Su_Lin

Looking like a good start on learning the thing, Shia. Flash is a great tool and you can turn out some amazing stuff once you get into it a ways, especially once you start getting into things like using movie clips as objets and moving 'em around.

Lately, I haven't really done much "flash style" animation with flash myself-- I've been more using it like a traditional animator's table and doing frame-by-frame. But flash is what I did my avatar in, and I find it *really* nice for quick pencil tests and the like when I'm planning out a sequence for 3D work or something. Flash pretty much owns.

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Thanks Sayterra >.< that's a good idea. I had forgotten about using charcoal. Back when I was in art classes, we messed with it a little bit; but we didn't do much on any one thing. Maybe that'll help my line-art too >.< One way or another, I want to get *good* at this stuff!

(I'm so sick of being mediocre draw-like-I'm-12 guy; I've been doing this since I'm 16 and I'm 24 now! <x.x>; Obviously I've been going about something a leeeeeeetle wrong)

>.< Hopefully I'll be able to hit Hobby Lobby this month and get some supplies!

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Charcoal's wonderful. Nothing quite like it for big, messy fun and getting decisive about broad, bold choices. I've got a charcoal piece I did from a photo of Kenneth Braunagh for a class two years ago, and it's still on my wall, I loves it so much. There's just something about charcoal.

Draw big. It helps. And it's important to understand that drawing is all about looking and drawing what you see... and you should spend at *least* as much time on the looking part as the drawing part.

Don't worry if it's not coming out. Push through. Learn to handle mistakes. One of the best things I learned in my design/art/animation/etc classes was to NOT scrap a piece too early just because it wasn't coming together right away, but to give it time to mature.

And Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is a great book for anyone that draws. it really is. I'm on my third copy, because it's still helpful to go back and read through it every once in a while to keep my mentality aligned.

Thank you both. It's going to look a million times better once finished, but I'm really happy with the linework.

Which is good, because finding some time to get the rest done is going to be tricky for a week or two. Hopefully, I can sneak in a bit of time and polish it off quickly somewhere in among other things.

..Am I the only person who was disappointed not to see a transforming robot made out of spheres?

Anyone? Beuller?

Small little something-different before bed:

For the poster, I fired up Illustrator for a few minutes before chasing some SGmates around for the evening, and pulled together a quick-but-nice Vanguard logo .

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Awesome detail on the Vanguard pieces.

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Thanks, Ski. Some of the specifics are off, but after the pain of doing it in the first place, I'm not inclined to go back over it for accuracy. That's the downside of these really tightly-inked pieces-- even minor lineart changes can end up a major undertaking.

That said, I love the finished product. Vanguard's really intricate, and it looks great. I don't think I'll add the under-suit patterning, though. It's subtle to start with, and all that ribbing and honeycombing would be murder. Maybe on some other, super-detail piece when I'm not so strapped for time/cash, though...

So, I've been back to the game for a while now(almost a month), and it's high time I posted some new work. Sadly, It's taken me a while, as I've had to focus on commission work for various reasons(and my current batch o' such isn't CoX-related at all).

Also, I've decided NOT to resurrect the old sketchbook thread and just start a fresh one. Yey.

So, to start it off... a work in progress. I don't usually like to post WIPs, but it's going to be a bit before I can get this one finished and I'm tired of waiting. This is a very scaled-down, cropped preview of Su-Lin mugging as a Vanguard poster girl. It's just the inks and flats-- I'll probably opt to cell-shade this, though there's the chance I might go in for something more elaborate. It also lacks the background and text and sundries so far.

Su-Lin's Vanguard Poster

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Well, I'm happy to see that the game will have success, because it's a game from Cryptic, but on my side, I had no fun testing it.

I couldn't explain exactly why, it was not only the engine, it was also the athmosphere, the gameplay...

And a few people whom I know IRL didn't like it either, hence my comments.

Anyway, long live to MMO games and gamers.

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It's an NCSoft game, not a Cryptic game, actually. It was developed by an internal NC Soft team headed by Richard Garriot.

I wanted to like it, but the implementation just doesn't do it for me. I think ultimately my vision for the game was wildly different than Mr. Garriot's, and I just don't like the result enough to play it after launch.

This is basically the same thing that happened for me with Auto Assault. Love the setting, and the idea, and the world.... but the game's pretty far from what I was hoping for, in the end.

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With those design requirements? You're probably going to have to commission it, and I'd be astounded if it took less than 12 hours.

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Under 12 hours... probably doable. But given the skillset involved to do this right, I'd expect to pay a premium for it. It's definitely not something most artists capable of doing it are going to be interested in doing for free. I mean, we're talking having a good solid artistic ability, familiarity with three games, and the graphic design savvy to not only pick out what makes those HUD designs what they are but then meld them together cohesively.

You may need to tone down your spec, or start saving up to get it done to the current spec. There's really no two ways around it. Sorry to have to say it, but that's the way it is.

One nitpick my art-schooled brain can't get over--

Black *is* a neutral color. But not a neutral tone.

Three colors is good. Pick two primary colors and two-tone it, with a third accent. It's often a good idea to pick two contrasting color temperatures plus a neutral tone. For instance:

Split Infinitive wears primarily white(neutral) and a light blue(cool). As an accent, she wears a gold-colored belt(warm color). There's also a bit of black, but the nice thing about a neutral color like black is you can scatter it about with the white a little without throwing anything off color-balance-wise. I generally like to keep one of the primary colors neutral, the other non-neutral, and use the other non-neutral for an accent, which keeps it from getting overpowering.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can foray into slightly more "iffy" territory, and rather than pick contrasting color schemes, use analogous schemes instead, but this can go pretty badly if the colors are too close together. Su-Lin is a nice example, as her main costume is primarily black and red, with gold accents(warm and warm). The hues are separated far enough that it works nicely. However, you would want to avoid, for instance, red and pink, because they're pretty close together and are hard to work with.

There are other interesting options, but they probably get too complex for general use, delving into major color theory topics like split compliments, triadic schemes, blah blah blah. I personally don't like to get that fancy, it's too easy to mess it up on a single character.

You can also get some really good results out of subdued colors. I had a tank for a while that was soviet themed, and since bright red on bright gold was too overpowering, I toned it down to a darker red and gold, and it looked fantastic.

Swanky. I'll throw in.

Su_Lin Global: @Su-Lin
Email: corwyn@starfighterstudios.com
Website: My portolio website.
Services: I do character illustration, and I'm trained in professional design through my degree, so I can do flyer designs, etcetera.
Notes: I do this sort of thing professionally, as well, so my availability for non-paying/influence-paid work is subject to how much is already in my queue. It's unfortunate, but that's the way it has to work.

Flying Eagle's Claw! Haikeeba!

Hem. In seriousness, Dart's got their relative sizes spot on. Su's a short little 5'4" package of speedy buttkicking, and Dart is an enormous superhuman tank of a man.

*glances around, dwarf-shifts, footstomps him* That is, however, no excuse.

No mechanics, huh. Hmm. Well, applying to do this for you guys gave me an appreciation for just how complicated a question this all really is. That said, I think the goals of the current system work fine for the most part, as I think they pretty much fall in line with what I want from it. A 50% base chance of hitting can be annoying in the lower levels, but for most of the game, it's relatively trivial to get yourself sufficient hit buffing to forget all about it. All things being equal.... all things should be equal. This is not just a case of no defense and no to-hit buffing. Any time defense is the same as the to-hit, it should be 50-50. That's what having matched ability is all about, it can go either way. I'd say you should never miss or never hit when it's capped/floored in either direction, but that's very frustrating, and we should not gloss over that human element. the 5%/95% cap/floor is then a good idea.

The real issue here is the comparative availability, I think. Assuming a plethora of buffs on either side for either def or to-hit, it all works out fine. Unfortunately, this is rarely the reality, from what I can tell.

The other question here, in looking at some of the other responses, is are we to assume that PvP and PvE use the same system, or not? Because some of these responses seem to be saying "I want to both hit and dodge more often than my opponent, all things being equal". Which is fine for the PvE experience, where players are on one side and AI is on the other. But it isn't fundamentally possible in the PvP sphere, since the experience/expectation needs to be the same for every player. All of which would indicate that it might be best if things worked one way in PvP and another in PvE. Which is what i've honestly always felt is really needed to balance PvP properly without PvE falling apart(as has happened a handful of times despite the devs' best efforts). They're two different things, and perhaps they should have two different sets of rules. though, come to think of it, if you set up the game so that equal amounts of to-hit buffs and defense buffs always break an even 50/50, then all you'd have to do is raise the players' base defense and to-hit to get the effect of being more effective against mobs than they are against you without PvP going out of whack.

When I'm seriously working, as oppose to just doing opportunistic sketches that happen anywhere, I have a nice, big desk from Ikea(it's actually very nice for all that, only about 60 USD, I think), which has adequate drawing space when it's clean. However, i usually have a card table to my left that serves as drawing space. The room is at a corner of the house with a pair of windows, so it generally gets pretty decent light in the day. I still turn on a light for more direct illumination, but having some natural light coming in is nice.

However, since I'm almost all-digital these days, Mostly it's the desk with my tablet or mouse, or the recliner in the living room with tablet and wireless laptop.

So far, it's been a blast. I trucked out another version of Split Infinitive this time, rather than Su(though, technically, they're the same character anyway) because I like flying during the low levels The groups have been great, which is nice, since I have limited gametime these days and like to make the most of it.

Probably not around enough to make Spino's picture though-- curses! ;D

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Gill-

Fantastic work, sir! The composition (which is TOUGH for that many characters) is outstanding and the colors leap off the page! Static Thunder's son must be beaming with pride

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I was going to say, it looks like a nice symmetric Iconic composition to me, which is just flat-out an excellent choice for this sort of thing, especially when executed so well.

Art is about emotional response, reflections of life and society, messages, conveying ideas through visual means. All of this makes politics(and anything else) fair game in the realms of art and art discussion, as they all pertain to art. If you're here for some pretty pictures, that's great, but it doesn't change the nature of the beast, so to speak.

the point is to make people think, and make people talk. If you feel nothing, the artist has ultimately failed. That doesn't mean that you have to feel something profound-- ooos and ahhs or something that makes one person smile is sufficient. But the fact remains.

To me, the player of the character in question and his motivations... aren't the important point, here. The important point is what happens. And look. People are discussing. People are remembering the referenced event. Some are discovering it for the first time. Some may be forced to evaluate things they don't think about very much. Whatever else can be said about it, it has done that much, and that's enough.

Thank you, everyone. I'm happy to say that for a change, I'm very pleased with both of these, particularly the colors/lighting on the rooftop and the linework on the portrait.

And since I have had some people ask, commissions are open. through PM or email, until that section of the website is finished. Anything from pencil up through color is available, and I do accept re-ink/color work on existing artwork, provided some requirements are met.

I've been busy, so I haven't been around here as much as I'd like. But, seeing as how I just finished up a couple of pieces, I thought I'd swing through to show them off. So, let's just get right to that.

Dragon's Fang on a Rooptop Digital Ink and oils. Very happy with how this came out, though I may re-do the skintones to pick up the colored lighting better.

And, I'll break my usual CoX-only guideline with this Wrista Ipex Portrait. This is a quick portrait I did of a character I play on a Star Wars MUSH, also digitally inked and oil-panted.

Comment and carry on, true believers!

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Poser. Or if you want free try Daz Studio. I think it's still available.

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Poser, definitely. That's what it was originally designed for, more than anything it really gets used for these days, and it's very good for it.

Well.. that really, really depends. What do you want to be able to do with the 3D program?

I think s/he's under the mistaken impression that this thread is some sort of "I suck" cry for attention-getting kind of thing in a backhanded sort of way. Seeing as how it ISN'T remotely anything of the sort, the whole post just kind of falls flat on its face.

My understanding is that this thread is pretty much dedicated to the notion that ALL artists, even the best among us, have our off days and failures, often a lot more than people think. The only change that comes is how often and how obvious the bad stuff comes up.

Unfortunately, I dont' have any of my cruddy stuff handy, as it rarely makes it to the scanner. Though, I could dig out some 3D work that bites, I suppose. Let's see....

Well, on the 3D side, I do mostly hardware type stuff. Starships are my specialty, though I also do a variety of prop work and the like as well. This and this are progress shot of an attempt to update the design of the venerable Miranda-class from Star Trek II to the "present day" design style shown with the most recent Enterprise(the Sovereign-class, from Nemesis and such). Things were going smoothly, until I hit a point whee I couldn't make anything work and I started to hate what I'd already done-- the enter back portion of the hull and the bulge for the deflector on the bottom are pretty horrid(my hull iz pastid on yey).

Handdrawn-wise, there's this, which is a concept sketch for armor I did for a Star Wars-based RPG I play online. The concept is so-so, the art is so-so... the whole thing's just a little 'eh'.

These probably aren't my worst pieces of the year, but they certainly rank up there in my mind, especially discounting sketchwork that was so bad I didn't even finish the sketch.

Done.

Did a re-ink and fixed some, but not all, of the anatomy issues that were bothering me in the base image. Didn't want to get too bogged down at it. Quick and dirty cell-shade, since I haven't done that sort of thing in a while, and a simple little background widget to round it out. C'est fini.

You might want to have a chat with TheDart. We both do commission work, But Dart's generally a fair bit more affordable and un-busy than I am, and thus sounds perhaps a little more suitable to your needs. And I happen to know that Dart's trawling for some paying work right now. >.>

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Don't contests usually have prizes?

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Sometimes it's just a competition. Which is sometimes good enough.

If you can get a larger(preferably about 4x, and not too compressed-- PNG format might help) version of the image, I'll take a swipe at it.