sam Bell. I think at the time a lot of the characters in our gaming group wound up with skulls & lightning bolts. Especially if they were aliens.

I do see where I want to work on her feet a bit and maybe do a bit more work on her legs while I'm at it.

Thanks for the comments on Firefly as well. With her, after reviewing comments I'll do a couple light mods of her body. (I think if I even out a couple areas, but not slimming her down... )
Her outline is from an X-Men cover when Ms. Marvel reappears as Binary, IIRC. I think her costume idea was inspired by Fathom of the Elementals, but then made more flamey.

Whoops forgot to mention how to display pictures inline.
This is pretty much the HTML code. Just substitute the postid # with your number. You'll have to edit it in after you submit.
&lt;img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=113718" &gt;

[RPMiller]

Originally posted by Gwena Kitten
By the way, how do you post images directly to the thread as opposed to putting a link to another page with the image?

Thanks for the help,

Gwena Kitten 1) Make a post, and attach the picture
2) Click on the link to the picture
3) Copy the URL from the new window that opens with the picture.
4) Edit your post by typing in &lt;img src=" than paste the URL from step 3, and then type "&gt;
5) Submit the edit.

There you have it. :)

[Redmenace]

Two more templates

[Redmenace]

Let's see if I can't fix it, please tell me what you think.

[Warp9]

Lemming: your IcePirate looks great.

I only have one suggestion, and this is purely a matter of personal taste, so it may not be that useful to you.

It is probably the Heavy Metal “vib” of her outfit, but I think a more gritty/nasty looking weapon would fit her better, the Ice Energy Blade looks too “clean.”



Redmenace: the templates you’ve created all look very professional. It is nice of you to create something that will help others create their own heroes.

As far as suggestions for improvement, I may be wrong about this, but the arms in “ltwt2.jpg“ look a little bit short to me. Everything else looks great.

All in all, great work.



Killer Shrike: You seem to be able to turn out a high volume of very nice work.

I’ve already told you before that I really like the Major Savage piece. And I still intend to build a 3D model off of it (as I mentioned before in the other thread).

As far as suggestions for improvement go, every suggestion that I can think of has already been mentioned.

[Warp9]

Originally posted by Gwena Kitten


One question. There is a white dot near her left hand (on the right in the pic) that I can not place. What does it represent?



I think that you are probably looking at a part of the forearm between the hand and the sleve (which is covered in a white metallic glove). I should eventually try to fix the drawing to make that more obvious.

And I don't know why I didn't put in the wrist-band on the left arm (like on the right arm), it should have been visible too.

[Warp9]

I’ve shown some stuff that I made with 3D techniques, and one colorized sketch. Here is a picture made with a combination of techniques.

The background is 3D, but the character is a colorized pencil sketch.

How does this piece compare to my other work? (pure 3D and pure 2D)

<img src="attachment.php?s=&postid=68893">

[Redmenace]

Nice job Warp9, I particularly like how well the subject and background loo stylisticallty similar as opposed to the slight jarring quality you get with a drawing infront of a photograph.

Gwena Kitten, I took a look at the LtWt2 template and made some alterations then reloaded the doctored version to the original post.

[Redmenace]

Here is a sketch from my campaign's news letter.

[Gwena Kitten]

Thank you Lemming and Durnin for the very helpful advice on posting art directly to the board. Now, all I have to do is get some more art scanned in….

Redmenace: Great job on these templates. They’re clean and concise. And the poses are very dynamic. The fix you made on the arms greatly improves the figure. It was really correct before, but without shadowing, the foreshortening of the arms was not apparent. Now it is much more clear and easy to use without much shadowing. : )

On your more recently posted work, “brick:” Fantastic job! I especially like the work on the background, hands, and ripped seams. His hands are very impressive. All of the angles in the picture point to them, drawing in your attention, and they are immense and exquisitely detailed. The detailed knuckles and arm hair adds to this, too. Those hands are just scary. I really like the background. It conveys a setting, and again your brick’s power, but does not draw attention away from your character. The lighter lines help with this. Lastly, I think you did a great job on the ripping seams. The way they are drawn in to me really conveys that they are ripping right now, which show action and makes the character even more impressive. The idea that he is this big, and still causing more rips to his clothing, indicating that his is still getting bigger, is very intimidating. The only think that seems to jar with the rest of the picture is his shoes. Somehow they don’t seem to fit. But if this is the kind of brick that grows, like the hulk, and he was originally wearing a business suit, then this makes perfect sense. ::smile:: A brink in business shoes.

Warp 9: “I think that you are probably looking at a part of the forearm between the hand and the sleeve (which is covered in a white metallic glove). I should eventually try to fix the drawing to make that more obvious.

And I don't know why I didn't put in the wrist-band on the left arm (like on the right arm), it should have been visible too.”

Thanks for the clarification on your art. The 2D / 3D combination piece is great. I especially like the way the shirt came out. The coloration on that is fantastic. Also the face is done very well. The hands might benefit from some more attention, though. Or perhaps they are intentionally a little alien, like the face is? The pants seem not quite right in the knees. My favorite part would have to be the shadow that is cast by the figure. It gives the piece a very real and three-dimensional feel. Great work!

To all: Sorry that I have not put other art on the page yet. I know that I said I would put up the colored-in version of Equity on Saturday morning, but the friend with the digital image has not gotten back with me yet. If all else fails, I should have it next Sat., but I may not. ::sigh:: Maybe I’ll just take it to Kinkos…. Anyway, thanks for sharing all of the art up here, and thanks for all the feedback! I’m looking forward to more.

Gwena Kitten

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Gwena Kitten
"I think we're on the same schedule -- sleep all day and up all night? Im still at work -- been here since 830 pm yesterday, and will prolly leave around 1130 for the day, 2 days of work out of the way."

Yes, I think we've managed to line our schedules up with each other. : )

By the way, how do you post images directly to the thread as opposed to putting a link to another page with the image?

Thanks for the help,

Gwena Kitten Sorry; just catching up on my posts -- I went incommunicado this weekend working on my D&D -> Fantasy HERO Conversion....

to do a link, just attach the file to the post and in the post just use an HTML image tag. You have to post the reply and let the file upload, then grab the URL for the image, then edit the post to insert the URL into the image source attribute. The boards have an Edit grace period of a few seconds, so if you are fast, it doesnt register as an edit. I put a blank img tag in the reply body when I post, so I dont have to type anything when I edit it to add the URL, so often I beat the Edit time window. ;)

the image tag is very simple &lt;img src="URLGOESHERE"&gt;

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Redmenace
Whoa, way to go Shrike. I’m torn by the two approaches, I really like the anime style character designs but my favorite is the dude with the castle design. Well lets get to a piece by piece review.
SNIP
Thanx for all the advice/praise!
Metropolis: I like the piece, but its probably the 1 I did the least work on with the possible exception of Unger as the "Grey Ghost" from the DCU was a perfect fit.

Agent X Lighting: Some of it I added to redirect attention, and some of it was there already.


As for the suggestions, Ill take it all into account; although I probably wont go back and edit any of the existing images unless they are majorly screwed Ill definitely consider your points on images to come!

:D

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Warp9
Killer Shrike: You seem to be able to turn out a high volume of very nice work.


Thanx. The trick is to not sleep much. When you are awake 20 hours out of every 24 you can get a lot of work done :)

I like the Savage pic too. Fits the character perfectly. It was fortuitous to find the picture of the toy to begin with.

[Redmenace]

Originally posted by Gwena Kitten


Redmenace: Great job on these templates. They’re clean and concise. And the poses are very dynamic. The fix you made on the arms greatly improves the figure. It was really correct before, but without shadowing, the foreshortening of the arms was not apparent. Now it is much more clear and easy to use without much shadowing. : )

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. I get to a point where I just can't tell how its looking.



On your more recently posted work, “brick:” Fantastic job! I especially like the work on the background, hands, and ripped seams. His hands are very impressive. All of the angles in the picture point to them, drawing in your attention, and they are immense and exquisitely detailed. The detailed knuckles and arm hair adds to this, too. Those hands are just scary. I really like the background. It conveys a setting, and again your brick’s power, but does not draw attention away from your character. The lighter lines help with this. Lastly, I think you did a great job on the ripping seams. The way they are drawn in to me really conveys that they are ripping right now, which show action and makes the character even more impressive. The idea that he is this big, and still causing more rips to his clothing, indicating that his is still getting bigger, is very intimidating. The only think that seems to jar with the rest of the picture is his shoes. Somehow they don’t seem to fit. But if this is the kind of brick that grows, like the hulk, and he was originally wearing a business suit, then this makes perfect sense. ::smile:: A brick in business shoes.

Glad you liked. Let me come clean. I think I said in the post that this was from my campaign newsletter. The game is set in the early part of World War two and the adventure that this illo came from was a kind of pre war "shakedown cruise" for the pcs. In it, DC comics characters the Joker and Solomon Grundy went trick or treating. The pic is a after the game sketch of Grundy who, in the game, I tried to play as a purely evil, hateful thing. (Kind of a blunt object to the Joker's sharp wit)

The figure I use for him is a black and white paintjob Incredible Hulk from heroclix which goe some way to explaining the Hulkiness. You got me on the shoes though.



To all: Sorry that I have not put other art on the page yet. I know that I said I would put up the colored-in version of Equity on Saturday morning, but the friend with the digital image has not gotten back with me yet. If all else fails, I should have it next Sat., but I may not. ::sigh:: Maybe I’ll just take it to Kinkos…. Anyway, thanks for sharing all of the art up here, and thanks for all the feedback! I’m looking forward to more.

Gwena Kitten

Looking forward to seeing it. Kinko's? Has come down to that?

And now for something completely different

[Killer Shrike]

Looks kewl so far red menace -- a few anatomy comments however:

with his arms up like that his pecs should be less squared off; they would get pulled upwards by the delts. Particularly the left pec, less so the right one.

also, his upper crotch looks a tad too flat; just a hint of a curve at the inside of the right leg and at the crotch will fix that.

the right knee is just a tad too low and the right foot is just a tad too thick on the outer edge up by the ankle and down to the toes. Makes the lower leg look too short. if you shave those down a little it will restore it to the correct proportion visually.

I really really like the pose, very dynamic! Cant wait to see the finished product!

[Jayde Tiger]

Feel free to comment.

Thanks for lookin

J

[GenreFiend]

Originally posted by Jayde Tiger
Feel free to comment.

Thanks for lookin

J

What type of character is he? If he's a martial artist/ feral fighter type, I'd loose the cape. Otherwise AWESOME! :cool: I wish I had half the talent of the least talented person posting pics on this thread. Not that you're least talented, in fact I would have a hard time figuring out who was, it's just that I meant.......... what? Am I rambling again? Oh, sorry. :rolleyes:

[Redmenace]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
Looks kewl so far red menace -- a few anatomy comments however:

with his arms up like that his pecs should be less squared off; they would get pulled upwards by the delts. Particularly the left pec, less so the right one.

also, his upper crotch looks a tad too flat; just a hint of a curve at the inside of the right leg and at the crotch will fix that.

the right knee is just a tad too low and the right foot is just a tad too thick on the outer edge up by the ankle and down to the toes. Makes the lower leg look too short. if you shave those down a little it will restore it to the correct proportion visually.

I really really like the pose, very dynamic! Cant wait to see the finished product!

Took some advice and made some alterations. I think the Pecs still need work as does the chest etc, etc.

The leg, I went in the opposite direction and made a more gorilla like build by shortening both some.

The crotch was meant to be a baggy area of trousers, the ourword bulge would mess up the lines but I softened it some.

Thanks for taking the time to look at the piece and telling me what you think. If you have any more, please send.

PS- I have removed the previous post so as to save Steve some bandwidth.

[Redmenace]

Originally posted by Jayde Tiger
Feel free to comment.

Thanks for lookin

J

Hey, hey nice work Jayde Tiger. There are a couple of things I particularly like here.

1.) Presentation, its a great example of simple but effective. If you have access to Photoshop try the lighting filters on a copy of this. IIt could really make a interesting experiment.

2.) For a street hero he's very colorful which, more often than not, doesn't work but you got it working.

3.) Like the mask, like the costume, any chance of seeing a full length shot?

Good Job, send more if you are so inclined to.

[tyrarael]

Now I'll admit, I'm not a great artist, but I'd like to be better. So, first of all, thanks to you Redmenace for the black&white templates. I'm in the process of tweaking one of them for a character I'm going to be playing in a Dark[er] Champions game. Second, despite the fact that this topic is rife with disgruntled artists from the "Happy Comments Only" forum, it has flourished into a cool discussion/collaboration on how to create depth, shading, proportion, etc... I've learned a lot already. I have nothing to add as far as de/constructive criticism, but I have to say that Warp9's "Kronos" is the coolest idea {:cool:}for a costume and it is well implemented.

Personally, I always have the most trouble with the proportioning on hands and feet. Any suggestions on how to learn? Sadly, I have no art to upload from this computer, but I will post my first Champion, "Sol", soon, along with "Carbon Copy". Ladies and gentlemen, keep up the good work and pay no mind to Vanguard, Denid, or anyone else who decides to make cutting remarks against your character (not the one that costs points) instead of your artwork.

In the words of Stan Lee, "Excelsior!", and, "'Nuff said."

Tyrarael Rex

[Warp9]

Originally posted by tyrarael
Now I'll admit, I'm not a great artist, but I'd like to be better. So, first of all, thanks to you Redmenace for the black&white templates. I'm in the process of tweaking one of them for a character I'm going to be playing in a Dark[er] Champions game. Second, despite the fact that this topic is rife with disgruntled artists from the "Happy Comments Only" forum, it has flourished into a cool discussion/collaboration on how to create depth, shading, proportion, etc... I've learned a lot already. I have nothing to add as far as de/constructive criticism, but I have to say that Warp9's "Kronos" is the coolest idea {:cool:}for a costume and it is well implemented.

Personally, I always have the most trouble with the proportioning on hands and feet. Any suggestions on how to learn? Sadly, I have no art to upload from this computer, but I will post my first Champion, "Sol", soon, along with "Carbon Copy". Ladies and gentlemen, keep up the good work and pay no mind to Vanguard, Denid, or anyone else who decides to make cutting remarks against your character (not the one that costs points) instead of your artwork.

In the words of Stan Lee, "Excelsior!", and, "'Nuff said."

Tyrarael Rex

Thanks, I’m glad that you like my work. :)

Here is my suggestion (whatever it may be worth) for getting proportions right.

I start with a very loose and light sketch, maybe even a stick body with stick hands and feet (I often use ovals instead of lines). Once I have the proportions so that they look good in the primitive sketch, then I go back and finish up the drawing using the raw sketch as a guide.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Redmenace
Took some advice and made some alterations. I think the Pecs still need work as does the chest etc, etc.

The leg, I went in the opposite direction and made a more gorilla like build by shortening both some.

The crotch was meant to be a baggy area of trousers, the ourword bulge would mess up the lines but I softened it some.

Thanks for taking the time to look at the piece and telling me what you think. If you have any more, please send.

PS- I have removed the previous post so as to save Steve some bandwidth.

Most excellent. I think you over did the right pec, but thats easily fixed with a single contour line. Otherwise, 5 out of 5.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
Most excellent. I think you over did the right pec, but thats easily fixed with a single contour line. Otherwise, 5 out of 5. BTW, I mean the models right, not the viewers right ;)

[Killer Shrike]

I also use wire figures to "frame" a pic, and then work up off of that. For physical drawings I use a very light pencil, usually a 2 or 4H.

For digital drawings, I just use a separate layer which I can drop after its served its purpose.

[Killer Shrike]

Heres a simple wireframe

[Killer Shrike]

and heres a more complex wireframe

[RPMiller]

sheesh! Even your wireframes are better than my best drawing. Now that's sad.:(

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Durnin
sheesh! Even your wireframes are better than my best drawing. Now that's sad.:( I imagine that if you had spent as much time developing your art skills you'd be twice as good as me ;)


When I was in high school I was going to be an artist for a living. I had done well in art shows, etc, and had been invited to check out several art schools in person. I also had been prospected by a few colleges for my Lacrosse skills.

Then I shattered my right wrist playing Lacrosse -- last game of my senior year no less. 2 expensive surgeries and a year later I was able to get back most of the useage of my wrist, but there was some nerve damage, strength loss, and loss of fine motor skills. I cant feel too well with that hand, tend to drop things bcs I cant tell how much pressure Im applying by feel alone, etc.

It definitely affected my artistic ability as well. The main thing is, even compensating for the heavy-handedness, my hand just gets tired too fast, limiting my productivity. Doing stuff on the computer is easier on my wrist, but takes too long. If I dont finish a drawing all in one go, I almost never come back to it and I rarely have the 4 to 5 hours needed to do a full drawing from scratch on the computer.

[Warp9]

Here is something I've been working on this morning.

More 2D stuff this time.

This one is another pencil sketch which I scanned in, and then colorized.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=118560" >

[RPMiller]

Originally posted by Killer Shrike
Then I shattered my right wrist playing Lacrosse -- last game of my senior year no less. 2 expensive surgeries and a year later I was able to get back most of the useage of my wrist, but there was some nerve damage, strength loss, and loss of fine motor skills. I cant feel too well with that hand, tend to drop things bcs I cant tell how much pressure Im applying by feel alone, etc. Dude that sucks! I suppose that is a dangerous combination though, artist and athlete. Especially an athlete that chases really hard wooden balls. Don't they wear some sort of protective gauntlet in Lacrosse? Sorry to hear about that.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Durnin
Dude that sucks! I suppose that is a dangerous combination though, artist and athlete. Especially an athlete that chases really hard wooden balls. Don't they wear some sort of protective gauntlet in Lacrosse? Sorry to hear about that. No no, thats Jai Lai. Lacrosse is a different sport. Oldest game in America.

<img src="http://www.herogames.com/forums/attachment.php?s=&postid=119020">


Lacrosse is the oldest sport in North America, dating back to the 1400s. In 1636, Jean de Brebeuf, a Jesuit missionary, witnessed Huron Indians playing a game with a ball carried and hurled from a curved stick with a pouch at the top. The Hurons called the game 'bagataway' which means “Little brother of War”. but, since the stick was similar to a bishop's crosier (la crosse in French), it became known as la crosse and, eventually, lacrosse.

Field lacrosse is played on a grass field about as long as a soccer field and box lacrosse is played indoors. It is the national sport of Canada but is also played in many other countries.

[tmutant]

Killer Shrike from the Trek boards? Small world.:D

Great artwork. It really sucks about the wrist injury. At least you still have an outlet to exercise your muse (so to speak).

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by tmutant
Killer Shrike from the Trek boards? Small world.:D


No, thats some other guy. Not much of a Star Trek fan (or Sci Fi in general).

Thanx for the kind words all the same ;)

[Redmenace]

Originally posted by tyrarael
Now I'll admit, I'm not a great artist, but I'd like to be better. So, first of all, thanks to you Redmenace for the black&white templates. I'm in the process of tweaking one of them for a character I'm going to be playing in a Dark[er] Champions game. Second, despite the fact that this topic is rife with disgruntled artists from the "Happy Comments Only" forum, it has flourished into a cool discussion/collaboration on how to create depth, shading, proportion, etc... I've learned a lot already. I have nothing to add as far as de/constructive criticism, but I have to say that Warp9's "Kronos" is the coolest idea {:cool:}for a costume and it is well implemented.

Personally, I always have the most trouble with the proportioning on hands and feet. Any suggestions on how to learn? Sadly, I have no art to upload from this computer, but I will post my first Champion, "Sol", soon, along with "Carbon Copy". Ladies and gentlemen, keep up the good work and pay no mind to Vanguard, Denid, or anyone else who decides to make cutting remarks against your character (not the one that costs points) instead of your artwork.

In the words of Stan Lee, "Excelsior!", and, "'Nuff said."

Tyrarael Rex



There are sets of proportions you can use to keep it in the ballpark. Burne Hogarth's "How to draw Dynamic hands" has them as do many other books.

Or, and I realise this is not that useful unless you'r a full time art student, get an 18 by 24 pad of newsprint or other paper and some pictures of hands or feet, sport's illustrated's swimsuit issue will work as can many catalogs from swim wear companies, then draw a hundred hands, feet or whatever detail is giving you problems. Try to make each reasonably small say fitting into a four" by four" box.

It can be painful but it works.

[Killer Shrike]

Originally posted by Redmenace
There are sets of proportions you can use to keep it in the ballpark. Burne Hogarth's "How to draw Dynamic hands" has them as do many other books.

Burne Hogarth books are all very cool, but the hands and "drapery" books were the best IMO. I let someone borrow the hand book many years ago and never got it back :mad:

[Redmenace]

I was lucky enough to have him as an instructor briefly. He was a hellion and trying to keep up with him in class was a minor glimpse of Hell but I miss the Gent.

[Redmenace]

I don't want to see this topic die just yet but I'm nowhere near my Champs binder so I'm posting a PC portrait from another game.

I figure Comics cover enough ground that it shouldn't be too out of place.

[Warp9]

Originally posted by Redmenace
I don't want to see this topic die just yet but I'm nowhere near my Champs binder so I'm posting a PC portrait from another game.

I figure Comics cover enough ground that it shouldn't be too out of place.

Excellent work. I really like all the detailing on the character. Even down to the dirt on the long coat.

One thing that bothers me just a little is the character’s right hand. The hand is well drawn, but it doesn’t quite look like the character is actually holding the grip of the gun.

Also the bottom of the long coat looks to be a little bit off, specifically the back of the coat on the character’s right (our left) side. I think that the back of the coat would look a little better if it was drawn just a tad bit higher.

But these are only minor points. The drawing is very well done, and again, all the detail is awesome. It would be very cool to see a colorized version..

What game was this character from?

[Redmenace]

It was from a Star Wars game some time before and after '01. The player wanted a WW1 Boba Fett, not knowing exactly what that meant he got this.

Man are you right about the hand and back of the trench coat, I think the gun had an extended rear guard at one time but that isn't much of an excuse.

[Cybertooth]

Here's a cool old "art" thread with some images to boot.

Just thought some others might be interested.