IDW 0037: Massive Excavator - voting

[yoitisi]

IDW 0037 Topic: Massive Excavator

Deadline for voting: Tuesday, 10th July 2007

No voting for your own entries! :)

Posting thread: IDW 0037: Massive Excavator (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=1374338#post1374338)

[yoitisi]

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Artist: ViDa

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n7/vivivi_01/exx2.jpg

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Artist: Yoitisi

http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t291/yoitisi/IDW037MassiveExcavator.jpg

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Artist: JoeSolo

http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d138/vances22/Massive_Excavator_Final.jpg

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Artist: D-Holme

http://www.milecastle.com/HOLME_SITE/2D/IDW037-Dholme.jpg

Striding across the Olympus Plain 'Vulcan's Hammer' was originally constructed in 1886 to take advantage of the Martian mineral wealth. Even 15 years later it is still one of the largest excavators in the Exterran Empire.

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[yoitisi]

Notes:

Act.Appelled and kuda001: I was thinking of taking everything to the poll, including both your entries. However, since they were still very much WIPs I decided against it. Hopefully you finish something next time :)

[dragon4lunch]

ViDa: Great overall composition and painting, colours and light/dark application. Well done. The design itself is of course not very original, since it looks almost like the already existing machines. But that's how I felt when thinking about the topic - we pretty much already have the best design :)

JoeSolo: Nice rendering, pretty cool robot. The pose is too symmetrical and thus kind of boring though.

D-Holme: Very "Howl and the moving castle"-esque! Have you seen that movie? Looks great. I wish you had refined the image more.

Yoitsi: You get my vote! Kind of reminds me of the concept art for 5th Element, in its application. Great design, cool image!

[Hideyoshi]

ah, damn, I was just working on an entry, but it seems I am too late now :(

vote goes to Yoitisi!
Great entries by everyone!

[yoitisi]

I'm sorry Hideyoshi but I'm on a bit of a tight schedule right now, so i had to put the poll up early. Hope to see you in the next round though :)

[JoeSolo]

My vote went to Yoitisi - His line drawing was solid, and I thought it was a fresh take on older technology, good use of ref and being able to manipulate it. It feels a lot like some kind of preying fish.


vida - I almost gave you my vote, But based on the picture you excavator can't cut anything. Cutting up across the canyon does not make much sense, and if it did I see nothing that says it is moving resources etc. And I don't see a lot of mobility so I don't know if I believe that it cut the canyon. It was painter nicely and it reads well, those are just my issues.

D- holme. I really like what is going on, I just with you would have taken it further. I t seems you really thought it out, but this is too much in a wip state for me.

dragon4lunch - I agree with you. I just really wanted to worry more about technique and design than some kind of perspective this time around. I know I could have used this as the design and done another piece with something a bit more dynamic, I just did not have the time. I be a slow painter hehe.

Hideyoshi - Next time!

[Act.Appalled]

Notes:

Act.Appalled and kuda001: I was thinking of taking everything to the poll, including both your entries. However, since they were still very much WIPs I decided against it. Hopefully you finish something next time :)

I'm glad you did not take my piece to poll. It was highly unfinished and overall I would like to see a high quality of work throughout the IDW. Good judgment call.

-we need a thumbs up smiliey-

Good work all around.

[ViDA]

Awesome entries everyone!

My apologies, long weeken camping trip, just got home.
If any of you guys want to see the final here it is.

http://i108.photobucket.com/albums/n7/vivivi_01/Redsaw.jpg

The machine is designed for the sole purpose of supporting a decently sized colony by extracting the needed materials out of the exposed crust. The climate of the planet is harsh, winds and solar radiation forced construction of canyon based structures. The size of the machine is humongous.

[D-Holme]

ViDa - nice landscape and indeed a massive excavating machine. Liking how the light hits the front of the machine. My only negative comment is the smoke looks maybe a little off, colour-wise it is lovely but maybe in form. Rather having a job putting my finger on it, maybe more like a smoke trail than a billowing column. Now looking at the finalized version I see the difference, although I rather liked the size of the cloud before the effect is better.
Yoitisi – I like the variation on perhaps the more obvious designs, I like the scale and the worm like nature of the machine. I like the colours chosen; the green nicely sets off the overall yellow.
JoeSolo – The robot nature of the piece is pretty smart – comes across as nicely massive. The image looks a little flat perhaps – well aware that my own entry is equally guilty of that (likely more so).

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Dragon4lunch – thanks for the comments, yes I suppose it is bit perhaps more industrial than the ‘castle but most leggy walking things start to look very similar (yes seen it - having seen a lot of Gibli stuff I usually try to steer clear of things that might draw to heavily on those influences).

JoeSolo – thanks for the comments.

I was really keen to get an entry in with this being the first of the restarted IDWs but found myself really pressed for time with work and I has away over the last few weekends. Definitely a rushed piece as I had to quickly work on an early sketch I had done. Been experimenting with getting the best from brushes, colours and textures – so mixed results, I like the sky and smoke but the rest is quiet daub’y and muddy.

[yoitisi]

I suddenly realized I hadn't yet voted myself, so here goes :)

Voted for ViDa, very solid piece. I agree that it is not the most original design, but it definately does the job. The only thing I'd like to say is that your excavator has almost become part of the background. This helps to create the sense that it is rather huge, but on the other hand it also gives you the freedom to not show every detail, which makes it very hard to reproduce the excavator from your picture in, say, a 3d cad program.

JoeSolo: Almost voted for you, because when thinking of a massive excavator your design is something I wouldn't expect :) As said before, the posing makes it a bit boring and front views often have the same effect, but there's something else I noticed. Putting a tiny figure beside a machine is a good way of showing the size of it, but this method has its limits. In your case, when I would put my finger on the figure I'd say the robot isn't all that big. This has to do with clues within the design itself. Being so big as you say it is, I think it would be constructed with more detail and stuff than you show. The feet for example look like they're made out of one piece almost, but at that size they would have to be build out of hundreds of components. The same goes for the rest of it. Just a small thing, but it would help to bring out the size better. Anyway, nice idea :)

D-Holme: It seemed a bit unfinished, but I thought it was good enough to take to the poll. As Dragon4lunch said, it looks like Howls' moving Castle somehow. The scale of the machine comes across rather well I have to say, even without showing a lot of clues as to what size of it really is (see my commentary on JoeSolos' piece), but it would have helped if you'd showed the machine in perspective instead of taking the easy way and making a sideview. I like the sky :)

Hope to see y'all in the next round ;)