The_PMD

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Nice. Should check my thread out =D

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LOL

You know why TA has so much art?

He pays for it

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RAWR! >,< I really like this PMD! <^o^>~

I think the highlights on the armor and the background both are what 'makes it' for me! <^o^> I will say I think the feet look a tiny bit too small... but thats very minor and only noticable if you're scanning for critiqueage <@o@> and then of course, there's always the fact that I could be off mentally <,<m which has happened more than once <O.O>;

Anyways, great work <^_^>! /cheers!

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I think it's probably true of the foot in the back, but I got tired of messing with it

Good start.

Eyes are a little high. The center of the eyes should be the halfway point of the whole head, and the eyebrows should be at the tops of the ears.

Here's the finished version of the Thor's Assassin digital painting I've been working on forever.

I focused the lightning as per Doug's suggestion, tightened up the lollipop, and completely re-did the background.

http://www.deviantart.com/view/38918263/

Beautiful stuff Doug.

Several months ago, when I felt like I wanted to give you a detailed critique on a Poser piece, I'd immediately go to the background, knowing that I'd find some issues there. Those days are LONG past!

Any insights you can share regarding painting fur? (I'm assuming all the fur was done in post, correct me if I'm wrong)

I really think you need a kneaded eraser AND a Magic Rub. They really do different jobs.

Yeah, nice progression.

A few notes:

-We're not seeing nearly enough of the underside of the jaw for that perspective. You've got the top half of the face tilted back, but the jaw is being viewed straight-on.

-the neck looks like cloth. Grab an anatomy book and check out the way the muscles in the neck intersect with each other and try to emulate that.

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Yeah, I don't know about the fur in Poser - I couldn't find anything in a search at Renderosity. At the DAZ site I did find this:

Fur

That indicates to me that there's some stuff out there somewhere.

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Well, he does say that he used Lightwave and Poser, so Lightwave was probably what the fur was done in.

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SOooo..... do you happen to have a fuzzy skin texture map? >.>

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Found this over at DA - looked pretty good to me:

Lethal Instincts by Tariq

Might be something to consider if you're looking for an artist doing a decent looking fur.

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That's not a texture map, though. A painting of fur on a body (and it's a good one) and a texture map of fur to go onto a 3d model are two entirely different things.

Basically, with fur, unless you're using a program with a fur function like Maya, you're screwed. Texture mapped fur is very hard to pull off and can be time consuming. Sure, you can set up planes with alpha maps and stuff, that that will take a while and won't necessarily look right on a hi-res model.

Of course, I don't even know if Poser has fur, so it might be really easy. In Maya it's a piece of cake.

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Besides: if it were for "the people who didn't get a yellow title," then why couldn't Manticore have just stayed there and continued to give titles for the same amount of time as all that post-CuppaThon stuff went on?

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Because he spawned all the crap and then just stood there. I imagine he wasn't even at the keyboard for most of it.

If it's any consolation to you, if we could go back in time and trade places so I could get my gold title and you could repeatedly faceplant, I'd gladly make that trade

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It was sort of like a concert's encore, only instead of offering it shortly after the main performance, they waited until there was no way anyone would know about it and the only people who could join in were people who decided they'd sleep in the theater rather than go home that night.

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Actually I think it was a gift for those of us who stood in line for over an hour and didn't get a special gold title, to be honest with you. You got your gold title, so don't feel cheated.

And, let's face it, our "gift" was basically repeated instant death anyway! I'm not saying it wasn't fun, but... it might not have been all you've made it out to be in your mind. It was the laggiest thing I've ever seen, and I mostly just faceplanted over and over

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Thank you, Zobragas.

See, if someone asked me "Who's Daft Punk, anyway?" I don't get pissed--I show them.

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I wasnt pissed, I was sad. Two entirely different things. Sad that not everyone already knows who Kirby is, sad that I'm so fricking old now...you know, sad.

And, you know, it was mostly a joke.

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Cj admitted to being a die hard Jack King Kirby fan, so I contacted Jack through the great beyond, and he drew this for him...

Kirby Crimson Jimson

Amazing how he got Joe Sinott to ink it too...

LJ

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I like the piece, but I'm not really seeing Kirby/Sinott. The main thing I think of when I think "Kirby" is his amazing panel compositions based on interlocking geometric shapes. I'm not seeing that kind of compositional attention here. And as for Sinott, that was the days when it was brush only, and Sinott had mad brush skills. His lines were always bold and clean. Your drawing has a lot of scratchy pen-looking lines in it, stuff that never would've made it into a 60s comic book. (Printing wasn't as advanced and those lines would've broken up.)

::shrug:: Like I said, it's a good drawing. I think I'd like to see another try at Kirby/Sinott though!

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This is what happens when the youth of America doesn't read the Classics! :P

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Exactly. Aaron's post makes me cry.

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BOO!! I wish I stayed later after it finished to see all the GMs and the freedom phalanx show up, but overall it was a fun night.

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I didn't see any GMs show up. Arctic Sun was there (not a GM) and so was Manticore (not a GM) but nobody else of note. All the signature characters that were spawned were NPCs. Manticore basically just spawned a bunch of crap (Monsters and AVs) all at once before he left.

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By GMs i meant Giant Monsters.

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LOL..Duh. Should've figured that out.

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I took a ton of pics too
Neil Fracas: 50 Inv/SS (Virtue)


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Holy Crap, Gideon. That was YOU I was in line behind?? I had no idea. We could've whiled that time away talking art techniques.

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Manticore was handing out temporary titles, so everyone wanted one. There were a number of requests made to leave the PD1 instance when you got yours because people were waiting outside trying to get in to get theirs too.

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That had long stopped by the time the Giant Monster-A-Thon happened, though.

I was 4 people away from getting a title! Fortunately, I know my luck well enough to have expected that. Too bad. Death Sprial would've looked great with a gold "Demented and Sad, But Social" over his head.

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BOO!! I wish I stayed later after it finished to see all the GMs and the freedom phalanx show up, but overall it was a fun night.

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I didn't see any GMs show up. Arctic Sun was there (not a GM) and so was Manticore (not a GM) but nobody else of note. All the signature characters that were spawned were NPCs. Manticore basically just spawned a bunch of crap (Monsters and AVs) all at once before he left.

Why are they so smallllllllll??????

I really wanted to try to find myself there!

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So, when I get home from a long day of high-poly modelling at my day job, I just want to go for the fun, visceral, quick joy of setting up an entire scene in a night.

I'm not bothered by my pieces 'sidetsteping crucial challenges of 3d art' because I have no pretentions. I'm not trying to achive anything by way of 3D innovation since I know full well I don't have the time or dedication that current 3D masters have... I'm just wanting to make a cool image, have a little fun, and make another player's character become a little more 'alive'.

Boy, did we ever sidetrack! Sorry for the thread-jack. /blush.

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This was a fun threadjack though.

This is why you're is one of my art heroes, btw. The process of doing art should usually lead to self-discovery of some kind. One of the reasons that you're is so damn good is that you have a level of self-knowledge that eclipses that of mere mortals. I aspire to be this artistically secure, confident and unpretentious some day. I think that "having the right attitude" is a qualification of being good at anything, and I'm not sure it's emphasized enough. And you're an examplar.

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If someone stops working on a piece at the point of the "Render" button, then I agree with you completely - Poser isn't capable of delivering final images without a LOT of work. 99.9% of the Poser art is just that; unfinished art. Where the artist steps in is in the post-work and clean-up stages.

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Yeah, but if you use a program with more versatility in skinning, lighting, shading,and rendering, like Maya, you don't HAVE to do any post-work or clean-up. The problem with Poser is that it doesn't give you enough control, so people using it either end up with crap or images that need a ton of post-work. Doug, you know I love your work, but the good stuff mostly comes from your leet digital painting skills. I think of them more as digital paintings based on 3d sketches than 3d works. For me personally to consider something 3d art, the artist must build all the models from scratch and do zero post-production work. Call me overly pedantic, but to me that's an entirely different process than the "Poser-clean up in Photoshop" deal, and I sometimes wish the distinction were more clear.

You know I mean no disrespect here. I think that if you decided to do it the other way, you'd kick butt at it. But your current process sidetsteps two areas that I consider to be crucial challenges of 3d art: building the models and setting the lights and materials to create the perfect render.

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its 60 x 80 smaller than is required but I couldn't get it 80 x 80 on photoshop

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Oh, right. Brain fart.

I got it to display fine for me. Make sure you're putting in the URL of the actual FILE. The link you put up earlier is to a page containing the file, not the file itself.

In order to make it 80X80 in Photoshop use Canvas Size.

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I dunno why I can't use my mmoart avatar. it keeps telling me improper picture type

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It's the wrong size.

Here's my biased advice!

Drawing for Manga type books are crap. Anything that is highly stylized isn't a good way to learn how to draw. The artists that pioneered the style have already done too much of the work of stylization for you, and left out some important things you might need to know.

Secondly, you should be thinking of your basic shapes as 3-dimensional shapes, not 2d. Think "sphere" not "circle" Think "box" not "square."

The starting with shoulders and hips is a weird way to start to me. This post might be followed by a flood of posts from people who draw well who say they do it that way, but I've never seen it and I certainly don't draw that way. I'd suggest starting with a line that will go right down the center of the torso, following the spine. This way you can free yourself up from drawing everyone straight-on, but still keep track of where everything goes. In Dynamic Figure Drawing, Burne Hogarth suggests that the best way to create a solid pose is to start by drawing the wedge shape for the hips, then move to the torso. Legs next, then arms, and the head for last. Going in this order really helps you keep the weight of the figure.

Stay with the basics for a LONG time. One common misconception is that details make a drawing good. Horsefeathers! Make sure you're drawing a figure with good solid weight and balance and solid dimensional forms before you start in with the detail. It will make that go much easier.

Don't get discouraged. The process of improving is never a straight upward line. There will always be periods of less growth or perhaps a couple steps back. Just take these as they come and keep pressing on.

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Thanks for the props, Jeaf... cuz honestly, I think your avatar is pretty solid. I generally don't enter Jomaro's contests for various reasons, but after I saw your cool avatar, I was all "That's cool! I wanna make one of those!"

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Yeah, I have similar feelings. (I think they're similar, at least.) I'm not sure that it would be fair for me, as a professional, to enter a contest that was geared towards amateurs. In addition, I have no real desire to win a Kindred drawing as a prize. I mean, obviously it would kick butt, but I'd rather keep working and get it to the point where my drawing of Death Spiral would be AS GOOD as one of Jomaro's, rather than just letting him do it. Or, do something good enough that he asks me to trade! I'm not sure if that makes sense to everyone, but it's how I feel.

Anyway, seeing Jeaf's entry made me rethink this. It's really good and it inspired me to the point where I had an idea for a cool MMOart.com avatar pop into my head after seeing it. So I might just make one for grins.