DSG 1305: Sci-Fi: THE OLD FLIGHT-DOCKING CATHEDRAL IS PLAGUED BY ROGUE UTILITY BOTS

[William b. Hand]

[ Of course, in a facility as vast as this one, various types of autonomous utility bots are necessary for general upkeep and special circumstances... ]

[ ...But, in a facility as old as this one, the many generations of auto-evolving self-sustaining cyber-mechanics will tend to yield some rather peculiar designs that are so far removed from the intent of their ancestral devices as to be actually quite counter-productive to humans and their transport. ]

[ Without the funding for inoculating security units designed to temper such unwelcome waves of synthetic recalcitrants, they just become something that must be lived with. ]

[ :teeth: ]

Sci-Fi: THE OLD FLIGHT-DOCKING CATHEDRAL IS PLAGUED BY ROGUE UTILITY BOTS
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[Izi]

4 hours. PS CS2

Cool topic.

I took cathedral literally and used a reference photo for the underlying base lattice work since I didn't feel like sketching it out and scanning it in. I considered briefly drawing my own serpent-based lattice screen but thought against it.

Anyways, the summary:

Humans: "EeeeeeEEEeeee!"
Robots: "Lawlz!"

[JIVA*SOUL]

Stunning, Lady H. Good job!

[Hamsta]

http://img123.imageshack.us/img123/432/1305aircathedralso6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[cw]

i'll admit, this one frightened me a bit, im not a fan at doing, or very good with the old architecture, see?

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v90/chrissdawaller/dsg_1305-1iii.jpg

still i had a play, took longer than planned, more lik 1hr 20, but i was still concentrating on looseness, and colours and light and speed (though as i say, the speed pary flopped a bit tonight)

hope you can crit me to get better!

[Dm7]

Hi, I decided to do a speed sketch here for fun. I don't know how long I have spent to paint this, but less than two hours for sure.

http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/beauty7/speedship.jpg

Edited:
I gave it 5 minutes touchup (new eyes see more than tired eyes ;))
http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y1/beauty7/speedship2.jpg

[senanimach9]

Hey Rex what brushes/software did you use in this piece? I really like it!

[Izi]

where's the plagues of bots, kids?

[cw]

@senanimach9: Just my usual routine, painter to start off with til i get some sense of my palette and composition, then into photoshop to clean up add a few details etc.

as for brushes, im always creating custom dabs in painter and photoshop to help with some things. it's not all about brushes though. takes a fair wedge of effort to wrangle them around in some coherent fashion (which I'm still workin on!) ;-)

@ladyhydralisk: the bots are the wee blue lit things scuttling about, having taken over and junked the humans ships there. i should have made the ships more clear maybe..

[TheBeast]

sorry, i just find time to quickdraw the main Idea, but its better than nothing.
Thanks William,this is a nice theme, we should draw more enviroments and buildings in dsg!
http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/2181/kathedralexb6.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

[Dm7]

where's the plagues of bots, kids?

Good question, maybe I'll add few more threatening bots in mine. I was more focusing on the atomsphere feeling because I am aware of how important that feeling can be for the artwork overall.

Now I'll do some comments/critiques. It is not my intention to offend or hurt anybody by this so please don't get offended, I'm only doing that to help out so you and all can learn from it. The professional artists actually work together, helping each others, etc. Plus, I want to critique so I can learn too. Giving can only be rewarded so much too. :D

TheBeast: That style reminds me of maybe circus' day. It almost looks like how they first saw of Santa Claus before he became a mystic/magical type. With machines instead of elves of course! :confident

Apocalypse_Rex: I don't see any reason why you should have been afraid of doing the old architecture. It actually turned out very well! The concept, composition, and even colors have a very Star Wars like feeling to me which is good too! You know those two huge upper pipes, I'm not sure if it's still synced with the ground perspective. I could be wrong though. Two thumb-ups! :D

Hamsta: Wizard of OZ! :P Somehow that reminds me of evil witch's castle/temple with all flying monkeys as her servants. :D Although they don't really look like plagued bots... or anything that scary. Awesome idea though. :)

LadyHydralisk: What an amount of work you put into it! Wow! I love the light and feeling of it. It does have scary bots crawling around feeling so that's very good. The platform things are well done, but again I see perspective error on this one. I believe that once fixed, it would be a very dramatic piece. Then the observers (people who see your piece) will feel more into it instead of having that gut feeling, "There's something quite not right." But the details and idea are very well-done. I can tell you put a lot of effort in it. Obviously. Two-thumbs up!

[Nightblue]

http://aycu02.webshots.com/image/33481/2001956422423184220_rs.jpg

cool topic. 1 hour ish quickie :)

[TheBeast]

@dm7 Welcome to Wonderland:Circus, santaclause, elfes, Wizzard of Oz? I draw this in a half hour, after i wake up and drink a cup of coffee, just to remember the idea... but i notice your crit,i dont think its helpfull in any way, but i notice...;)

by the way, first that i think, as i see your pics was: oh... a twistet flying elefant....but where are the topic?

[Dm7]

@dm7 Welcome to Wonderland:Circus, santaclause, elfes, Wizzard of Oz? I draw this in a half hour, after i wake up and drink a cup of coffee, just to remember the idea... but i notice your crit,i dont think its helpfull in any way, but i notice...;)

by the way, first that i think, as i see your pics was: oh... a twistet flying elefant....but where are the topic?

Hello, thank you for the welcome! Haha! I must have been in fantasy/fairy tale mood lately to give crits like that lol. Well, I took another look at your picture again and now that I saw it 2nd time, I could give you some suggestions like working on value and composition so that it's a little more focused, but I did notice that you said you wanted to put your idea down quickly so I didn't give you a too harshl crit because I know how that feels like.. especially when waking up. Zzzz.

I guess I need to re-work on my speedpainting a bit to make it more on topic, the original idea was that this huge ship was the so called plagued bot with the rest flying in the sky and attacking. But, it ended up more being like an explorer or maybe military ship with people on the platform exploring around, wondering why the church is so silent lately. Mmm, now that I talked my idea out loudly, I already have few ideas of how to "fix" that. :) I'll edit my first post again with a update later. Thanks.

[mauser]

Dm7 - Loving your piece. Nice work, maybe more contrast in yout image. I like the lights. If ever you were to change it maybe make the scene from up above so that the perspective adds an extra touch.

That might be confusing putting in words...anyway i like it

BTW everyone - nice work!

[JIVA*SOUL]

~

Great work everybody!

DM7 and Apoc...your work is fantastic...This B+W study took me 7 hours, [granted I was learning about perspective and opacity/flow also] but I'd love to know how to speed up. PM me if you can I have more questions...

Any other comments would be great...

The basic idea here is that the robot initially served to light the cathedral, until technology advanced in such a way that they weren't needed. They still want to light the cathedral..and have grown bigger and stronger..so they line up perpetually far throughout the facility and provide so much light that it's a nuisance + distraction to the ships + they have to tint their windows super dark just to operate. I didn't read "evil" in the synopsis...just "unwelcome..."


http://i50.photobucket.com/albums/f304/jivasoul/illconcept2.jpg


Good job everybody!

Beast- i really like your sense of design...and Nightblue...your metal renders came out really nice. Lady H...Beautiful feeling of horror...reminds me of the feeling I got when I read The Hobbit for the first time...when they're trapped in the cave with the Goblins...

[Nightblue]

Jiva - sounds like we are in the same boat, trying to figure out perspective and everything. One thing I've always kinda understood but only recently learned to really pay attention to is "spacing" in perspective. If a row of object (light posts, robots, whatever) recedes in space, not only their size gets smaller, the negative space between them gets smaller too, and consistently so. There are a couple of methods to figure this recession out mechanically, but if you are just trying to get it to look right you can eyeball it. The first two robots would be spaced furthest apart, the next two a bit closer, and so forth. Speed-wise, I really have no idea. Whenever I try to set up something in perspective, it takes me ages also because I end up confusing myself. You'll generally get faster with more practice though!

[bharat]

nice job men,it's amassing stuff.

[TheBeast]

1,5hours
Yesterday i download the corelxpainter testversion,
so when i wake up this morning, i decided to make a second image to try out some funktions, its not perfect but i am Working on my Main idea.
Hope it dont remind you on X-mas ore something ;)

http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/1244/finalstandnx7.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
http://img510.imageshack.us/img510/1244/finalstandnx7.9ea1f78f60.jpg (http://g.imageshack.us/g.php?h=510&i=finalstandnx7.jpg)

@Nigthblue thanks for this usefull posting ;)

[Hamsta]

Dm7 I liked the "untouched" one better, before you went overboard with the glow effects, although the cathedral is clearer in the second.
I like the textures, they make it look like an oil painting.

[Ryoken]

http://www.ryoken.net/pictures/digital/coloring/overrun.jpg

Just a quicky, but still fun.

[muleskinner]

Ryoken - Haaa! Love the little bots running all over him. Great scene. :)
Had to try the environment shot with this one. Great challenge.
http://i188.photobucket.com/albums/z202/dnickoli07/cathedralspaceport.jpg
Nightblue - Very ominous looking situation you've created. All those bots, lurking.. Nice rendering.
LadyHydralisk - Fantastic dark scene! Nice action with those scuttling spider looking bots racing down the wall of the cathedral.
JIVA*SOUL - Thats great that you spent the time working out the perspective issues. You've got a strong foundation to work with now and there's a feeling of depth happening because of it. Nice sharp line work and solid structures.
Apocalypse_Rex - I think you pulled off the old cathedral look really well actually. Nice atmosphere and lighting. Especially the little light coming from the repair work happening near the bottom of your composition.
Dm7 - I really like the dramatic lighting in your scene. Very intense contrast to the shadowy form of the cathedral.
Well shoo! I can't see the others while I'm in "reply" mode, and I know there's more. Short term memory's shortin' out I guess. Great work here! I'm inspired again, as usual.